King Leopold II His Rule in Belgium and the Congo (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from King Leopold II: His Rule in Belgium and the Congo Nothing is more absurd than this theory. In a constitutional monarchy the king's place is well defined, but the king's place is ever that of a ruler, and his first duty is to rule. If he be a weak man his rule will be feeble, if he be a vicious man his mle will be bad but, strong or feeble, a king cannot but fix his imprint on his country, and he it is who himself produces for his reign its result, good, bad, or indifferent, according to his abilities and his will. Whatever the limits of the constitution, it is in evitable that on many, and these the most vital, points of government the king's voice must be most powerful in the councils of his country. The history of the nineteenth century, now Opening to the world, proves that this was so, even when the middle-class power was at its highest; and beside the proof of his tory, common-sense Shows that it must be so, as long as kings remain. In a free country, during a single reign, thousands of politicians, hundreds of ministers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.