"A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate"
About this Quote
The sharper cut comes next: power sustained “on his own” can’t rely on institutions, consent, or law, so it has to be shored up through the two blunt instruments available to personal rule - fear and money. Cooper’s insight is basically a theory of authoritarian maintenance, delivered in the plainspoken moral register of a nineteenth-century American novelist. If you can’t intimidate the “active and enterprising” (the people with networks, talent, and initiative - in other words, potential rivals), you buy them. “Bribing” here isn’t merely corruption; it’s the structural logic of a regime that can’t tolerate independent energy unless it’s domesticated.
Context matters: Cooper is writing from a young republic still defining itself against Europe’s hereditary order. The quote channels a post-Revolution suspicion that monarchy is not only unjust but economically self-defeating - a system that converts public wealth into pageantry and patronage to compensate for its lack of democratic legitimacy. It’s less a moral sermon than a pragmatic warning: when rule depends on one man, the state becomes his payroll.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cooper, James F. (2026, February 17). A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-monarchy-is-the-most-expensive-of-all-forms-of-112242/
Chicago Style
Cooper, James F. "A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate." FixQuotes. February 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-monarchy-is-the-most-expensive-of-all-forms-of-112242/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate." FixQuotes, 17 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/a-monarchy-is-the-most-expensive-of-all-forms-of-112242/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
