We have considered two aspects of freedom--the objective and the subjective; if, therefore, freedom is asserted to consist in the individuals of a State, all agreeing in its arrangements, it is evident that only the subjective aspect is regarded. The natural inference from this principle is, that no law can be valid without the approval of all. It is attempted to obviate this difficulty by the decision that the minority must yield to the majority; the majority therefore bears sway; but long ago J.J. Rousseau remarked that, in that case, there would no longer be freedom, for the will of the minority would cease to be respected. At the Polish Diet each individual member had to give his consent before any political step could be taken; and this kind of freedom it was that ruined the State. Besides, it is a dangerous and false prejudice that the people alone have reason and insight, and know what justice is; for each popular faction may represent itself as the people, and the question as to what constitutes the State is one of advanced science and not of popular decision.
If the principle of regard for the individual will is recognized as the only basis of political liberty, viz., that nothing should be done by or for the State to which all the members of the body politic have not given their sanction, we have, properly speaking, no constitution. The only arrangement found necessary would be, first, a centre having no will of its own, but which should take into consideration what appeared to be the necessities of the State, and, secondly, a contrivance for calling the members of the State together, for taking the votes, and for performing the arithmetical operations of reckoning and comparing the number of votes for the different propositions, and thereby deciding upon them. The State is an abstraction, having even its generic existence in its citizens; but it is an actuality, and its simply generic existence must embody itself in individual will and activity. The want of government and political administration in general is felt; this necessitates the selection and separation from the rest of those who have to take the helm in political affairs, to decide concerning them, and to give orders to other citizens, with a view to the execution of their plans. If, for instance, even the people in a democracy resolve on a war, a general must head the army. It is only by a constitution that the abstraction--the State--attains life and reality; but this involves the distinction between those who command and those who obey. Yet obedience seems inconsistent with liberty, and those who command appear to do the very opposite of that which the fundamental idea of the State, viz., that of freedom, requires. It is, however, urged that though the distinction between commanding and obeying is absolutely necessary, because affairs could not go on without it, and indeed, this seems only a compulsory limitation, external to and even contravening freedom in the abstract--the constitution should be at least so framed that the citizens may obey as little as possible and the smallest modicum of free volition be left to the commands of the superiors; that the substance of that for which subordination is necessary, even in its most important bearings, should be decided and resolved on by the people, by the will of many or of all the citizens; though it is supposed to be thereby provided that the State should be possessed of vigor and strength as a reality--an individual unity. The primary consideration is, then, the distinction between the governing and the governed, and political constitutions in the abstract have been rightly divided into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; this gives occasion, however, for the remark that monarchy itself must be further divided into despotism and monarchy proper; that in all the divisions to which the leading idea gives rise, only the generic character is to be made prominent, it being not intended thereby that the particular category under review should be exhausted as a form, order, or kind in its concrete development. But it must especially be observed that the above mentioned divisions admit of a multitude of particular modifications--not only such as lie within the limits of those classes themselves but also such as are mixtures of several of these essentially distinct classes and which are consequently misshapen, unstable, and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the concerning question is: What is the best constitution--that is, by what arrangement, organization, or mechanism of the power of the State can its object be most surely attained? This object may indeed be variously understood; for instance, as the calm enjoyment of life on part of the citizens, or as universal happiness.