If you push me to intellectually defend a system of government, I would probably side with the republic over the monarchy, for human systems (rather than Divine systems, like heaven or the Church). So I would side with Timothy Gordon's Catholic Republic thesis, since I think he effectively demonstrates how what has called the "pre-Fed old model of the United States union" was in fact "crypto-Catholic" to the core, even though the documents were drafted by Protestants, those Protestants were drawing on Catholic intellectuals (even Aquinas, albeit indirectly).
However, my romantic attachment to the Middle Ages is what leads me to prefer a monarchy, especially if we are treating "adheres to the moral order" as a given, which of course, in reality, this is not given.
Republics can be okay, and usually they have a really great first hundred years or so; but they subsequently decline and die, predictably lasting about 250 years. If there was some solid system for a smooth transition of power from one into the next, it’d be great, but it hasn’t ever worked out because any coherent republic can’t plan for its own demise ... that would be admitting weakness, which would result in the ascent of a rival faction, pushing bolstered jingo-sloganeering with a coherent central message.
And anyway, regardless, the scope and span of history leaves me with the impression that there isn’t really a choice whether a republic or an autocrat emerges; it’s rather a function of the relative strengths of the Chiefs of Clans, vs. the One Who Rules Them All, and I suspect God and God Alone makes that call.
(post is archived)