Fase 5: Evaluación y Revisión de la presentación Razonable de las

‘...under arbitrary government (who for the sake, and from a necessity of what they all government, has joined to the quality of a slave the office of a tyrant, and imagines himself a man of quality, if not a little prince, by such pre-eminence) is altogether slavish; since he is under the protection of no law, no not so much as to his life, or the honour of his wife and children; and is subjected to stronger temptations than any man, of being a slave to men in St. Paul’s sense, which is a worse sort of slavery than any I have yet mentioned. That is of being subservient to, and an instrument of lusts of his master the tyrant: since if he refuse slavishly to obey, he must lose his office, and perhaps his life. And indeed men of all ranks living under arbitrary government (so much preached and recommended by the far greater part of churchmen) being really under the protection of no law (whatever may be pretended) are not only slaves, as I have defined before, but by having no other certain remedy in anything against the lust and passions of their superiors, except suffering or compliance, lie under the most violent temptations of being slaves in the worst sense, and of the only sort that is inconsistent with the Christian religion. A condition (whatever men may imagine) so much more miserable than that of servants protected by the laws in all things necessary for the subsistence of them and their posterity, that there is no comparison’.256

Andrew Fletcher is a civic republican of great importance. He adapts the republican theories of liberty, civic virtue and the common good to fit the problems facing society (in particular, Scottish society) without losing the fundamental values at the core of the republican paradigm. Fletcher is of significance in contemporary politics because his theories can be utilised in this global political era. His theories of justice and liberty sit well within our modern philosophical sensibilities, and his adaptable ideas encompass a wide range of political issues that we are currently facing. Fletcher

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sees classic republican ideals as the foundations for an ideal society based on civic virtue as participation, the common good, equality and liberty, and the rule of law. Fletcher has a notion of popular sovereignty that is vital to the modern model of a liberal democracy. Despite the suggestion by Robert Axtmann that this idea did not gain wide currency until the late eighteenth-century, Fletcher, Locke and the eighteenth-century commonwealth-men were already arguing for a republic based on the idea of sovereignty resting with the people.257

This chapter will focus on the fundamental republican theories of Andrew Fletcher and how they fit in the early modern model; how he utilises the republican model to answer the key concerns of best government, liberty and the rule of law at the turn of the eighteenth-century. Using Fletcher’s as a republican archetype, it will show that Fletcher’s unique model of civic republicanism is a valuable addition to any canon of republican theory. It will outline the republican model of freedom as freedom from arbitrary rule as evident with the standing army controversy, and the importance of the republican tradition in the arguments against arbitrary rule – or freedom as non- dependence. Thusly, this chapter will prove the early modern republican influence on contemporary theories of liberty. This chapter concludes that Fletcher’s emphasis on popular sovereignty and freedom from arbitrary power and coercion as the fundamental basis for republican freedom holds the same standards and philosophical ideals as the contemporary notion of liberal democracy and Pettit’s republican hypothesis of freedom as non-domination. It therefore shows that Fletcher’s civic humanist republican theories are both relevant and necessary for the contemporary understanding of the republican theory of liberty. Where communitarianism lays at one end of the spectrum, and liberalism the other, Fletcher’s own brand of civic- humanist republicanism narrows this broad spectrum.

257

Axtmann, Robert. Liberal Democracy in the the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Integration and the Nation State. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996: 11.

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Fletcher, like Pettit and Laborde, believes that inequality results in domination. This chapter will discuss Fletcher’s theories on how this domination affects the political order of Scotland, England and Ireland, and his attempts to avoid further domination of Scotland by proposing a model of fair trade and limitations on power between the two. By discussing Fletcher’s ideas on the relations between Scotland and England, and the ordering of political society, this chapter will show Fletcher as having the fundamental ideas as the republican theorists discussed in the previous chapter.

Civic humanism motivated the translation and study of early modern texts and was a major influence on the development of political thought in Scotland and pre-civil war England, encouraging the ideas of virtue and honour in public life, and gravitas; emulating the roman ideals found in the newly translated texts.258 The humanist scholarly experience emphasised secular historical analysis and political interpretation which influenced Fletcher’s own political analysis and ideas of public life. Worden insists that Humanism encouraged alertness to the contrasting characteristics of the various forms of government: monarchical, aristocratic, democratic and mixed, as identified by the early modern writers.259 He notes that this preoccupation with the early modern forms of government produced as much praise for monarchs as it did criticism, and therefore we should not assume that political thought in England and Scotland was dominated by thoughts of any ‘ideal republic’ without a monarchical head of state. 260 Fletcher himself was not against monarchy per se, rather the arbitrary or tyrannical rule often associated with monarchical rule, which could also be attributed to the Roman Empire immediately before its decline and fall. It is a concern for liberty that is at the heart of any republican theory of politics and is the fundamental concern for Fletcher.

Like Harrington before him, Fletcher calls for a return to the republican principles of early modern antiquity: wisdom, virtue and military discipline. He wishes

258

Worden, Blair. “Republicanism, Regicide and the Republic: The English Experience” ibid: 310. 259

Worden, passim.

260

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to establish a political order on institutions that are immune from corruptibility – the imbalance of (arbitrary) power which is the threat to liberty. Fletcher, again like Harrington, approaches politics as history, believing that the underlying forces and laws that shape history could be discovered through a rigorous study of the European past. As was shown, Harrington proposes that the foundation of government is in the sword and that fortune and providence have overthrown the monarchy and left both sword and conscience free to see out new foundations. He offers a civil history of the sword which shows how it has passed from the monarchy and nobility into other

hands through processes which were both fortuitous and providential. 261 Fletcher also

offers the sword as the basis of power; the balance of power between the king, the barons and the people, and the limitations of monarchy being based on the necessary condition that the sword remains in the hands of the people. The constitution of the government puts the sword into the hands of the subject, because the vassals depend more immediately on the barons than on the king which effectually secures the freedom of those governments; ‘For the barons could not make use of their power to destroy those limited monarchies, without destroying their own grandeur; nor could the king invade their privileges, having no other forces than the vassals of his own demesnes to rely upon for his support in such an attempt’. 262 Since ‘in our times most princes of Europe maintain the sword by standing mercenary forces kept up in times of peace, absolutely depending on them, I say that all such governments are changing from monarchies to tyrannies’.263

Pocock suggests that Fletcher’s Discourse of Government with Relation to the Militias developed the neo-Harringtonian version of history further than anyone else had, and significantly revealed its latent ambivalences. But Fletcher eliminates Harrington’s distinction between ancient prudence and ancient constitution and locates the balance of the commonwealth in modern prudence, maintained by kings,

261

The Cromwellian republic was therefore both de facto and de jure. Pocock, J.G.A. The Political Works of James Harrington. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1977: 42.

262

Fletcher. A Discourse of Government,ibid7: 3. 263

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lords and commons, (feudal tenure) which Harrington had dismissed as ill-regulated disequilibrium. Harrington maintains that the land and sword of the vassals always belonged to his master; Fletcher’s Scottish vassal is intractable from his land and helps keep the sword where it belongs – with the subjects. 264 According to Fletcher of course, this old way had been eradicated about the year 1500, an ‘alteration of

government which happened in most countries in Europe’.265 The luxuries and

pleasure brought in from Asia and the America’s ‘brought a total alteration in the way of living, upon which all governments depend’…

‘The far greater share of all those expences fell on the barons… This plunged them into so great debts, that if they did not sell, or otherwise alienate their lands, they found themselves at least obliged to turn the military service their vassals owed them, into money; partly by way of rent, and partly by way of lease… And by this means the vassal having his land no longer at such easy a rate as before, could no longer be obliged to military service, and so became tenant. Thus the armies, which in preceding times had been always composed of such men as these, ceased of course, and the sword fell out of the hands of the barons.266

Whereas Harrington sees this as a liberating moment, freeing the vassals from military service, Fletcher sees it as the end of liberty, taking the sword (power) from the subjects and creating an imbalance of power between the political class and the crown - placing the sword in the hands of the prince and his mercenary armies. Fletcher maintains that arms should never be denied to any man who is not a slave since it is the only badge of liberty he has, it maintains the balance of equilibrium between the citizens and their monarch, and denies anyone arbitrary power.267 By holding the means of coercion the monarch holds the majority of power which he can exercise arbitrarily. And, as already shown, this arbitrary power is against both early modern and contemporary conceptions of republican liberty. For Fletcher, freedom

264

Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Though and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, ibid: 429. 265 Fletcher, ibid: 1. 266 Fletcher, ibid: 6. 267 Fletcher, ibid: 23.

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from the dependence on and domination of the arbitrary power of others is the fundamental source of liberty.

Jealousy of Trade and Cosmopolitan Republicanism

International relations at the turn of the eighteenth-century put raison d’état

before considerations of justice or rights, including the unrestrained use of force in pursuit of the state interest and trade. Fletcher denounces the use of neo- Machiavellian political economy as the justification of the pursuit of economic power and suggests a countervailing paradigm of international relations, civic humanism and republicanism based on pursuing the interest of mankind grounded within the sociability of the human race, or as Hont suggests, cosmopolitan republicanism. 268 Fletcher complains that a political theory grounded solely within a paradigm that places the nation at its centre without regard to mankind lacks sufficient measures against the corruption of raison d’état and the subsequent aggressive wars of aggrandizement. He opposes state-centrism, declaring that ‘not only those who have ever actually formed governments, but even those who have written on the subject… have always framed them with respect only to particular nations, for whome they were designed, and without regard to mankind’, a clear indication of a more cosmopolitan inclination within his civic-humanist political ideals. 269

Bonham is right to make the strong claim that republicanism is ‘neither inherently anti-cosmopolitan nor inseparable from the nation state’ despite the republican adage that ‘to be free is to be a citizen of a free state’ but misses a fundamental aspect of federal republicanism with regards to freedom as non-

domination.270 Fletcher sees that non-dependence is vital for the republican state and

points out that the threat to Scottish national interests is an issue of domestic politics

268

Hont suggests that this phrase has been borrowed by Fletcher from Harrington. See Hont, Istvan. Jealousy of Trade. Massachusets: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2005: 65 See also, Harrington‟s Oceana, preliminaries :

72. 269

Fletcher. An Account of a Conversation,ibid. 209.

270

Bohman, James. “Non-domination and Transnational Democracy”. In Laborde and Maynor (eds). Republicanism and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008:190.

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that is an indication of the large scale international or European order, and the conflict

of commerce and dominance of trade: ‘trade is now become the golden ball, for which

all nations of the world are contending, the occasion of so great partialities, that not only is every nation endeavouring to possess the trade of the whole world, but every city to draw all to itself’. 271

According to Hont, ‘Fletcher was convinced that by 1700 jealousy of trade had

become an integral part of modern English patriotism’.272 The examples of Ireland and

Wales prove to Fletcher that anything less than a fully equal union with limitations on the powers of the parliament regarding interference in trade would be disastrous. Scotland’s economic interests would be destroyed as the Irish and Welsh had before. He had no reason to have confidence that the cultural or political integrity of the country would fare any better. Hont uses the term ‘jealousy of trade’ to refer to England’s self-interest and raison d’état. He suggests that Fletcher observes in minute detail how England’s jealousy of trade towards Ireland played itself out; assuming rich metropolitan countries like England would always override all considerations of morality and justice if they perceived reciprocal trade with poorer nations to be an existential threat to their economy.273 Fletcher outlines his concerns in his Account of a Conversation, suggesting Wales as the only place in the kingdom without

considerable trade, a consequence of the dominant force of England and ‘a sufficient

demonstration that trade is not a necessary consequence of a union with England. 274

When pressed to give example of England’s partialities, Fletcher highlights but refuses to be drawn into a discussion about the failed Darien scheme, nor does he ‘enquire how far the late erected council of trade did in that affair second the partialities of a court engaged in mysterious interests with France’.275 Instead, he asks

271

Fletcher. An Account of a Conversation, ibid: 193. 272

Hont, ibid: 64. 273

Hont, ibid: 64. 274

Fletcher. An Account of a Conversation, ibid: 193. 275

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the opinion of the assembled party’s to England’s ‘usage’ of Ireland, referring to England’s foreign and trading policies with regards to Ireland.

‘I speak of a nation, said I, who affirm you have no shadow of right to make laws for them; that the power which the King’s council has assumed was gotten by surprise; and that their first submission was founded on a treaty of union, which now on account of some rebellions suppressed, is called a conquest. . . Now if after a union with us the least commotion should happen in Scotland, suppose on account of church government; might we not expect that the suppression of this would likewise be called a conquest, and we our posterity be treated as a conquered people?’276

Reflecting on the argument that it was necessary for England to treat Ireland with a ‘good measure of strictness and severity… to keep them from the thoughts of setting up for themselves, and pretending to no longer depend on England’ Fletcher illustrates the extent that England’s interests have superseded Ireland’s and been allowed to frustrate any attempt at improvement.277 Sir Charles replies that Fletcher is speaking of a conquered nation, but that Scotland and England would be united peacefully, but Fletcher remains unconvinced. He will not accept England will treat Scotland fairly, no matter how wholesome its proposed intentions. To submit Scotland to an incorporationist union with England is to subject it and its people to a dominated position in which it must rely on the goodwill of its master for any benefit or non- interference in its internal affairs. He is particularly concerned that an incorporating union would reduce Scotland to the extent that a dominant English parliament had already reduced both Ireland and Wales. It is Fletcher’s belief that England would treat Scotland as it had Ireland before it – as a threat to its economy and trade; seeing English ministers as regarding trade as a zero-sum game, both domestically and internationally. Fletcher prefers the vision of a United Kingdom with shared trading links that will bolster both economies, furthermore, his theories of justice extend to the international system, a system where the rich nations could no longer suppress the

276

Passim.

277

Fletcher, Fletcher. An Account of a Conversation ibid: 194. Here Fletcher has in mind the Navigation Acts of 1650 which disallowed any attempt at tobacco trading and prohibited any exportation of Irish wool.

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poor who would enjoy a ‘just share in the government of themselves’.278 Fletcher could not suppose that England would ‘destroy their own established manufactures to encourage Scotland’s and denies that free trade with England would be of ‘incomparable advantage’, but would rather further exhaust the Scottish people who had recently come through famine and large numbers of emigration, and be the utter ruin of all the merchants.279 By admitting that England wishes to keep Ireland in a position of dependence, Sir Charles is showing it to be no ‘benevolent despot’ but rather a dominating country which suppresses the interests of its conquests and rivals.

As this example shows, there is no room for both states to flourish under one