This important revolution, with respect to the means of national defence, appears to have taken place in all the civilized and opulent nations of antiquity.In all the Greek states, even in that of Sparta, we find that the military service of the free citizens came, from a change of manners, to be regarded as burdensome, and the practice of employing mercenary troops was introduced.The Romans too, before the end of the republic, had found it necessary to maintain a regular standing army in each of their distant provinces.
In the modern nations of Europe, the disuse of the feudal militia was an immediate consequence of the progress of the people in arts and manufactures; after which the different sovereigns were forced to hire soldiers upon particular occasions, and at last to maintain a regular body of troops for the defence of their dominions.In France, during the reign of Lewis XIII, and in Germany, about the same period, the military system began to be established upon that footing, which it has since acquired in all the countries of Europe.
The tendency of a standing mercenary army to increase the power and prerogative of the crown, which has been the subject of much declamation, is sufficiently obvious.As the army is immediately under the conduct of the monarch; as the individuals of which it is composed depend entirely upon him for preferment;as, by forming a separate order of men they are apt to become indifferent about the rights of their fellow-citizens; it may be expected that, in most cases, they will be disposed to pay an implicit obedience to his commands, and that the same force which is maintained to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions, may often be employed to subvert and destroy the liberties of the people.
The same improvements in society, which give rise to the maintenance of standing forces, are usually attended with similar changes in the manner of distributing justice.It has been already observed that, in a large community, which has made but little progress in the arts, every chief or baron is the judge over his own tribe, and the king, with the assistance of his great council, exercises a jurisdiction over the members of different tribes or baronies.From the small number of law-suits which occur in the ages of poverty and rudeness, and from the rapidity with which they are usually determined among a warlike and ignorant people, the office of a judge demands little attention, and occasions no great interruption to those pursuits in which a man of rank and distinction is commonly engaged.The sovereign and the nobility, therefore, in such a situation, may continue to hold this office, though, in their several courts, they should appoint a deputy-judge to assist them in discharging the duties of it.But when the increase of opulence has given encouragement to a variety of tedious litigation, they become unwilling to bestow the necessary time in hearing causes, and are therefore induced to devolve the whole business upon inferior judges, who acquire by degrees the several branches of the judicial power, and are obliged to hold regular courts for the benefit of the inhabitants.Thus the exercise of jurisdiction becomes a separate employment, and is committed to an order of men, who require a particular education to qualify them for the duties of their office, and who, in return for their serVice, must therefore be enabled to earn a livelihood by their profession.
A provision for the maintenance of judges is apt, from the natural course of things, to grow out of their employment; as, in order to procure an indemnification for their attendance, they have an opportunity of exacting fees from the parties who come before them.This is analagous to what happens with respect to every sort of manufacture, in which an artificer is commonly paid by those who employ him.We find, accordingly, that this was the early practice in all the feudal courts of Europe, and that the perquisites drawn by the judges, in different tribunals, yielded a considerable revenue both to the king and the nobles.It is likely that similar customs, in this respect, have been adopted in most parts of the world, by nations in the same period of their advancement.The impropriety, however, of giving a permission to these exactions, which tend to influence the decisions of a judge, to render him active in stirring up law-suits, and in multiplying the form of his procedure, in order to increase his perquisites; these pernicious consequences with which it is inseparably connected, could not fail to attract the notice of a polished people, and at length produced the more perfect plan of providing for the maintenance of judges by the appointment of a fixed salary in place of their former precarious emoluments.
