It is easy to imagine that an independent people, so little restrained
by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict in
maintaining a regular succession of their princes. Though they paid
great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an undisputed
superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was steadily
observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present convenience, in that
emergency, was more attended to than general principles. We are
not, however, to suppose that the crown was considered as altogether
elective; and that a regular plan was traced by the constitution for
supplying, by the suffrages of the people, every vacancy made by the
demise of the first magistrate. If any king left a son of an age and
capacity fit for government, the young prince naturally stepped into the
throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or the next prince of the blood,
was promoted to the government, and left the sceptre to his posterity:
any sovereign, by taking previous measures with the leading men, had it
greatly in his power to appoint his successor: all these changes, and
indeed the ordinary administration of government, required the express
concurrence, or at least the tacit acquiescence of the people; but
possession, however obtained, was extremely apt to secure their
obedience, and the idea of any right, which was once excluded was
but feeble and imperfect.
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