Catarina's confusion between a King and an elected Stadtholder is a celebrated one:
Though the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne might at first give occasion to many disputes, and his title be contested, it ought not now to appear doubtful, but must have acquired a sufficient authority from those three princes, who have succeeded him upon the same title. Nothing is more usual, though nothing may, at first sight, appear more unreasonable, than this way of thinking. Princes often seem to acquire a right from their successors, as well as from their ancestors; and a king, who during his life-time might justly be deemed an usurper, will be regarded by posterity as a lawful prince, because he has had the good fortune to settle his family on the throne, and entirely change the antient form of government. Julius Caesar is regarded as the first Roman emperor; while Sylla and Marius, whose titles were really the same as his, are treated as tyrants and usurpers. (David Hume, Treatise, 3.2.10; emphasis added.)
Hume's paragraph is a crucial source-text in Jose A. Benardete's beautiful manuscript, Greatness of Soul: in Hume, Aristotle and Hobbes and Hume, that is circulating among his admirers.
William the Silent was appointed Stadtholder (of Holland and Zeeland) by the lawful king in 1559. He was reappointed Stadtholder in an illegal election by the States General in 1572. William of Silent was, in one sense, an unjust traitor.
As Benardete points out, Hume's treatment of the matter has a complicated pre-history in Hobbes. For Hobbes attempted rebellion is against reason and unjust. But this is not to deny that a successful rebellion can't create lawful sovereignty. When Hobbes turns to the case of Julius Ceasar in the Leviathan, Hobbes describes Julius Ceasar's efforts in terms of "plain rebellion." And it seems that is only Caesar's adopted son, who "changed the state into a Monarchy." But Hobbes had also claimed that the impact of Caesar's success "may be resembled to the effects of witchcraft." Why witchcraft?
Against his doctrine of justice, Hobbes also wants to claim that Caesar's actions were the natural and inevitable consequences of a badly formed, "imperfect constitution" that causes great "diseases" (i.e., recurring civil war); in that situation the resumption of lawful government will "resemble an unjust act" which will motivate others to rebel. Until a "Pompey or Caesar" are the agents that facilitate the "setting up of monarchy."
Recent Comments