PLANS OF REFORM 121that such a benefit is quite accidental and, one may say, personal [i.e.
dependent on the ruler's personality]." 1 From where then, if not from
a written document, do the fundamental laws derive their strength and
stability? In a paper he was to write a year later in 1803, Speransky -
quoting Hume - noted approvingly that the strength and solidity of
the English constitution rest on the spirit and way of life of the English
people. In this first paper he also states - less precisely perhaps - that
fundamental laws must rest on the true (moral?) "forces" available
in the nation, as the people always have in themselves sufficient forces
to counterbalance or limit the power of the government.^2 However,
this is not quite clear, the more so as Speransky does not specify whom
he means by "people" - the entire nation or a selected group within
it? The available excerpts do not enlighten us on this and we can only
note the looseness of the argumentation.
In any case, to strengthen the idea of law and to! limit the realm of
arbitrariness, "the state's first step, without doubt, should consist inpreventing the waste of its strength in conflicts between classes ... " 3
He, therefore, opposes any division of the nation along lines of private
and class interests, for such a division helps arbitrariness and despotism
to maintain themselves by playing off one interest against another.
"There is nothing more stupid and deadly for freedom," he writes,
"than the rule by which the estates are divided according to the
occupation and special rights of each. Such a rule can be called the
fundamental law of despotism." 4 Yet, there is nne type of a "classless"
social structure which will not be conducive to the preservation of
fundamental laws either. That is when all social groups are "equal"
because they are all without rights, i.e. in the case of the equality of
slavery. Unfortunately, this is Russia's case.
"I would like," Speransky pleads rhetorically, "someone to show
the difference between the peasant's subservience to the landlords
and the nobility'S subservience to the Monarch. I wish someone
would point out that the authority the sovereign ~ields over the
landlord is in no way different from the power the landlord has
over his peasants. And thus, instead of the pompous division of the
free Russian people into the most free classes of the nobility,
merchants, etc., I find in Russia only two estates: the slaves of the
sovereign and the slaves of the landlord. The former are called
free in relation to the latter; but in fact there are no free men1 ibid., p. 67.
2 ibid., p. 65 (note), 68.
3 ibid., p. 69. By state here. Speranskii meant the nation.
4 ibid., p. 68.