At their best, even well-meaning monarchs can fail to craft policies around the best interests of their subjects. At their worst, republics at least allow those within the state to vote in such a way that directly or indirectly influences the decisions of the body politic. Because of this, the concept of a single god with absolute power being preferential to a seemingly democratic group of devils would seem interesting coming from Milton, who defended the overthrow of monarchs in his writings. Satan, seen as the originator of sin, is associated with the republic, which might suggest to casual readers that Milton was equating the democratic process with Satanism. However, the general tone in Book II of Paradise Lost suggests that Milton felt that self-awareness and personal liberty were ultimately more important than the political system under which these can be found.

Milton was clearly in favor of the overthrow of a monarch in favor of a more republican society. Within a republic, several individuals have the ability to voice their opinions in a market type of forum. Milton believed that ideas coming together in a market type forum had more to do with coming to know God than coming to know general knowledge (Hawkes 929). So why would Milton make God a monarch while putting the devils in a republic? Milton seemed to believe that, ultimately, the character of those within the governing body was more important than the type of government used. The following passage showed Milton’s attitude towards the fallen and unfallen aspects of humanity:

Of Creatures rational, though under hope
Of heavenly Grace; and God proclaiming peace,
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
Among themselves, and levie cruel warres,
Wasting the Earth, each other to destroy:
As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes anow besides,
That day and night for his destruction waite. (Milton II, 498-505)

Humanity is rational and has the hope of doing many great things. But humanity chooses do be hateful and hostile towards one another and engage in strife through warfare. This warfare does terrible things to the earth, which was given to humanity by God, and which has enormous potential. Also, there are beings in Hell who already want to destroy humanity and attention and humanity must be prepared to fight with sin within oneself. The ultimate lack of freedom that the devils had was likely not as terrible to Milton as their lack of consciences. Milton strongly believed that individuals must have freedom of conscience before having freedom of speech (Mohamed 942). Therefore, the devil’s republic would not have been ideal even if the devils were free to make the choices of the infernal state. This fact was demonstrated through their ideas, which included Moloch’s idea of continuing eternal war and Mammon’s idea of creating a Hell to imitate God’s Heaven, the devils likely would have voted for evil as much as wolves would have voted to eat sheep. These devils were committed to rebelling against the tyranny of God, but rebelling against the tyranny of God was absurd, given God’s unlimited power to transform any evil act committed by the devils into an act of good.