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The Prussian Theory of Government

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

W. W. Willoughby
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Extract

Political scientists make a sharp distinction between the terms “State” and “Government.” A State is a group of individuals viewed as a politically organized unit. In the eyes of the law it appears as a corporate being possessing supreme authority and issuing commands in the form of laws addressed to those over whom it claims authority. A Government is the machinery or complexus of organs through which this state-being formulates, expresses, and enforces its will.

In my preceding paper I dealt wholly with the Prussian conception of the State and had nothing to say regarding Prussian conceptions of Government. In this paper I shall have little to say regarding the Prussian theory of the State and shall devote myself almost wholly to a consideration of the Prussian governmental system. Of this system, however, I shall speak of but one of its features, namely, its strong monarchical character. In result there should appear what justification there is for the demand of the United States and of the Entente Powers for a modification of the Prussian system.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1918 , pp. 266 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1918

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References

1 Supra, p. 251.

2 These statements are discreetly omitted by the former Chancellor from the second edition of his work issued since the beginning of the war.

3 The paragraphs dealing with the functions of the legislative chambers in Prussia are taken from an article by the author entitled “The Prussian Theory of Monarchy,” which appeared in the American Political Science Review for November, 1917.

4 “The Spirit of German Kultur,” in the volume entitled Deutschland und der Weltkrieg, published in 1915.

5 “The Origin and Nature of German Institutions,” included in the collection of essays published in 1915 under the title Deutschland und der Weltkrieg.

6 The New Republic, August 28, 1915.

7 “Since the State is primarily power, that State which gathers authority most completely into the hand of one and there leaves it most independent, approaches most nearly to the ideal.” — Treitschke, Politics, I, 13.

8 In an interview, extracts from which were published in the Paris Temps, November 26, 1914.

9 Dawson, What is Wrong with Germany, p. 64.

10 Treitschke, in his Politics (I, 58) says: “The claim to rule by the grace of God is no more than a devout aspiration which does not attempt to formulate a mystical and spiritual right to power, but simply to assert that the inscrutable will of Providence has decreed the elevation of a particular family above its rivals. Piety is a fundamental requirement in a monarch, since the notion that he stands immeasurably above all other men may actually unsettle his reason, if it be not balanced by personal humility which compels him to acknowledge himself God’s instrument. All this does not abrogate the axiom that it is the nature and aim of monarchy to be of this world. Genuine monarchy does not aspire to partnership with the Almighty. On the other hand, monarchy stands opposed to republicanism. In a republic, authority is founded upon the will of the governed, while in a monarchy it is derived from the historical claim of a particular family and concentrated in the will of one man who wears the crown and who, though surrounded by more or less responsible advisers, ultimately decides every question himself.”

The recognition by Treitschke of the Providential element, of course, gives to monarchy and to the reigning family a supra-rational or transcendental basis of right.