II. OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY
SUCCESSION
III. THOUGHTS
ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN AFFAIRS
IV. OF THE
PRESENT ABILITY OF AMERICA, WITH SOME MISCELLANEOUS REFLEXIONS
PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages,
are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long
habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being
RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the
tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the
Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might
never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the
inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to
support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this
country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted
privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the
usurpations of either.
In the following sheets, the author hath studiously
avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as
censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not
the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or
unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon
their conversion.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of
all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but
universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are
affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The
laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the
natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the
Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the
Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is THE AUTHOR
P. S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been
delayed, with a View of taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to
refute the Doctrine of Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now
presumed that none will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready
for the Public being considerably past.
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary
to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.
Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party,
and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason
and principle.
Philadelphia, February 14, 1776.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government,
as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only
different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and
government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by
uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron,
the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even
in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable
one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT,
which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is
heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings
are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of
conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other
lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a
part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this
he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him
out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design
and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever FORM thereof
appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest
benefit, is preferable to all others.
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and
end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some
sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then
represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of
natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will
excite them thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and
his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek
assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or
five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a
wilderness, but ONE man might labour out the common period of life without
accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it,
nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from
his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even
misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either would
disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be
said to perish than to die.
This necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form
our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessing of which,
would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary
while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is
impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they
surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a
common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each
other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some
form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.
Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under
the branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public
matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title
only of REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem.
In this first parliament every man, by natural right, will have a seat.
But as the colony increases, the public concerns will
increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will
render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at
first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public
concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their
consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number
chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake
which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the
whole body would act were they present. If the colony continues increasing, it
will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that
the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found
best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper
number; and that the ELECTED might never form to themselves an interest
separate from the ELECTORS, prudence will point out the propriety of having
elections often; because as the ELECTED might by that means return and mix
again with the general body of the ELECTORS in a few months, their fidelity to
the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for
themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest
with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each
other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the STRENGTH OF
GOVERNMENT, AND THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.
Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a
mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world;
here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And
however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound;
however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the
simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle
in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is,
the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when
disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much
boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish
times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was over run with
tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is
imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to
promise, is easily demonstrated.
Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature)
have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they
know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and
are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of
England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years
together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will
say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a
different medicine.
I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing
prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the
English constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient
tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.
FIRST. The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of
the king.
SECONDLY. The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the
persons of the peers.
THIRDLY. The new republican materials, in the persons of
the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the
people; wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards the
freedom of the state.
To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of
three powers reciprocally CHECKING each other, is farcical, either the words
have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.
To say that the commons is a check upon the king,
presupposes two things.
FIRST. That the king is not to be trusted without being
looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the
natural disease of monarchy.
SECONDLY. That the commons, by being appointed for that
purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.
But as the same constitution which gives the commons a
power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king
a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it
again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed
to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!
There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the
composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information,
yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The
state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires
him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally
opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and
useless.
Some writers have explained the English constitution thus;
the king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in
behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the
distinctions of an house divided against itself; and though the expressions be
pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it
will always happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of,
when applied to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is
too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of
sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for
this explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A
POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a
power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH
NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes,
supposes such a power to exist.
But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either
cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se;
for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels
of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in
the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the
others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity
of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be
ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it
wants in speed is supplied by time.
That the crown is this overbearing part in the English
constitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence
merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; wherefore,
though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute
monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in
possession of the key.
The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own
government by king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national
pride than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some
other countries, but the WILL of the king is as much the LAW of the land in
Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly
from his mouth, it is handed to the people under the more formidable shape of
an act of parliament. For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings
more subtle—not more just.
Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice
in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT
that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.
An inquiry into the CONSTITUTIONAL ERRORS in the English
form of government is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a
proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the
influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to
ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man,
who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so
any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable
us from discerning a good one.
MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation,
the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the
distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and
that without having recourse to the harsh ill sounding names of oppression and
avarice. Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of
riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor,
it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinction for which no
truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction
of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature,
good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the
world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is
worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery
to mankind.
In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture
chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no
wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland
without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the
monarchical governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet
and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which
vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by
the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the
most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of
idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the
christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living
ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the
midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!
As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot
be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on
the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon
and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All
anti-monarchical parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in
monarchical governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries
which have their governments yet to form. “RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS WHICH
ARE CAESAR’S” is the scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of
monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a
state of vassalage to the Romans.
Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic
account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a
king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where
the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the
elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to
acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man
seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of
Kings, he need not wonder, that the Almighty ever jealous of his honor, should
disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative
of heaven.
Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the
Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of
that transaction is worth attending to.
The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites,
Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, thro’ the divine
interposition, decided in his favour. The Jews elate with success, and
attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king,
saying, RULE THOU OVER US, THOU AND THY SON AND THY SON’S SON. Here was
temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one,
but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied, I WILL NOT RULE OVER YOU, NEITHER
SHALL MY SON RULE OVER YOU. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU. Words need not be
more explicit; Gideon doth not DECLINE the honor, but denieth their right to
give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his
thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection
to their proper Sovereign, the King of heaven.
About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell
again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous
customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was,
that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted
with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to
Samuel, saying, BEHOLD THOU ART OLD, AND THY SONS WALK NOT IN THY WAYS, NOW
MAKE US A KING TO JUDGE US LIKE ALL THE OTHER NATIONS. And here we cannot but
observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be LIKE unto other
nations, i. e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much
UNLIKE them as possible. BUT THE THING DISPLEASED SAMUEL WHEN THEY SAID, GIVE
US A KING TO JUDGE US; AND SAMUEL PRAYED UNTO THE LORD, AND THE LORD SAID UNTO
SAMUEL, HEARKEN UNTO THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ALL THAT THEY SAY UNTO THEE,
FOR THEY HAVE NOT REJECTED THEE, BUT THEY HAVE REJECTED ME, THAT I SHOULD NOT
REIGN OVER THEM. ACCORDING TO ALL THE WORKS WHICH THEY HAVE DONE SINCE THE DAY
THAT I BROUGHT THEM UP OUT OF EGYPT, EVEN UNTO THIS DAY; WHEREWITH THEY HAVE
FORSAKEN ME AND SERVED OTHER GODS; SO DO THEY ALSO UNTO THEE. NOW THEREFORE
HEARKEN UNTO THEIR VOICE, HOWBEIT, PROTEST SOLEMNLY UNTO THEM AND SHEW THEM THE
MANNER OF THE KING THAT SHALL REIGN OVER THEM, I. E. not of any particular
king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so
eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and
difference of manners, the character is still in fashion. AND SAMUEL TOLD ALL
THE WORDS OF THE LORD UNTO THE PEOPLE, THAT ASKED OF HIM A KING. AND HE SAID,
THIS SHALL BE THE MANNER OF THE KING THAT SHALL REIGN OVER YOU; HE WILL TAKE
YOUR SONS AND APPOINT THEM FOR HIMSELF, FOR HIS CHARIOTS, AND TO BE HIS
HORSEMEN, AND SOME SHALL RUN BEFORE HIS CHARIOTS (this description agrees with
the present mode of impressing men) AND HE WILL APPOINT HIM CAPTAINS OVER
THOUSANDS AND CAPTAINS OVER FIFTIES, AND WILL SET THEM TO EAR HIS GROUND AND TO
READ HIS HARVEST, AND TO MAKE HIS INSTRUMENTS OF WAR, AND INSTRUMENTS OF HIS
CHARIOTS; AND HE WILL TAKE YOUR DAUGHTERS TO BE CONFECTIONARIES, AND TO BE
COOKS AND TO BE BAKERS (this describes the expence and luxury as well as the
oppression of kings) AND HE WILL TAKE YOUR FIELDS AND YOUR OLIVE YARDS, EVEN
THE BEST OF THEM, AND GIVE THEM TO HIS SERVANTS; AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH OF
YOUR FEED, AND OF YOUR VINEYARDS, AND GIVE THEM TO HIS OFFICERS AND TO HIS
SERVANTS (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the
standing vices of kings) AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH OF YOUR MEN SERVANTS, AND
YOUR MAID SERVANTS, AND YOUR GOODLIEST YOUNG MEN AND YOUR ASSES, AND PUT THEM
TO HIS WORK; AND HE WILL TAKE THE TENTH OF YOUR SHEEP, AND YE SHALL BE HIS SERVANTS,
AND YE SHALL CRY OUT IN THAT DAY BECAUSE OF YOUR KING WHICH YE SHALL HAVE
CHOSEN, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY. This accounts for the
continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which
have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the
origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him OFFICIALLY AS A
KING, but only as a MAN after God’s own heart. NEVERTHELESS THE PEOPLE REFUSED
TO OBEY THE VOICE OF SAMUEL, AND THEY SAID, NAY, BUT WE WILL HAVE A KING OVER
US, THAT WE MAY BE LIKE ALL THE NATIONS, AND THAT OUR KING MAY JUDGE US, AND GO
OUT BEFORE US, AND FIGHT OUR BATTLES. Samuel continued to reason with them, but
to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail;
and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out, I WILL CALL UNTO THE
LORD, AND HE SHALL SEND THUNDER AND RAIN (which then was a punishment, being in
the time of wheat harvest) THAT YE MAY PERCEIVE AND SEE THAT YOUR WICKEDNESS IS
GREAT WHICH YE HAVE DONE IN THE SIGHT OF THE LORD, IN ASKING YOU A KING. SO
SAMUEL CALLED UNTO THE LORD, AND THE LORD SENT THUNDER AND RAIN THAT DAY, AND
ALL THE PEOPLE GREATLY FEARED THE LORD AND SAMUEL. AND ALL THE PEOPLE SAID UNTO
SAMUEL, PRAY FOR THY SERVANTS UNTO THE LORD THY GOD THAT WE DIE NOT, FOR WE
HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING. These portions of scripture
are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the
Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true,
or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is
as much of king-craft, as priest-craft, in withholding the scripture from the
public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of
government.
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary
succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so
the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on
posterity. For all men being originally equals, no ONE by BIRTH could have a
right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever,
and though himself might deserve SOME decent degree of honors of his
cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.
One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings,
is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it
into ridicule by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.
Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other
public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could
have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say
“We choose you for OUR head,” they could not, without manifest injustice to
their children, say “that your children and your children’s children shall
reign over OURS for ever.” Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact
might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue
or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated
hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once
established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from
superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of
the rest.
This is supposing the present race of kings in the world
to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could
we take off the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise,
that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian
of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtility
obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in
power, and extending his depredations, over-awed the quiet and defenceless to
purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no
idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual
exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained
principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the
early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as
something casual or complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those
days, and traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the
lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently
timed, Mahomet like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.
Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease
of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not
be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions; by
which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was
submitted to as a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.
England, since the conquest, hath known some few good
monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones; yet no man in
his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very
honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and
establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in
plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in
it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of
hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them
promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their
humility, nor disturb their devotion.
Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at
first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by
election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes
a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by
lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that
transaction there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any
country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next;
for to say, that the RIGHT of all future generations is taken away, by the act
of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of
kings for ever, hath no parrallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of
original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from
such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can
derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all
men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other
to Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in
the last; and as both disable us from reassuming some former state and
privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession
are parallels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion! Yet the most subtile
sophist cannot produce a juster simile.
As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it;
and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted.
The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear
looking into.
But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of
hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and
wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to
the FOOLISH, the WICKED, and the IMPROPER, it hath in it the nature of
oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey,
soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early
poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from
the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true
interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant
and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that
the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the
regency, acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and
inducement to betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens, when a
king worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness.
In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can
tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.
The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in
favour of hereditary succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil
wars; and were this true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most
barefaced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England
disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted
kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the
Revolution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore
instead of making for peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very
foundation it seems to stand on.
The contest for monarchy and succession, between the
houses of York and Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years.
Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between
Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was
prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a
nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that
Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly
from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are
seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward
recalled to succeed him. The parliament always following the strongest side.
This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and
was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were
united. Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.
In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or
that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. ‘Tis a form of government
which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.
If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find
that in some countries they have none; and after sauntering away their lives
without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the
scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute
monarchies the whole weight of business, civil and military, lies on the king;
the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea “that he
may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.” But in countries
where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be
puzzled to know what IS his business.
The nearer any government approaches to a republic the
less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper
name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith calls it a republic;
but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt
influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so
effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of
commons (the republican part in the constitution) that the government of
England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with
names without understanding them. For it is the republican and not the
monarchical part of the constitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz.
the liberty of choosing an house of commons from out of their own
body—and it is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery
ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath
poisoned the republic, the crown hath engrossed the commons?
In England a king hath little more to do than to make war
and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set
it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight
hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more
worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the
crowned ruffians that ever lived.
IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple
facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to
settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and
prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for
themselves; that he will put ON, or rather that he will not put OFF, the true
character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.
Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle
between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy,
from different motives, and with various designs; but all have been
ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms, as the last resource,
decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent
hath accepted the challenge.
It hath been reported of the late Mr Pelham (who tho’ an
able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the
house of commons, on the score, that his measures were only of a temporary
kind, replied, “THEY WILL LAST MY TIME.” Should a thought so fatal and unmanly
possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be
remembered by future generations with detestation.
The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not
the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a
continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ‘Tis not
the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in
the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the
proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor.
The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on
the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and
posterity read it in full grown characters.
By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era
for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals,
&c. prior to the nineteenth of April, I. E. to the commencement of
hostilities, are like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper
then, are superceded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on
either side of the question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a
union with Great Britain; the only difference between the parties was the
method of effecting it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it
hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn
her influence.
As much hath been said of the advantages of
reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as
we were, it is but right, that we should examine the contrary side of the
argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these
colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and
dependant on Great Britain. To examine that connexion and dependance, on the
principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if
separated, and what we are to expect, if dependant.
I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath
flourished under her former connexion with Great Britain, that the same
connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the
same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may
as well assert that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to
have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent
for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer
roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more,
had no European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce, by which she
hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a
market while eating is the custom of Europe.
But she has protected us, say some. That she hath
engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expence as well as her
own is admitted, and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz.
the sake of trade and dominion.
Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices,
and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of
Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was INTEREST not
ATTACHMENT; that she did not protect us from OUR ENEMIES on OUR ACCOUNT, but
from HER ENEMIES on HER OWN ACCOUNT, from those who had no quarrel with us on
any OTHER ACCOUNT, and who will always be our enemies on the SAME ACCOUNT. Let
Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the
dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war
with Britain. The miseries of Hanover last war ought to warn us against connexions.
It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the
colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, I. E.
that Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies
by the way of England; this is certainly a very round-about way of proving
relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if
I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our
enemies as AMERICANS, but as our being the SUBJECTS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more
shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make
war upon their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her
reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase
PARENT or MOTHER COUNTRY hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his
parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the
credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country
of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of
civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of Europe. Hither have they fled,
not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the
monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove
the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.
In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the
narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and
carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every
European christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.
It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we
surmount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the
world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally
associate most with his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many
cases will be common) and distinguish him by the name of NEIGHBOUR; if he meet
him but a few miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and
salutes him by the name of TOWNSMAN; if he travel out of the county, and meet
him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls
him COUNTRYMAN; i. e. COUNTY-MAN; but if in their foreign excursions they
should associate in France or any other part of EUROPE, their local remembrance
would be enlarged into that of ENGLISHMEN. And by a just parity of reasoning,
all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are
COUNTRYMEN; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the
whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of
street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for
continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are
of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother
country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow and
ungenerous.
But admitting, that we were all of English descent, what
does it amount to? Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes
every other name and title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is
truly farcical. The first king of England, of the present line (William the
Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are descendants from
the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to
be governed by France.
Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and
the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But
this is mere presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the
expressions mean any thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be
drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or
Europe.
Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at
defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the
peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe
to have America a FREE PORT. Her trade will always be a protection, and her
barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.
I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to
shew, a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with
Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our
corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must
be paid for buy them where we will.
But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that
connection, are without number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to
ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or
dependance on Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in
European wars and quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would
otherwise seek our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor
complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial
connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer
clear of European contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependance
on Britain, she is made the make-weight in the scale on British politics.
Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at
peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the
trade of America goes to ruin, BECAUSE OF HER CONNECTION WITH BRITAIN. The next
war may not turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for
reconciliation now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in
that case, would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right
or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of
nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath
placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority
of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise
at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the
manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The reformation was
preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to
open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford
neither friendship nor safety.
The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a
form of government, which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind
can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive
conviction, that what he calls “the present constitution” is merely temporary.
As parents, we can have no joy, knowing that THIS GOVERNMENT is not
sufficiently lasting to ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity:
And by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into
debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and
pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly, we should take
our children in our hand, and fix our station a few years farther into life;
that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices
conceal from our sight.
Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence,
yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of
reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested
men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who CANNOT see; prejudiced men, who
WILL NOT see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the
European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged
deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent, than all
the other three.
It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the
scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to THEIR doors to make
THEM feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But
let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of
wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power
in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but
a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now, no other alternative
than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their
friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they
leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of
redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to
the fury of both armies.
Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the
offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out,
“COME, COME, WE SHALL BE FRIENDS AGAIN, FOR ALL THIS.” But examine the passions
and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone
of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honour, and
faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If
you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your
delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom
you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed
only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a
relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the
violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property
been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed
to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their
hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are
you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands
with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father,
friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart
of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying
them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without
which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or
enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of
provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we
may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain
or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by DELAY and
TIMIDITY. The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost
or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is
no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he
will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.
It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of
things to all examples from former ages, to suppose, that this continent can
longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does
not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass
a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s
security. Reconciliation is NOW a falacious dream. Nature hath deserted the
connexion, and Art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses,
“never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so
deep.”
Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers
have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing
flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in Kings more than repeated
petitioning—and noting hath contributed more than that very measure to
make the Kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore, since
nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation,
and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated
unmeaning names of parent and child.
To say, they will never attempt it again is idle and
visionary, we thought so at the repeal of the stamp act, yet a year or two
undeceived us; as well may we suppose that nations, which have been once
defeated, will never renew the quarrel.
As to government matters, it is not in the power of
Britain to do this continent justice: The business of it will soon be too
weighty, and intricate, to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience,
by a power, so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot
conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand
miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer,
which when obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few
years be looked upon as folly and childishness—There was a time when it
was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease.
Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are
the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is
something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by
an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its
primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other,
reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different
systems: England to Europe, America to itself.
I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment
to espouse the doctrine of separation and independance; I am clearly,
positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this
continent to be so; that every thing short of THAT is mere patchwork, that it
can afford no lasting felicity,--that it is leaving the sword to our children,
and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have
rendered this continent the glory of the earth.
As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination
towards a compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy
the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expense of blood and
treasure we have been already put to.
The object, contended for, ought always to bear some just
proportion to the expense. The removal of North, or the whole detestable junto,
is a matter unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary stoppage of
trade, was an inconvenience, which would have sufficiently ballanced the repeal
of all the acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole
continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely
worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly,
do we pay for the repeal of the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a
just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as
for land. As I have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an
event, which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of
the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the
breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have disputed a
matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in
earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate
the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer
wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April
1775, but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the
hardened, sullen tempered Pharaoh of England for ever; and disdain the wretch,
that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE, can unfeelingly hear of
their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.
But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be
the event? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.
FIRST. The powers of governing still remaining in the
hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of this
continent. And as he hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty,
and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper
man to say to these colonies, “YOU SHALL MAKE NO LAWS BUT WHAT I PLEASE.” And
is there any inhabitant in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according
to what is called the PRESENT CONSTITUTION, that this continent can make no
laws but what the king gives it leave to; and is there any man so unwise, as
not to see, that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no law to be
made here, but such as suit HIS purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by
the want of laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England.
After matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt, but the
whole power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as low and
humble as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be
perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning. We are already greater
than the king wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us
less? To bring the matter to one point. Is the power who is jealous of our
prosperity, a proper power to govern us? Whoever says NO to this question is an
INDEPENDANT, for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make our
own laws, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can
have, shall tell us, “THERE SHALL BE NO LAWS BUT SUCH AS I LIKE.”
But the king you will say has a negative in England; the
people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good
order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which
hath often happened) shall say to several millions of people, older and wiser
than himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law. But in this place I
decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absurdity
of it, and only answer, that England being the King’s residence, and America
not so, make quite another case. The king’s negative HERE is ten times more
dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for THERE he will scarcely
refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of
defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be
passed.
America is only a secondary object in the system of
British politics, England consults the good of THIS country, no farther than it
answers her OWN purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the
growth of OURS in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the
least interferes with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a
second-hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from
enemies to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to shew that
reconciliation NOW is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, THAT IT WOULD BE POLICY
IN THE KING AT THIS TIME, TO REPEAL THE ACTS FOR THE SAKE OF REINSTATING HIMSELF
IN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCES; in order that HE MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT
AND SUBTILITY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE
SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related.
SECONDLY. That as even the best terms, which we can expect
to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of
government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies
come of age, so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be
unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a
country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day
tottering on the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present
inhabitants would lay hold of the interval, to dispose of their effects, and
quit the continent.
But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing
but independance, i. e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of
the continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a
reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable, that it will
followed by a revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far
more fatal than all the malice of Britain.
Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity;
(thousands more will probably suffer the same fate.) Those men have other
feelings than us who have nothing suffered. All they NOW possess is liberty,
what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more
to lose, they disdain submission. Besides, the general temper of the colonies,
towards a British government, will be like that of a youth, who is nearly out
of his time; they will care very little about her. And a government which
cannot preserve the peace, is no government at all, and in that case we pay our
money for nothing; and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be
wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after
reconciliation? I have heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without
thinking, that they dreaded an independance, fearing that it would produce
civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and
that is the case here; for there are ten times more to dread from a patched up
connexion than from independance. I make the sufferers case my own, and I
protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my
circumstances ruined, that as a man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish
the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.
The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order
and obedience to continental government, as is sufficient to make every
reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the least
pretence for his fears, on any other grounds, that such as are truly childish
and ridiculous, viz. that one colony will be striving for superiority over
another.
Where there are no distinctions there can be no
superiority, perfect equality affords no temptation. The republics of Europe
are all (and we may say always) in peace. Holland and Swisserland are without
wars, foreign or domestic: Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long
at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprizing ruffians at HOME; and
that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells
into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances, where a republican
government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negotiate the
mistake.
If there is any true cause of fear respecting
independance, it is because no plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way
out—Wherefore, as an opening into that business, I offer the following
hints; at the same time modestly affirming, that I have no other opinion of them
myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to something better.
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would
frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Let the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The
representation more equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the
authority of a Continental Congress.
Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten,
convenient districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to
Congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in
Congress will be least 390. Each Congress to sit and to choose a president by
the following method. When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken from
the whole thirteen colonies by lot, after which, let the whole Congress choose
(by ballot) a president from out of the delegates of THAT province. In the next
Congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony
from which the president was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on
till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that
nothing may pass into a law but what is satisfactorily just, not less than
three fifths of the Congress to be called a majority. He that will promote
discord, under a government so equally formed as this, would have joined
Lucifer in his revolt.
But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what
manner, this business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable and
consistent that it should come from some intermediate body between the governed
and the governors, that is, between the Congress and the people, let a
CONTINENTAL CONFERENCE be held, in the following manner, and for the following
purpose.
A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two
for each colony. Two members for each House of Assembly, or Provincial
Convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be chosen in
the capital city or town of each province, for, and in behalf of the whole
province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all
parts of the province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the
representatives may be chosen in two or three of the most populous parts
thereof. In this conference, thus assembled, will be united, the two grand
principles of business, KNOWLEDGE and POWER. The members of Congress,
Assemblies, or Conventions, by having had experience in national concerns, will
be able and useful counsellors, and the whole, being impowered by the people,
will have a truly legal authority.
The conferring members being met, let their business be to
frame a CONTINENTAL CHARTER, or Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to
what is called the Magna Charta of England) fixing the number and manner of
choosing members of Congress, members of Assembly, with their date of sitting,
and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them: (Always
remembering, that our strength is continental, not provincial:) Securing
freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of
religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such other matter as is
necessary for a charter to contain. Immediately after which, the said
Conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen comformable to the
said charter, to be the legislators and governors of this continent for the
time being: Whose peace and happiness, may God preserve, Amen.
Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or
some similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wise
observer on governments DRAGONETTI. “The science” says he “of the politician
consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would
deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that
contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national
expense.” “DRAGONETTI ON VIRTUE AND REWARDS.”
But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you
Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal
Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly
honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be
brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed
thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy,
that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is
law, so in free countries the law OUGHT to be King; and there ought to be no
other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the
conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose
right it is.
A government of our own is our natural right: And when a
man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced,
that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a
cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an
interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some, [*1] Massanello
may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect
together the desperate and discontented, and by assuming to themselves the
powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a
deluge. Should the government of America return again into the hands of
Britain, the tottering situation of things, will be a temptation for some
desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can
Britain give? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal business might be done; and
ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the
Conqueror. Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do; ye are
opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government.
There are thousands, and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to
expel from the continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred
up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us, the cruelty hath a double guilt, it
is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.
To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason
forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores
instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little
remains of kindred between us and them, and can there be any reason to hope,
that as the relationship expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall
agree better, when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over
than ever?
Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore
to us the time that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence?
Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the
people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which
nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the
lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the
murders of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable
feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our
hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact
would dissolve, and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual
existence were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber, and the
murderer, would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers
sustain, provoke us into justice.
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the
tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun
with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa,
have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath
given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an
asylum for mankind.
Note 1 Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of
Naples, who after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place,
against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject,
prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became king.
I HAVE never met with a man, either in England or America,
who hath not confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries,
would take place one time or other: And there is no instance, in which we have
shewn less judgment, than in endeavouring to describe, what we call, the
ripeness or fitness of the Continent for independance.
As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their
opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey
of things, and endeavour, if possible, to find out the VERY time. But we need
not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for, the TIME HATH FOUND US. The
general concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great
strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all
the world. The Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and
disciplined men of any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of
strength, in which, no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole,
when united, can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this,
might be fatal in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to
naval affairs, we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an
American man of war to be built, while the continent remained in her hands.
Wherefore, we should be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch,
than we are now; but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of
the country is every day diminishing, and that, which will remain at last, will
be far off and difficult to procure.
Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings
under the present circumstances would be intolerable. The more sea port towns
we had, the more should we have both to defend and to loose. Our present
numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle. The
diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a
new trade.
Debts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this
account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. Can we but leave
posterity with a settled form of government, an independant constitution of
it’s own, the purchase at any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for
the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry
only, is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty;
because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs,
from which, they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of
honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a pedling
politician.
The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if
the work be but accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt. A national
debt is a national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a
grievance. Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and forty
millions sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest. And as
a compensation for her debt, she has a large navy; America is without a debt,
and without a navy; yet for the twentieth part of the English national debt,
could have a navy as large again. The navy of England is not worth, at this
time, more than three millions and an half sterling.
The first and second editions of this pamphlet were
published without the following calculations, which are now given as a proof
that the above estimation of the navy is a just one. SEE ENTIC’S NAVAL HISTORY,
INTRO. page 56.
The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing
her with masts, yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight
months boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea-stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett,
Secretary to the navy.
For a ship of a 100 guns | |
35,553 L.
90 | | 29,886
80 | | 23,638
70 | | 17,785
60 | | 14,197
50 | | 10,606
40 | | 7,558
30 | | 5,846
20 | | 3,710
And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost
rather, of the whole British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was as its
greatest glory consisted of the following ships and guns.
6 | 100 | 35,553 l. | 213,318 l.
12 | 90 | 29,886 | 358,632
12 | 80 | 23,638 | 283,656
43 | 70 | 17,785 | 746,755
35 | 60 | 14,197 | 496,895
40 | 50 | 10,606 | 424,240
45 | 40 | 7,558 | 340,110
58 | 20 | 3,710 | 215,180
85 | Sloops, bombs, and
fireships, one with another, at | 2,000 | 170,000
Cost 3,266,786
Remains for guns | 233,214
Total. 3,500,000
No country on the globe is so happily situated, so
internally capable of raising a fleet as America. Tar, timber, iron, and
cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for nothing. Whereas the
Dutch, who make large profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards
and Portuguese, are obliged to import most of the materials they use. We ought
to view the building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural
manufactory of this country. It is the best money we can lay out. A navy when
finished is worth more than it cost. And is that nice point in national policy,
in which commerce and protection are united. Let us build; if we want them not,
we can sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and
silver.
In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into
great errors; it is not necessary that one fourth part should be sailor. The
Terrible privateer, Captain Death, stood the hottest engagement of any ship
last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was
upwards of two hundred. A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a
sufficient number of active landmen in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we
never can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our
timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights
out of employ. Men of war, of seventy and eighty guns were built forty years
ago in New England, and why not the same now? Ship-building is America’s
greatest pride, and in which, she will in time excel the whole world. The great
empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the
possibility of rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power
in Europe, hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of
materials. Where nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to
America only hath she been liberal of both. The vast empire of Russia is almost
shut out from the sea; wherefore, her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and
cordage are only articles of commerce.
In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet? We are
not the little people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might
have trusted our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely
without locks or bolts to our doors or windows. The case now is altered, and
our methods of defence, ought to improve with our increase of property. A
common pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid the
city of Philadelphia under instant contribution, for what sum he pleased; and
the same might have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig
of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole Continent, and carried
off half a million of money. These are circumstances which demand our
attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection.
Some, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up
with Britain, she will protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean, that she
shall keep a navy in our harbours for that purpose? Common sense will tell us,
that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most
improper to defend us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of
friendship; and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last
cheated into slavery. And if her ships are not to be admitted into our
harbours, I would ask, how is she to protect us? A navy three or four thousand
miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies, none at all.
Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves?
Why do it for another?
The English list of ships of war, is long and formidable,
but not a tenth part of them are at any time fit for service, numbers of them
not in being; yet their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a
plank be left of the ship: and not a fifth part, of such as are fit for
service, can be spared on any one station at one time. The East, and West
Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her
claim, make large demands upon her navy. From a mixture of prejudice and
inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting the navy of England,
and have talked as if we should have the whole of it to encounter at once, and
for that reason, supposed, that we must have one as large; which not being
instantly practicable, have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to
discourage our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this;
for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she
would be by far an over match for her; because, as we neither have, nor claim
any foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on our own coast, where
we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had
three or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack us, and the
same distance to return in order to refit and recruit. And although Britain by
her fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over
her trade to the West Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the
Continent, is entirely at its mercy.
Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in
time of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy.
If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their
service, ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns, (the premiums
to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of
those ships, with a few guard ships on constant duty, would keep up a
sufficient navy, and that without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly
complained of in England, of suffering their fleet, in time of peace to lie
rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews of commerce and defence is sound
policy; for when our strength and our riches, play into each other’s hand, we
need fear no external enemy.
In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp
flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is
superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world.
Cannons we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day
producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent
character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that
we want? Why is it that we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but
ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this
Continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising;
insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell
them? Who will venture his life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign
obedience? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some
unlocated lands, shews the insignificance of a British government, and fully
proves, that nothing but Continental authority can regulate Continental
matters.
Another reason why the present time is preferable to all
others, is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet
unoccupied, which instead of being lavished by the king on his worthless
dependents, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present
debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under heaven hath
such an advantage as this.
The infant state of the Colonies, as it is called, so far
from being against, is an argument in favor of independance. We are
sufficiently numerous, and were we more so, we might be less united. It is a
matter worthy of observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller
their armies are. In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns:
and the reason is evident, for trade being the consequence of population, men
become too much absorbed thereby to attend to any thing else. Commerce
diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence. And history
sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements were always accomplished
in the non age of a nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost
its spirit. The city of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to
continued insults with the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the
less willing are they to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and
submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a Spaniel.
Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations
as in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the
Continent into one government half a century hence. The vast variety of
interests, occasioned by an increase of trade and population, would create
confusion. Colony would be against colony. Each being able might scorn each
other’s assistance; and while the proud and foolish gloried in their little
distinctions, the wise would lament, that the union had not been formed before.
Wherefore, the PRESENT TIME is the TRUE TIME for establishing it. The intimacy
which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in
misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable. Our present
union is marked with both these characters: we are young, and we have been
distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable
area for posterity to glory in.
The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which
never happens to a nation but once, VIZ. the time of forming itself into a
government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have
been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws
for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas,
the articles or charter of government, should be formed first, and men
delegated to execute them afterwards: but from the errors of other nations, let
us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present opportunity—TO BEGIN
GOVERNMENT AT THE RIGHT END.
When William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave them
law at the point of the sword; and until we consent, that the seat of
government, in America, be legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in
danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruffian, who may treat us in the
same manner, and then, where will be our freedom? Where our property?
As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of
all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of
no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside
that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of
all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered
of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the
bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe, that
it is the will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious
opinions among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were
we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for
probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations
among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is
called, their Christian names.
In page [III par 47], I threw out a few thoughts on the
propriety of a Continental Charter, (for I only presume to offer hints, not
plans) and in this place, I take the liberty of rementioning the subject, by
observing, that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation,
which the whole enters into, to support the right of every separate part,
whether or religion, personal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a right
reckoning make long friends.
In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a
large and equal representation; and there is no political matter which more
deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of
representatives, are equally dangerous. But if the number of the
representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased. As an
instance of this, I mention the following; when the Associators petition was
before the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania; twenty-eight members only were
present, all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and had
seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole province had been
governed by two counties only, and this danger it is always exposed to. The
unwarrantable stretch likewise, which that house made in their last sitting, to
gain an undue authority over the Delegates of that province, ought to warn the
people at large, how they trust power out of their own hands. A set of
instructions for the Delegates were put together, which in point of sense and
business would have dishonored a schoolboy, and after being approved by a FEW,
a VERY FEW without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed IN
BEHALF OF THE WHOLE COLONY; whereas, did the whole colony know, with what
ill-will that House hath entered on some necessary public measures, they would
not hesitate a moment to think them unworthy of such a trust.
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if
continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different
things. When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no
method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the
several Houses of Assembly for that purpose; and the wisdom with which they
have proceeded hath preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than
probable that we shall never be without a CONGRESS, every well wisher to good
order, must own, that the mode for choosing members of that body, deserves
consideration. And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of
mankind, whether REPRESENTATION AND ELECTION is not too great a power for one
and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we
ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary.
It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent
maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr.
Cornwall (one of the Lords of the Treasury) treated the petition of the New
York Assembly with contempt, because THAT House, he said, consisted but of
twenty-six members, which trifling number, he argued, could not with decency be
put for the whole. We thank him for his involuntary honesty. [*Note 1]
TO CONCLUDE, however strange it may appear to some, or
however unwilling they may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and
striking reasons may be given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so
expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independance. Some of
which are,
FIRST—It is the custom of nations, when any two are
at war, for some other powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as
mediators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace: but while America
calls herself the Subject of Great Britain, no power, however well disposed she
may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, in our present state we may quarrel
on for ever.
SECONDLY—It is unreasonable to suppose, that France
or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only, to make use of
that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the
connection between Britain and America; because, those powers would be
sufferers by the consequences.
THIRDLY—While we profess ourselves the subjects of
Britain, we must, in the eye of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The
precedent is somewhat dangerous to THEIR PEACE, for men to be in arms under the
name of subjects; we, on the spot, can solve the paradox: but to unite
resistance and subjection, requires an idea much too refined for the common
understanding.
FOURTHLY—Were a manifesto to be published, and
despatched to foreign courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and
the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the
same time, that not being able, any longer, to live happily or safely under the
cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of
breaking off all connections with her; at the same time, assuring all such
courts of our peacable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering
into trade with them: Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this
Continent, than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.
Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can
neither be received nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us,
and will be so, until, by an independance, we take rank with other nations.
These proceedings may at first appear strange and
difficult; but, like all other steps which we have already passed over, will in
a little time become familiar and agreeable; and, until an independance is
declared, the Continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off
some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to
set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of
its necessity.
Note 1 Those who would fully understand of what great
consequence a large and equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh’s
political Disquisitions.
SINCE the publication of the first edition of this
pamphlet, or rather, on the same day on which it came out, the King’s Speech
made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth
of this production, it could not have brought it forth, at a more seasonable
juncture, or a more necessary time. The bloody mindedness of the one, shew the
necessity of pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge.
And the Speech instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles
of Independance.
Ceremony, and even, silence, from whatever motive they may
arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance
to base and wicked performances; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it
naturally follows, that the King’s Speech, as being a piece of finished
villany, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the
Congress and the people. Yet, as the domestic tranquillity of a nation, depends
greatly, on the CHASTITY of what may properly be called NATIONAL MANNERS, it is
often better, to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of
such new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least innovation, on that
guardian of our peace and safety. And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this
prudent delicacy, that the King’s Speech, hath not, before now, suffered a
public execution. The Speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a
wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of
mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to
the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind, is one of the
privileges, and the certain consequence of Kings; for as nature knows them NOT,
they know NOT HER, and although they are beings of our OWN creating, they know
not US, and are become the gods of their creators. The Speech hath one good
quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive, neither can we, even
if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it.
It leaves us at no loss: And every line convinces, even in the moment of
reading, that He, who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian,
is less a Savage than the King of Britain.
Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining
jesuitical piece, fallaciously called, “THE ADDRESS OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND TO
THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA,” hath, perhaps, from a vain supposition, that the
people HERE were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given,
(though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one:
“But,” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an
administration, which we do not complain of,” (meaning the Marquis of
Rockingham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act) “it is very unfair in you to
withhold them from that prince, BY WHOSE NOD ALONE THEY WERE PERMITTED TO DO
ANY THING.” This is toryism with a witness! Here is idolatry even without a
mask: And he who can so calmly hear, and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited
his claim to rationality—an apostate from the order of manhood; and ought
to be considered—as one, who hath, not only given up the proper dignity
of a man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawls
through the world like a worm.
However, it matters very little now, what the king of
England either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and
human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a
steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself
an universal hatred. It is NOW the interest of America to provide for herself.
She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take
care of, than to be granting away her property, to support a power who is
become a reproach to the names of men and christians—YE, whose office it
is to watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye
are of, as well as ye, who, are more immediately the guardians of the public
liberty, if ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European
corruption, ye must in secret wish a separation—But leaving the moral
part to private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my farther remarks to the
following heads.
First, That it is the interest of America to be separated
from Britain.
Secondly, Which is the easiest and most practicable plan,
RECONCILIATION or INDEPENDANCE? with some occasional remarks.
In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper,
produce the opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this
continent; and whose sentiments, on that head, are not yet publicly known. It
is in reality a self-evident position: For no nation in a state of foreign
dependance, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its
legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not
yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath made stands
unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared
with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have,
the legislative powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly
coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the
Continent hesitating on a matter, which will be her final ruin if neglected. It
is the commerce and not the conquest of America, by which England is to be
benefited, and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as
independant of each other as France and Spain; because in many articles,
neither can go to a better market. But it is the independance of this country
of Britain or any other, which is now the main and only object worthy of
contention, and which, like all other truths discovered by necessity, will
appear clearer and stronger every day.
First, Because it will come to that one time or other.
Secondly, Because, the longer it is delayed the harder it
will be to accomplish.
I have frequently amused myself both in public and private
companies, with silently remarking, the specious errors of those who speak
without reflecting. And among the many which I have heard, the following seems
most general, viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence,
instead of NOW, the Continent would have been more able to have shaken off the
dependance. To which I reply, that our military ability AT THIS TIME, arises
from the experience gained in the last war, and which in forty or fifty years
time, would have been totally extinct. The Continent, would not, by that time,
have had a General, or even a military officer left; and we, or those who may
succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient
Indians: And this single position, closely attended to, will unanswerably
prove, that the present time is preferable to all others. The argument turns
thus—at the conclusion of the last war, we had experience, but wanted
numbers; and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers, without
experience; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some particular point
between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a
proper increase of the latter is obtained: And that point of time is the
present time.
The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not
properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I again return
by the following position, viz.
Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to
remain the governing and sovereign power of America, (which, as matters are now
circumstanced, is giving up the point intirely) we shall deprive ourselves of
the very means of sinking the debt we have, or may contract. The value of the
back lands which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the
unjust extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling
per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania
currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions
yearly.
It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be
sunk, without burthen to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always
lessen, and in time, will wholly support the yearly expence of government. It
matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be
applied to the discharge of it, and for the execution of which, the Congress
for the time being, will be the continental trustees.
I proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the
easiest and most practicable plan, RECONCILIATION or INDEPENDANCE; with some
occasional remarks.
He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out
of his argument, and on that ground, I answer GENERALLYUTHAT INDEPENDANCE BEING
A SINGLE SIMPLE LINE, CONTAINED WITHIN OURSELVES; AND RECONCILIATION, A MATTER
EXCEEDINGLY PERPLEXED AND COMPLICATED, AND IN WHICH, A TREACHEROUS CAPRICIOUS
COURT IS TO INTERFERE, GIVES THE ANSWER WITHOUT A DOUBT.
The present state of America is truly alarming to every
man who is capable of reflexion. Without law, without government, without any
other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy. Held
together by an unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which, is nevertheless
subject to change, and which, every secret enemy is endeavouring to dissolve.
Our present condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan;
constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance
contending for dependance. The instance is without a precedent; the case never
existed before; and who can tell what may be the event? The property of no man
is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of the multitude
is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before them, they pursue such as
fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal; there is no such thing as
treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases.
The Tories dared not have assembled offensively, had they known that their
lives, by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of
distinction should be drawn, between, English soldiers taken in battle, and
inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter
traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head.
Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness
in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissentions. The
Continental Belt is too loosely buckled. And if something is not done in time,
it will be too late to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which,
neither RECONCILIATION nor INDEPENDANCE will be practicable. The king and his
worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and
there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy spreading specious
falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few months ago
in two of the New York papers, and likewise in two others, is an evidence that
there are men who want either judgment or honesty.
It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of
reconciliation: But do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is,
and how dangerous it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon. Do they
take within their view, all the various orders of men whose situation and
circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein. Do they put
themselves in the place of the sufferer whose ALL is ALREADY gone, and of the
soldier, who hath quitted ALL for the defence of his country. If their ill
judged moderation be suited to their own private situations ONLY, regardless of
others, the event will convince them, that “they are reckoning without their
Host.”
Put us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three:
To which I answer, the request is not NOW in the power of Britain to comply
with, neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted,
I ask, as a reasonable question, By what means is such a corrupt and faithless
court to be kept to its engagements? Another parliament, nay, even the present,
may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence, of its being violently
obtained, or unwisely granted; and in that case, Where is our redress?--No
going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of Crowns; and the sword,
not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the footing of
sixty-three, it is not sufficient, that the laws only be put on the same state,
but, that our circumstances, likewise, be put on the same state; Our burnt and
destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made good, our public
debts (contracted for defence) discharged; otherwise, we shall be millions
worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been
complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the
Continent—but now it is too late, “The Rubicon is passed.”
Besides, the taking up arms, merely to enforce the repeal
of a pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable by the divine law, and as repugnant
to human feelings, as the taking up arms to enforce obedience thereto. The
object, on either side, doth not justify the means; for the lives of men are
too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done
and threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed
force; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously
qualifies the use of arms: And the instant, in which such a mode of defence
became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased; and the
independancy of America, should have been considered, as dating its era from,
and published by, THE FIRST MUSKET THAT WAS FIRED AGAINST HER. This line is a
line of consistency; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition; but
produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not the authors.
I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely
and well intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different
ways, by which an independancy may hereafter be effected; and that ONE of those
THREE, will one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice
of the people in Congress; by a military power; or by a mob: It may not always
happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men;
virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual.
Should an independancy be brought about by the first of those means, we have
every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest
constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the
world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since
the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race
of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their
portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The Reflexion is
awful—and in this point of view, How trifling, how ridiculous, do the
little, paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed
against the business of a world.
Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting
period, and an Independance be hereafter effected by any other means, we must
charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and
prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring
or reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of Independance, which
men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not
now to be debating whether we shall be independant or not, but, anxious to
accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather that it
is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the Tories
(if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most solicitous
to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first, protected them
from popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of government, will be
the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. WHEREFORE, if they have
not virtue enough to be WHIGS, they ought to have prudence enough to wish for
Independance.
In short, Independance is the only BOND that can tye and
keep us together. We shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally
shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well, as a cruel enemy. We shall
then too, be on a proper footing, to treat with Britain; for there is reason to
conclude, that the pride of that court, will be less hurt by treating with the
American states for terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates,
“rebellious subjects,” for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that
encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong
the war. As we have, without any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to
obtain a redress of our grievances, let us NOW try the alternative, by
INDEPENDANTLY redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade.
The mercantile and reasonable part in England, will be still with us; because,
peace WITH trade, is preferable to war WITHOUT it. And if this offer be not
accepted, other courts may be applied to.
On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath
yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this
pamphlet, it is a negative proof, that either the doctrine cannot be refuted,
or, that the party in favour of it are too numerous to be opposed. WHEREFORE,
instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each
of us, hold out to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in
drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness
every former dissention. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let
none other be heard among us, than those of A GOOD CITIZEN, AN OPEN AND
RESOLUTE FRIEND, AND A VIRTUOUS SUPPORTER OF THE RIGHTS OF MANKIND AND OF THE
FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.
I. Dedication to George Washington
II. Preface to the English Edition
III. Preface to the French Edition
PART THE FIRST: BEING AN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE’S ATTACK ON
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
PART THE SECOND: COMBINING PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE
I. Preface
III. Chapter I: Of Society and Civilisation
IV. Of the Origin of the Present Old Governments
V. Of the Old and New Systems of Government
VII. Ways and Means of Improving the Condition of Europe
RIGHTS OF MAN: BEING AN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE’S ATTACK ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
George Washington
President Of The United States Of America
Sir,
I present you a small treatise in defence of those principles
of freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so eminently contributed to
establish. That the Rights of Man may become as universal as your benevolence
can wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the New World
regenerate the Old, is the prayer of
Sir,
Your much obliged, and
Obedient humble Servant,
Thomas Paine
From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution,
it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our
acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me
to have had cause to continue in that opinion than to change it.
At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter
in the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National
Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a short time before to
inform him how prosperously matters were going on. Soon after this I saw his
advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to publish: As the attack was to be
made in a language but little studied, and less understood in France, and as
everything suffers by translation, I promised some of the friends of the
Revolution in that country that whenever Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet came forth, I
would answer it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw
the flagrant misrepresentations which Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet contains; and that
while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution, and the principles of
Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the world.
I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct
in Mr. Burke, as (from the circumstances I am going to mention) I had formed
other expectations.
I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might
never more have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found
out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the
neighbourhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were disposed
to set honesty about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be made
the dupes of Courts. The people of America had been bred up in the same
prejudices against France, which at that time characterised the people of
England; but experience and an acquaintance with the French Nation have most
effectually shown to the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do
not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any
two countries than between America and France.
When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the
Archbishop of Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I
became much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of an
enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly
agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched impolicy of two
nations, like England and France, continually worrying each other, to no other
end than that of a mutual increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be
assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our
opinions into writing and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I
should see among the people of England, any disposition to cultivate a better
understanding between the two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I
might be authorised to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of
France? He answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not
for himself only, but for the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was
declared to be written.
I put this letter into the, hands of Mr. Burke almost
three years ago, and left it with him, where it still remains; hoping, and at
the same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of him,
that he would find some opportunity of making good use of it, for the purpose
of removing those errors and prejudices which two neighbouring nations, from
the want of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.
When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly
afforded to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed
to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away,
than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were
afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in
all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of
Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the
government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate
prejudices between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.
With respect to a paragraph in this work alluding to Mr.
Burke’s having a pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at
least two months; and as a person is often the last to hear what concerns him
the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke may have an opportunity
of contradicting the rumour, if he thinks proper.
Thomas Paine
The astonishment which the French Revolution has caused
throughout Europe should be considered from two different points of view: first
as it affects foreign peoples, secondly as it affects their governments.
The cause of the French people is that of all Europe, or
rather of the whole world; but the governments of all those countries are by no
means favorable to it. It is important that we should never lose sight of this
distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments; especially
not the English people with its government.
The government of England is no friend of the revolution
of France. Of this we have sufficient proofs in the thanks given by that weak
and witless person, the Elector of Hanover, sometimes called the King of
England, to Mr. Burke for the insults heaped on it in his book, and in the
malevolent comments of the English Minister, Pitt, in his speeches in
Parliament.
In spite of the professions of sincerest friendship found
in the official correspondence of the English government with that of France,
its conduct gives the lie to all its declarations, and shows us clearly that it
is not a court to be trusted, but an insane court, plunging in all the quarrels
and intrigues of Europe, in quest of a war to satisfy its folly and countenance
its extravagance.
The English nation, on the contrary, is very favorably
disposed towards the French Revolution, and to the progress of liberty in the
whole world; and this feeling will become more general in England as the
intrigues and artifices of its government are better known, and the principles
of the revolution better understood. The French should know that most English
newspapers are directly in the pay of government, or, if indirectly connected
with it, always under its orders; and that those papers constantly distort and
attack the revolution in France in order to deceive the nation. But, as it is
impossible long to prevent the prevalence of truth, the daily falsehoods of
those papers no longer have the desired effect.
To be convinced that the voice of truth has been stifled
in England, the world needs only to be told that the government regards and
prosecutes as a libel that which it should protect.*[1] This outrage on
morality is called law, and judges are found wicked enough to inflict penalties
on truth.
The English government presents, just now, a curious
phenomenon. Seeing that the French and English nations are getting rid of the
prejudices and false notions formerly entertained against each other, and which
have cost them so much money, that government seems to be placarding its need
of a foe; for unless it finds one somewhere, no pretext exists for the enormous
revenue and taxation now deemed necessary.
Therefore it seeks in Russia the enemy it has lost in
France, and appears to say to the universe, or to say to itself. “If nobody
will be so kind as to become my foe, I shall need no more fleets nor armies,
and shall be forced to reduce my taxes. The American war enabled me to double
the taxes; the Dutch business to add more; the Nootka humbug gave me a pretext
for raising three millions sterling more; but unless I can make an enemy of
Russia the harvest from wars will end. I was the first to incite Turk against
Russian, and now I hope to reap a fresh crop of taxes.”
If the miseries of war, and the flood of evils it spreads
over a country, did not check all inclination to mirth, and turn laughter into
grief, the frantic conduct of the government of England would only excite
ridicule. But it is impossible to banish from one’s mind the images of
suffering which the contemplation of such vicious policy presents. To reason
with governments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is
only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected. There ought not
now to exist any doubt that the peoples of France, England, and America,
enlightened and enlightening each other, shall henceforth be able, not merely
to give the world an example of good government, but by their united influence
enforce its practice.
(Translated from the French)
Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals
provoke and irritate each other, Mr. Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution
is an extraordinary instance. Neither the People of France, nor the National
Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the
English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke should commence an unprovoked attack
upon them, both in Parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be
pardoned on the score of manners, nor justified on that of policy.
There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the
English language, with which Mr. Burke has not loaded the French Nation and the
National Assembly. Everything which rancour, prejudice, ignorance or knowledge
could suggest, is poured forth in the copious fury of near four hundred pages.
In the strain and on the plan Mr. Burke was writing, he might have written on
to as many thousands. When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of
passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.
Hitherto Mr. Burke has been mistaken and disappointed in
the opinions he had formed of the affairs of France; but such is the ingenuity
of his hope, or the malignancy of his despair, that it furnishes him with new
pretences to go on. There was a time when it was impossible to make Mr. Burke
believe there would be any Revolution in France. His opinion then was, that the
French had neither spirit to undertake it nor fortitude to support it; and now
that there is one, he seeks an escape by condemning it.
Not sufficiently content with abusing the National
Assembly, a great part of his work is taken up with abusing Dr. Price (one of
the best-hearted men that lives) and the two societies in England known by the
name of the Revolution Society and the Society for Constitutional Information.
Dr. Price had preached a sermon on the 4th of
November, 1789, being the anniversary of what is called in England the
Revolution, which took place 1688. Mr. Burke, speaking of this sermon, says: “The
political Divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, that by the principles of the
Revolution, the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights:
1. To choose our own governors.
2. To cashier them for misconduct.
3. To frame a government for ourselves.
Dr. Price does not say that the right to do these things
exists in this or in that person, or in this or in that description of persons,
but that it exists in the whole; that it is a right resident in the nation. Mr.
Burke, on the contrary, denies that such a right exists in the nation, either
in whole or in part, or that it exists anywhere; and, what is still more
strange and marvellous, he says: “that the people of England utterly disclaim
such a right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with
their lives and fortunes.” That men should take up arms and spend their lives
and fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not
rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical
genius of Mr. Burke.
The method which Mr. Burke takes to prove that the people
of England have no such rights, and that such rights do not now exist in the
nation, either in whole or in part, or anywhere at all, is of the same
marvellous and monstrous kind with what he has already said; for his arguments
are that the persons, or the generation of persons, in whom they did exist, are
dead, and with them the right is dead also. To prove this, he quotes a
declaration made by Parliament about a hundred years ago, to William and Mary,
in these words: “The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name
of the people aforesaid” (meaning the people of England then living) “most
humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities, for Ever.”
He quotes a clause of another Act of Parliament made in the same reign, the
terms of which he says, “bind us” (meaning the people of their day), “our heirs
and our posterity, to them, their heirs and posterity, to the end of time.”
Mr. Burke conceives his point sufficiently established by
producing those clauses, which he enforces by saying that they exclude the
right of the nation for ever. And not yet content with making such
declarations, repeated over and over again, he farther says, “that if the
people of England possessed such a right before the Revolution” (which he
acknowledges to have been the case, not only in England, but throughout Europe,
at an early period), “yet that the English Nation did, at the time of the
Revolution, most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all
their posterity, for ever.”
As Mr. Burke occasionally applies the poison drawn from
his horrid principles, not only to the English nation, but to the French
Revolution and the National Assembly, and charges that august, illuminated and
illuminating body of men with the epithet of usurpers, I shall, sans ceremonie,
place another system of principles in opposition to his.
The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which,
for themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do, and which it
appeared right should be done. But, in addition to this right, which they
possessed by delegation, they set up another right by assumption, that of
binding and controlling posterity to the end of time. The case, therefore,
divides itself into two parts; the right which they possessed by delegation,
and the right which they set up by assumption. The first is admitted; but with
respect to the second, I replyThere never did, there never will, and there
never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of
men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and
controlling posterity to the “end of time,” or of commanding for ever how the
world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such
clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what
they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are
in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act
for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The
vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and
insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any
generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The Parliament or
the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the
people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever,
than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind
or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every
generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions
require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When
man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer
any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority
in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be
organised, or how administered.
I am not contending for nor against any form of
government, nor for nor against any party, here or elsewhere. That which a
whole nation chooses to do it has a right to do. Mr. Burke says, No. Where,
then, does the right exist? I am contending for the rights of the living, and
against their being willed away and controlled and contracted for by the
manuscript assumed authority of the dead, and Mr. Burke is contending for the
authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living. There was a
time when kings disposed of their crowns by will upon their death-beds, and
consigned the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they
appointed. This is now so exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and so
monstrous as hardly to be believed. But the Parliamentary clauses upon which
Mr. Burke builds his political church are of the same nature.
The laws of every country must be analogous to some common
principle. In England no parent or master, nor all the authority of Parliament,
omnipotent as it has called itself, can bind or control the personal freedom
even of an individual beyond the age of twenty-one years. On what ground of
right, then, could the Parliament of 1688, or any other Parliament, bind all
posterity for ever?
Those who have quitted the world, and those who have not
yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of
mortal imagination can conceive. What possible obligation, then, can exist
between them- what rule or principle can be laid down that of two nonentities,
the one out of existence and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world,
the one should control the other to the end of time?
In England it is said that money cannot be taken out of
the pockets of the people without their consent. But who authorised, or who
could authorise, the Parliament of 1688 to control and take away the freedom of
posterity (who were not in existence to give or to withhold their consent) and
limit and confine their right of acting in certain cases for ever?
A greater absurdity cannot present itself to the
understanding of man than what Mr. Burke offers to his readers. He tells them,
and he tells the world to come, that a certain body of men who existed a
hundred years ago made a law, and that there does not exist in the nation, nor
ever will, nor ever can, a power to alter it. Under how many subtilties or
absurdities has the divine right to govern been imposed on the credulity of
mankind? Mr. Burke has discovered a new one, and he has shortened his journey
to Rome by appealing to the power of this infallible Parliament of former days,
and he produces what it has done as of divine authority, for that power must
certainly be more than human which no human power to the end of time can alter.
But Mr. Burke has done some service- not to his cause, but
to his country- by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to
demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted
encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess. It is somewhat
extraordinary that the offence for which James II. was expelled, that of
setting up power by assumption, should be re-acted, under another shape and
form, by the Parliament that expelled him. It shows that the Rights of Man were
but imperfectly understood at the Revolution, for certain it is that the right
which that Parliament set up by assumption (for by the delegation it had not,
and could not have it, because none could give it) over the persons and freedom
of posterity for ever was of the same tyrannical unfounded kind which James
attempted to set up over the Parliament and the nation, and for which he was
expelled. The only difference is (for in principle they differ not) that the
one was an usurper over living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one
has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be
equally null and void, and of no effect.
From what, or from whence, does Mr. Burke prove the right
of any human power to bind posterity for ever? He has produced his clauses, but
he must produce also his proofs that such a right existed, and show how it
existed. If it ever existed it must now exist, for whatever appertains to the
nature of man cannot be annihilated by man. It is the nature of man to die, and
he will continue to die as long as he continues to be born. But Mr. Burke has
set up a sort of political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever. He
must, therefore, prove that his Adam possessed such a power, or such a right.
The weaker any cord is, the less will it bear to be
stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to
break it. Had anyone proposed the overthrow of Mr. Burke’s positions, he would
have proceeded as Mr. Burke has done. He would have magnified the authorities,
on purpose to have called the right of them into question; and the instant the
question of right was started, the authorities must have been given up.
It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive
that although laws made in one generation often continue in force through
succeeding generations, yet they continue to derive their force from the
consent of the living. A law not repealed continues in force, not because it
cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing
passes for consent.
But Mr. Burke’s clauses have not even this qualification
in their favour. They become null, by attempting to become immortal. The nature
of them precludes consent. They destroy the right which they might have, by
grounding it on a right which they cannot have. Immortal power is not a human
right, and therefore cannot be a right of Parliament. The Parliament of 1688
might as well have passed an act to have authorised themselves to live for
ever, as to make their authority live for ever. All, therefore, that can be
said of those clauses is that they are a formality of words, of as much import
as if those who used them had addressed a congratulation to themselves, and in
the oriental style of antiquity had said: O Parliament, live for ever!
The circumstances of the world are continually changing,
and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and
not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which
may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be thought wrong and
found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living or
the dead?
As almost one hundred pages of Mr. Burke’s book are
employed upon these clauses, it will consequently follow that if the clauses
themselves, so far as they set up an assumed usurped dominion over posterity
for ever, are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and void; that all his
voluminous inferences, and declamation drawn therefrom, or founded thereon, are
null and void also; and on this ground I rest the matter.
We now come more particularly to the affairs of France.
Mr. Burke’s book has the appearance of being written as instruction to the
French nation; but if I may permit myself the use of an extravagant metaphor,
suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness attempting to illuminate
light.
While I am writing this there are accidentally before me
some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask
his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction’s sake)
to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before
the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how
opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their
principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to
prove that the rights of the living are lost, “renounced and abdicated for
ever,” by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette
applies to the living world, and emphatically says: “Call to mind the
sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which
take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:- For a nation to
love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is
sufficient that she wills it.” How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from
which Mr. Burke labors! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all
his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and
soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast
field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke’s
periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.
As I have introduced M. de la Fayette, I will take the
liberty of adding an anecdote respecting his farewell address to the Congress
of America in 1783, and which occurred fresh to my mind, when I saw Mr. Burke’s
thundering attack on the French Revolution. M. de la Fayette went to America at
the early period of the war, and continued a volunteer in her service to the
end. His conduct through the whole of that enterprise is one of the most
extraordinary that is to be found in the history of a young man, scarcely
twenty years of age. Situated in a country that was like the lap of sensual
pleasure, and with the means of enjoying it, how few are there to be found who
would exchange such a scene for the woods and wildernesses of America, and pass
the flowery years of youth in unprofitable danger and hardship! but such is the
fact. When the war ended, and he was on the point of taking his final
departure, he presented himself to Congress, and contemplating in his
affectionate farewell the Revolution he had seen, expressed himself in these
words: “May this great monument raised to liberty serve as a lesson to the
oppressor, and an example to the oppressed!” When this address came to the
hands of Dr. Franklin, who was then in France, he applied to Count Vergennes to
have it inserted in the French Gazette, but never could obtain his consent. The
fact was that Count Vergennes was an aristocratical despot at home, and dreaded
the example of the American Revolution in France, as certain other persons now
dread the example of the French Revolution in England, and Mr. Burke’s tribute
of fear (for in this light his book must be considered) runs parallel with
Count Vergennes’ refusal. But to return more particularly to his work.
“We have seen,” says Mr. Burke, “the French rebel against
a mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any people
has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary
tyrant.” This is one among a thousand other instances, in which Mr. Burke shows
that he is ignorant of the springs and principles of the French Revolution.
It was not against Louis XVI. but against the despotic
principles of the Government, that the nation revolted. These principles had
not their origin in him, but in the original establishment, many centuries
back: and they were become too deeply rooted to be removed, and the Augean
stables of parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleansed by
anything short of a complete and universal Revolution. When it becomes
necessary to do anything, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure,
or not attempt it. That crisis was then arrived, and there remained no choice
but to act with determined vigor, or not to act at all. The king was known to
be the friend of the nation, and this circumstance was favorable to the
enterprise. Perhaps no man bred up in the style of an absolute king, ever
possessed a heart so little disposed to the exercise of that species of power
as the present King of France. But the principles of the Government itself
still remained the same. The Monarch and the Monarchy were distinct and
separate things; and it was against the established despotism of the latter,
and not against the person or principles of the former, that the revolt
commenced, and the Revolution has been carried.
Mr. Burke does not attend to the distinction between men
and principles, and, therefore, he does not see that a revolt may take place
against the despotism of the latter, while there lies no charge of despotism
against the former.
The natural moderation of Louis XVI. contributed nothing
to alter the hereditary despotism of the monarchy. All the tyrannies of former
reigns, acted under that hereditary despotism, were still liable to be revived
in the hands of a successor. It was not the respite of a reign that would
satisfy France, enlightened as she was then become. A casual discontinuance of
the practice of despotism, is not a discontinuance of its principles: the
former depends on the virtue of the individual who is in immediate possession
of the power; the latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation. In the
case of Charles I. and James II. of England, the revolt was against the
personal despotism of the men; whereas in France, it was against the hereditary
despotism of the established Government. But men who can consign over the
rights of posterity for ever on the authority of a mouldy parchment, like Mr.
Burke, are not qualified to judge of this Revolution. It takes in a field too
vast for their views to explore, and proceeds with a mightiness of reason they
cannot keep pace with.
But there are many points of view in which this Revolution
may be considered. When despotism has established itself for ages in a country,
as in France, it is not in the person of the king only that it resides. It has
the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so
in practice and in fact. It has its standard everywhere. Every office and
department has its despotism, founded upon custom and usage. Every place has
its Bastille, and every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism
resident in the person of the king, divides and sub-divides itself into a
thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation.
This was the case in France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding
on through an endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely
perceptible, there is no mode of redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the
appearance of duty, and tyrannies under the pretence of obeying.
When a man reflects on the condition which France was in
from the nature of her government, he will see other causes for revolt than
those which immediately connect themselves with the person or character of
Louis XVI. There were, if I may so express it, a thousand despotisms to be
reformed in France, which had grown up under the hereditary despotism of the
monarchy, and became so rooted as to be in a great measure independent of it.
Between the Monarchy, the Parliament, and the Church there was a rivalship of
despotism; besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial
despotism operating everywhere. But Mr. Burke, by considering the king as the
only possible object of a revolt, speaks as if France was a village, in which
everything that passed must be known to its commanding officer, and no
oppression could be acted but what he could immediately control. Mr. Burke
might have been in the Bastille his whole life, as well under Louis XVI. as
Louis XIV., and neither the one nor the other have known that such a man as
Burke existed. The despotic principles of the government were the same in both
reigns, though the dispositions of the men were as remote as tyranny and
benevolence.
What Mr. Burke considers as a reproach to the French
Revolution (that of bringing it forward under a reign more mild than the
preceding ones) is one of its highest honors. The Revolutions that have taken
place in other European countries, have been excited by personal hatred. The
rage was against the man, and he became the victim. But, in the instance of
France we see a Revolution generated in the rational contemplation of the
Rights of Man, and distinguishing from the beginning between persons and
principles.
But Mr. Burke appears to have no idea of principles when
he is contemplating Governments. “Ten years ago,” says he, “I could have
felicitated France on her having a Government, without inquiring what the
nature of that Government was, or how it was administered.” Is this the
language of a rational man? Is it the language of a heart feeling as it ought
to feel for the rights and happiness of the human race? On this ground, Mr.
Burke must compliment all the Governments in the world, while the victims who
suffer under them, whether sold into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are
wholly forgotten. It is power, and not principles, that Mr. Burke venerates;
and under this abominable depravity he is disqualified to judge between them.
Thus much for his opinion as to the occasions of the French Revolution. I now
proceed to other considerations.
I know a place in America called Point-no-Point, because
as you proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr. Burke’s language, it
continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you; but when you
have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all. Just thus it is with
Mr. Burke’s three hundred and sixty-six pages. It is therefore difficult to
reply to him. But as the points he wishes to establish may be inferred from
what he abuses, it is in his paradoxes that we must look for his arguments.
As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged
his own imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very
well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for
the sake of show, and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of
sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke should recollect that he is writing
history, and not plays, and that his readers will expect truth, and not the
spouting rant of high-toned exclamation.
When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication
intended to be believed that “The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of
Europe is extinguished for ever! that The unbought grace of life (if anyone
knows what it is), the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment
and heroic enterprise is gone!” and all this because the Quixot age of chivalry
nonsense is gone, what opinion can we form of his judgment, or what regard can
we pay to his facts? In the rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a
world of wind mills, and his sorrows are that there are no Quixots to attack
them. But if the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should fall (and
they had originally some connection) Mr. Burke, the trumpeter of the Order, may
continue his parody to the end, and finish with exclaiming: “Othello’s
occupation’s gone!”
Notwithstanding Mr. Burke’s horrid paintings, when the
French Revolution is compared with the Revolutions of other countries, the
astonishment will be that it is marked with so few sacrifices; but this
astonishment will cease when we reflect that principles, and not persons, were
the meditated objects of destruction. The mind of the nation was acted upon by
a higher stimulus than what the consideration of persons could inspire, and
sought a higher conquest than could be produced by the downfall of an enemy.
Among the few who fell there do not appear to be any that were intentionally
singled out. They all of them had their fate in the circumstances of the
moment, and were not pursued with that long, cold-blooded unabated revenge
which pursued the unfortunate Scotch in the affair of 1745.
Through the whole of Mr. Burke’s book I do not observe
that the Bastille is mentioned more than once, and that with a kind of
implication as if he were sorry it was pulled down, and wished it were built up
again. “We have rebuilt Newgate,” says he, “and tenanted the mansion; and we
have prisons almost as strong as the Bastille for those who dare to libel the
queens of France.”*[2] As to what a madman like the person called Lord George
Gordon might say, and to whom Newgate is rather a bedlam than a prison, it is
unworthy a rational consideration. It was a madman that libelled, and that is
sufficient apology; and it afforded an opportunity for confining him, which was
the thing that was wished for. But certain it is that Mr. Burke, who does not
call himself a madman (whatever other people may do), has libelled in the most
unprovoked manner, and in the grossest style of the most vulgar abuse, the
whole representative authority of France, and yet Mr. Burke takes his seat in
the British House of Commons! From his violence and his grief, his silence on some
points and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr. Burke
is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of the Pope and the
Bastille, are pulled down.
Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating
reflection that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who
lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most
miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to
corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is
not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy
resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets
the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined
him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine
soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim
expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in
the silence of a dungeon.
As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the
Bastille (and his silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his
readers with refections on supposed facts distorted into real falsehoods, I
will give, since he has not, some account of the circumstances which preceded
that transaction. They will serve to show that less mischief could scarcely
have accompanied such an event when considered with the treacherous and hostile
aggravations of the enemies of the Revolution.
The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous
scene than what the city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille,
and for two days before and after, nor perceive the possibility of its quieting
so soon. At a distance this transaction has appeared only as an act of heroism
standing on itself, and the close political connection it had with the
Revolution is lost in the brilliancy of the achievement. But we are to consider
it as the strength of the parties brought man to man, and contending for the
issue. The Bastille was to be either the prize or the prison of the assailants.
The downfall of it included the idea of the downfall of despotism, and this
compounded image was become as figuratively united as Bunyan’s Doubting Castle
and Giant Despair.
The National Assembly, before and at the time of taking
the Bastille, was sitting at Versailles, twelve miles distant from Paris. About
a week before the rising of the Partisans, and their taking the Bastille, it
was discovered that a plot was forming, at the head of which was the Count D’Artois,
the king’s youngest brother, for demolishing the National Assembly, seizing its
members, and thereby crushing, by a coup de main, all hopes and prospects of
forming a free government. For the sake of humanity, as well as freedom, it is
well this plan did not succeed. Examples are. not wanting to show how
dreadfully vindictive and cruel are all old governments, when they are
successful against what they call a revolt.
This plan must have been some time in contemplation;
because, in order to carry it into execution, it was necessary to collect a
large military force round Paris, and cut off the communication between that
city and the National Assembly at Versailles. The troops destined for this
service were chiefly the foreign troops in the pay of France, and who, for this
particular purpose, were drawn from the distant provinces where they were then
stationed. When they were collected to the amount of between twenty-five and
thirty thousand, it was judged time to put the plan into execution. The
ministry who were then in office, and who were friendly to the Revolution, were
instantly dismissed and a new ministry formed of those who had concerted the
project, among whom was Count de Broglio, and to his share was given the
command of those troops. The character of this man as described to me in a
letter which I communicated to Mr. Burke before he began to write his book, and
from an authority which Mr. Burke well knows was good, was that of “a
high-flying aristocrat, cool, and capable of every mischief.”
While these matters were agitating, the National Assembly
stood in the most perilous and critical situation that a body of men can be
supposed to act in. They were the devoted victims, and they knew it. They had
the hearts and wishes of their country on their side, but military authority
they had none. The guards of Broglio surrounded the hall where the Assembly
sat, ready, at the word of command, to seize their persons, as had been done
the year before to the Parliament of Paris. Had the National Assembly deserted
their trust, or had they exhibited signs of weakness or fear, their enemies had
been encouraged and their country depressed. When the situation they stood in,
the cause they were engaged in, and the crisis then ready to burst, which
should determine their personal and political fate and that of their country,
and probably of Europe, are taken into one view, none but a heart callous with
prejudice or corrupted by dependence can avoid interesting itself in their success.
The Archbishop of Vienne was at this time President of the
National Assembly- a person too old to undergo the scene that a few days or a
few hours might bring forth. A man of more activity and bolder fortitude was
necessary, and the National Assembly chose (under the form of a Vice-President,
for the Presidency still resided in the Archbishop) M. de la Fayette; and this
is the only instance of a Vice-President being chosen. It was at the moment
that this storm was pending (July 11th) that a declaration of rights
was brought forward by M. de la Fayette, and is the same which is alluded to
earlier. It was hastily drawn up, and makes only a part of the more extensive
declaration of rights agreed upon and adopted afterwards by the National
Assembly. The particular reason for bringing it forward at this moment (M. de
la Fayette has since informed me) was that, if the National Assembly should
fall in the threatened destruction that then surrounded it, some trace of its
principles might have the chance of surviving the wreck.
Everything now was drawing to a crisis. The event was
freedom or slavery. On one side, an army of nearly thirty thousand men; on the
other, an unarmed body of citizens- for the citizens of Paris, on whom the
National Assembly must then immediately depend, were as unarmed and as
undisciplined as the citizens of London are now. The French guards had given
strong symptoms of their being attached to the national cause; but their
numbers were small, not a tenth part of the force that Broglio commanded, and
their officers were in the interest of Broglio.
Matters being now ripe for execution, the new ministry
made their appearance in office. The reader will carry in his mind that the
Bastille was taken the 14th July; the point of time I am now speaking
of is the 12th. Immediately on the news of the change of ministry
reaching Paris, in the afternoon, all the playhouses and places of
entertainment, shops and houses, were shut up. The change of ministry was
considered as the prelude of hostilities, and the opinion was rightly founded.
The foreign troops began to advance towards the city. The
Prince de Lambesc, who commanded a body of German cavalry, approached by the
Place of Louis Xv., which connects itself with some of the streets. In his
march, he insulted and struck an old man with a sword. The French are
remarkable for their respect to old age; and the insolence with which it
appeared to be done, uniting with the general fermentation they were in,
produced a powerful effect, and a cry of “To arms! to arms!” spread itself in a
moment over the city.
Arms they had none, nor scarcely anyone who knew the use
of them; but desperate resolution, when every hope is at stake, supplies, for a
while, the want of arms. Near where the Prince de Lambesc was drawn up, were
large piles of stones collected for building the new bridge, and with these the
people attacked the cavalry. A party of French guards upon hearing the firing,
rushed from their quarters and joined the people; and night coming on, the
cavalry retreated.
The streets of Paris, being narrow, are favourable for
defence, and the loftiness of the houses, consisting of many stories, from
which great annoyance might be given, secured them against nocturnal
enterprises; and the night was spent in providing themselves with every sort of
weapon they could make or procure: guns, swords, blacksmiths’ hammers,
carpenters’ axes, iron crows, pikes, halberts, pitchforks, spits, clubs, etc.,
etc. The incredible numbers in which they assembled the next morning, and the
still more incredible resolution they exhibited, embarrassed and astonished
their enemies. Little did the new ministry expect such a salute. Accustomed to
slavery themselves, they had no idea that liberty was capable of such
inspiration, or that a body of unarmed citizens would dare to face the military
force of thirty thousand men. Every moment of this day was employed in
collecting arms, concerting plans, and arranging themselves into the best order
which such an instantaneous movement could afford. Broglio continued lying
round the city, but made no further advances this day, and the succeeding night
passed with as much tranquility as such a scene could possibly produce.
But defence only was not the object of the citizens. They
had a cause at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery. They
every moment expected an attack, or to hear of one made on the National
Assembly; and in such a situation, the most prompt measures are sometimes the
best. The object that now presented itself was the Bastille; and the eclat of
carrying such a fortress in the face of such an army, could not fail to strike
terror into the new ministry, who had scarcely yet had time to meet. By some
intercepted correspondence this morning, it was discovered that the Mayor of Paris,
M. Defflesselles, who appeared to be in the interest of the citizens, was
betraying them; and from this discovery, there remained no doubt that Broglio
would reinforce the Bastille the ensuing evening. It was therefore necessary to
attack it that day; but before this could be done, it was first necessary to
procure a better supply of arms than they were then possessed of.
There was, adjoining to the city a large magazine of arms
deposited at the Hospital of the Invalids, which the citizens summoned to
surrender; and as the place was neither defensible, nor attempted much defence,
they soon succeeded. Thus supplied, they marched to attack the Bastille; a vast
mixed multitude of all ages, and of all degrees, armed with all sorts of
weapons. Imagination would fail in describing to itself the appearance of such
a procession, and of the anxiety of the events which a few hours or a few
minutes might produce. What plans the ministry were forming, were as unknown to
the people within the city, as what the citizens were doing was unknown to the
ministry; and what movements Broglio might make for the support or relief of
the place, were to the citizens equally as unknown. All was mystery and hazard.
That the Bastille was attacked with an enthusiasm of
heroism, such only as the highest animation of liberty could inspire, and
carried in the space of a few hours, is an event which the world is fully
possessed of. I am not undertaking the detail of the attack, but bringing into
view the conspiracy against the nation which provoked it, and which fell with
the Bastille. The prison to which the new ministry were dooming the National
Assembly, in addition to its being the high altar and castle of despotism,
became the proper object to begin with. This enterprise broke up the new
ministry, who began now to fly from the ruin they had prepared for others. The
troops of Broglio dispersed, and himself fled also.
Mr. Burke has spoken a great deal about plots, but he has
never once spoken of this plot against the National Assembly, and the liberties
of the nation; and that he might not, he has passed over all the circumstances
that might throw it in his way. The exiles who have fled from France, whose
case he so much interests himself in, and from whom he has had his lesson, fled
in consequence of the miscarriage of this plot. No plot was formed against
them; they were plotting against others; and those who fell, met, not unjustly,
the punishment they were preparing to execute. But will Mr. Burke say that if
this plot, contrived with the subtilty of an ambuscade, had succeeded, the
successful party would have restrained their wrath so soon? Let the history of
all governments answer the question.
Whom has the National Assembly brought to the scaffold?
None. They were themselves the devoted victims of this plot, and they have not
retaliated; why, then, are they charged with revenge they have not acted? In
the tremendous breaking forth of a whole people, in which all degrees, tempers
and characters are confounded, delivering themselves, by a miracle of exertion,
from the destruction meditated against them, is it to be expected that nothing
will happen? When men are sore with the sense of oppressions, and menaced with
the prospects of new ones, is the calmness of philosophy or the palsy of
insensibility to be looked for? Mr. Burke exclaims against outrage; yet the
greatest is that which himself has committed. His book is a volume of outrage,
not apologised for by the impulse of a moment, but cherished through a space of
ten months; yet Mr. Burke had no provocation- no life, no interest, at stake.
More of the citizens fell in this struggle than of their
opponents: but four or five persons were seized by the populace, and instantly
put to death; the Governor of the Bastille, and the Mayor of Paris, who was
detected in the act of betraying them; and afterwards Foulon, one of the new
ministry, and Berthier, his son-in-law, who had accepted the office of
intendant of Paris. Their heads were stuck upon spikes, and carried about the
city; and it is upon this mode of punishment that Mr. Burke builds a great part
of his tragic scene. Let us therefore examine how men came by the idea of
punishing in this manner.
They learn it from the governments they live under; and
retaliate the punishments they have been accustomed to behold. The heads stuck
upon spikes, which remained for years upon Temple Bar, differed nothing in the
horror of the scene from those carried about upon spikes at Paris; yet this was
done by the English Government. It may perhaps be said that it signifies
nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead; but it signifies much to
the living; it either tortures their feelings or hardens their hearts, and in
either case it instructs them how to punish when power falls into their hands.
Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments
humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. In England
the punishment in certain cases is by hanging, drawing and quartering; the
heart of the sufferer is cut out and held up to the view of the populace. In
France, under the former Government, the punishments were not less barbarous.
Who does not remember the execution of Damien, torn to pieces by horses? The
effect of those cruel spectacles exhibited to the populace is to destroy tenderness
or excite revenge; and by the base and false idea of governing men by terror,
instead of reason, they become precedents. It is over the lowest class of
mankind that government by terror is intended to operate, and it is on them
that it operates to the worst effect. They have sense enough to feel they are
the objects aimed at; and they inflict in their turn the examples of terror
they have been instructed to practise.
There is in all European countries a large class of people
of that description, which in England is called the “mob.” Of this class were
those who committed the burnings and devastations in London in 1780, and of
this class were those who carried the heads on iron spikes in Paris. Foulon and
Berthier were taken up in the country, and sent to Paris, to undergo their
examination at the Hotel de Ville; for the National Assembly, immediately on
the new ministry coming into office, passed a decree, which they communicated
to the King and Cabinet, that they (the National Assembly) would hold the
ministry, of which Foulon was one, responsible for the measures they were
advising and pursuing; but the mob, incensed at the appearance of Foulon and
Berthier, tore them from their conductors before they were carried to the Hotel
de Ville, and executed them on the spot. Why then does Mr. Burke charge
outrages of this kind on a whole people? As well may he charge the riots and
outrages of 1780 on all the people of London, or those in Ireland on all his
countrymen.
But everything we see or hear offensive to our feelings
and derogatory to the human character should lead to other reflections than
those of reproach. Even the beings who commit them have some claim to our
consideration. How then is it that such vast classes of mankind as are
distinguished by the appellation of the vulgar, or the ignorant mob, are so
numerous in all old countries? The instant we ask ourselves this question,
reflection feels an answer. They rise, as an unavoidable consequence, out of
the ill construction of all old governments in Europe, England included with
the rest. It is by distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly
debased, till the whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly
thrown into the back-ground of the human picture, to bring forward, with
greater glare, the puppet-show of state and aristocracy. In the commencement of
a revolution, those men are rather the followers of the camp than of the
standard of liberty, and have yet to be instructed how to reverence it.
I give to Mr. Burke all his theatrical exaggerations for
facts, and I then ask him if they do not establish the certainty of what I here
lay down? Admitting them to be true, they show the necessity of the French
Revolution, as much as any one thing he could have asserted. These outrages
were not the effect of the principles of the Revolution, but of the degraded
mind that existed before the Revolution, and which the Revolution is calculated
to reform. Place them then to their proper cause, and take the reproach of them
to your own side.
It is the honour of the National Assembly and the city of
Paris that, during such a tremendous scene of arms and confusion, beyond the
control of all authority, they have been able, by the influence of example and
exhortation, to restrain so much. Never were more pains taken to instruct and
enlighten mankind, and to make them see that their interest consisted in their
virtue, and not in their revenge, than have been displayed in the Revolution of
France. I now proceed to make some remarks on Mr. Burke’s account of the
expedition to Versailles, October the 5th and 6th.
I can consider Mr. Burke’s book in scarcely any other
light than a dramatic performance; and he must, I think, have considered it in
the same light himself, by the poetical liberties he has taken of omitting some
facts, distorting others, and making the whole machinery bend to produce a
stage effect. Of this kind is his account of the expedition to Versailles. He
begins this account by omitting the only facts which as causes are known to be
true; everything beyond these is conjecture, even in Paris; and he then works
up a tale accommodated to his own passions and prejudices.
It is to be observed throughout Mr. Burke’s book that he
never speaks of plots against the Revolution; and it is from those plots that
all the mischiefs have arisen. It suits his purpose to exhibit the consequences
without their causes. It is one of the arts of the drama to do so. If the
crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings, stage effect would
sometimes be lost, and the audience would be inclined to approve where it was
intended they should commiserate.
After all the investigations that have been made into this
intricate affair (the expedition to Versailles), it still remains enveloped in
all that kind of mystery which ever accompanies events produced more from a
concurrence of awkward circumstances than from fixed design. While the
characters of men are forming, as is always the case in revolutions, there is a
reciprocal suspicion, and a disposition to misinterpret each other; and even
parties directly opposite in principle will sometimes concur in pushing forward
the same movement with very different views, and with the hopes of its
producing very different consequences. A great deal of this may be discovered
in this embarrassed affair, and yet the issue of the whole was what nobody had
in view.
The only things certainly known are that considerable
uneasiness was at this time excited at Paris by the delay of the King in not
sanctioning and forwarding the decrees of the National Assembly, particularly
that of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the decrees of the fourth of
August, which contained the foundation principles on which the constitution was
to be erected. The kindest, and perhaps the fairest conjecture upon this matter
is, that some of the ministers intended to make remarks and observations upon
certain parts of them before they were finally sanctioned and sent to the
provinces; but be this as it may, the enemies of the Revolution derived hope from
the delay, and the friends of the Revolution uneasiness.
During this state of suspense, the Garde du Corps, which
was composed as such regiments generally are, of persons much connected with
the Court, gave an entertainment at Versailles (October 1) to some foreign
regiments then arrived; and when the entertainment was at the height, on a
signal given, the Garde du Corps tore the national cockade from their hats,
trampled it under foot, and replaced it with a counter-cockade prepared for the
purpose. An indignity of this kind amounted to defiance. It was like declaring
war; and if men will give challenges they must expect consequences. But all
this Mr. Burke has carefully kept out of sight. He begins his account by
saying: “History will record that on the morning of the 6th October,
1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay,
and slaughter, lay down under the pledged security of public faith to indulge
nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose.” This is
neither the sober style of history, nor the intention of it. It leaves
everything to be guessed at and mistaken. One would at least think there had
been a battle; and a battle there probably would have been had it not been for
the moderating prudence of those whom Mr. Burke involves in his censures. By
his keeping the Garde du Corps out of sight Mr. Burke has afforded himself the
dramatic licence of putting the King and Queen in their places, as if the
object of the expedition was against them. But to return to my accountThis
conduct of the Garde du Corps, as might well be expected, alarmed and enraged
the Partisans. The colors of the cause, and the cause itself, were become too
united to mistake the intention of the insult, and the Partisans were determined
to call the Garde du Corps to an account. There was certainly nothing of the
cowardice of assassination in marching in the face of the day to demand
satisfaction, if such a phrase may be used, of a body of armed men who had
voluntarily given defiance. But the circumstance which serves to throw this
affair into embarrassment is, that the enemies of the Revolution appear to have
encouraged it as well as its friends. The one hoped to prevent a civil war by
checking it in time, and the other to make one. The hopes of those opposed to
the Revolution rested in making the King of their party, and getting him from
Versailles to Metz, where they expected to collect a force and set up a
standard. We have, therefore, two different objects presenting themselves at the
same time, and to be accomplished by the same means: the one to chastise the
Garde du Corps, which was the object of the Partisans; the other to render the
confusion of such a scene an inducement to the King to set off for Metz.
On the 5th of October a very numerous body of
women, and men in the disguise of women, collected around the Hotel de Ville or
town-hall at Paris, and set off for Versailles. Their professed object was the
Garde du Corps; but prudent men readily recollect that mischief is more easily
begun than ended; and this impressed itself with the more force from the
suspicions already stated, and the irregularity of such a cavalcade. As soon,
therefore, as a sufficient force could be collected, M. de la Fayette, by
orders from the civil authority of Paris, set off after them at the head of
twenty thousand of the Paris militia. The Revolution could derive no benefit
from confusion, and its opposers might. By an amiable and spirited manner of
address he had hitherto been fortunate in calming disquietudes, and in this he
was extraordinarily successful; to frustrate, therefore, the hopes of those who
might seek to improve this scene into a sort of justifiable necessity for the
King’s quitting Versailles and withdrawing to Metz, and to prevent at the same
time the consequences that might ensue between the Garde du Corps and this
phalanx of men and women, he forwarded expresses to the King, that he was on
his march to Versailles, by the orders of the civil authority of Paris, for the
purpose of peace and protection, expressing at the same time the necessity of
restraining the Garde du Corps from firing upon the people.*[3]
He arrived at Versailles between ten and eleven at night.
The Garde du Corps was drawn up, and the people had arrived some time before,
but everything had remained suspended. Wisdom and policy now consisted in
changing a scene of danger into a happy event. M. de la Fayette became the
mediator between the enraged parties; and the King, to remove the uneasiness
which had arisen from the delay already stated, sent for the President of the
National Assembly, and signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and such
other parts of the constitution as were in readiness.
It was now about one in the morning. Everything appeared
to be composed, and a general congratulation took place. By the beat of a drum
a proclamation was made that the citizens of Versailles would give the
hospitality of their houses to their fellow-citizens of Paris. Those who could
not be accommodated in this manner remained in the streets, or took up their
quarters in the churches; and at two o’clock the King and Queen retired.
In this state matters passed till the break of day, when a
fresh disturbance arose from the censurable conduct of some of both parties,
for such characters there will be in all such scenes. One of the Garde du Corps
appeared at one of the windows of the palace, and the people who had remained
during the night in the streets accosted him with reviling and provocative
language. Instead of retiring, as in such a case prudence would have dictated,
he presented his musket, fired, and killed one of the Paris militia. The peace
being thus broken, the people rushed into the palace in quest of the offender.
They attacked the quarters of the Garde du Corps within the palace, and pursued
them throughout the avenues of it, and to the apartments of the King. On this
tumult, not the Queen only, as Mr. Burke has represented it, but every person
in the palace, was awakened and alarmed; and M. de la Fayette had a second time
to interpose between the parties, the event of which was that the Garde du
Corps put on the national cockade, and the matter ended as by oblivion, after
the loss of two or three lives.
During the latter part of the time in which this confusion
was acting, the King and Queen were in public at the balcony, and neither of
them concealed for safety’s sake, as Mr. Burke insinuates. Matters being thus
appeased, and tranquility restored, a general acclamation broke forth of Le Roi
a Paris- Le Roi a Paris- The King to Paris. It was the shout of peace, and
immediately accepted on the part of the King. By this measure all future
projects of trapanning the King to Metz, and setting up the standard of
opposition to the constitution, were prevented, and the suspicions
extinguished. The King and his family reached Paris in the evening, and were
congratulated on their arrival by M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, in the name of
the citizens. Mr. Burke, who throughout his book confounds things, persons, and
principles, as in his remarks on M. Bailly’s address, confounded time also. He
censures M. Bailly for calling it “un bon jour,” a good day. Mr. Burke should
have informed himself that this scene took up the space of two days, the day on
which it began with every appearance of danger and mischief, and the day on
which it terminated without the mischiefs that threatened; and that it is to
this peaceful termination that M. Bailly alludes, and to the arrival of the
King at Paris. Not less than three hundred thousand persons arranged themselves
in the procession from Versailles to Paris, and not an act of molestation was
committed during the whole march.
Mr. Burke on the authority of M. Lally Tollendal, a
deserter from the National Assembly, says that on entering Paris, the people
shouted “Tous les eveques a la lanterne.” All Bishops to be hanged at the
lanthorn or lamp-posts. It is surprising that nobody could hear this but Lally
Tollendal, and that nobody should believe it but Mr. Burke. It has not the
least connection with any part of the transaction, and is totally foreign to
every circumstance of it. The Bishops had never been introduced before into any
scene of Mr. Burke’s drama: why then are they, all at once, and altogether,
tout a coup, et tous ensemble, introduced now? Mr. Burke brings forward his
Bishops and his lanthorn-like figures in a magic lanthorn, and raises his
scenes by contrast instead of connection. But it serves to show, with the rest
of his book what little credit ought to be given where even probability is set
at defiance, for the purpose of defaming; and with this reflection, instead of
a soliloquy in praise of chivalry, as Mr. Burke has done, I close the account
of the expedition to Versailles.*[4]
I have now to follow Mr. Burke through a pathless wilderness
of rhapsodies, and a sort of descant upon governments, in which he asserts
whatever he pleases, on the presumption of its being believed, without offering
either evidence or reasons for so doing.
Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain
facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or
denied. Mr. Burke with his usual outrage, abused the Declaration of the Rights
of Man, published by the National Assembly of France, as the basis on which the
constitution of France is built. This he calls “paltry and blurred sheets of
paper about the rights of man.” Does Mr. Burke mean to deny that man has any
rights? If he does, then he must mean that there are no such things as rights
anywhere, and that he has none himself; for who is there in the world but man?
But if Mr. Burke means to admit that man has rights, the question then will be:
What are those rights, and how man came by them originally?
The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from
antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into
antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate
stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a
rule for the present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still
farther into antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice
prevailing; and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities
may be produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed on,
we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from
the hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title,
and a higher cannot be given him. But of titles I shall speak hereafter.
We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of
his rights. As to the manner in which the world has been governed from that day
to this, it is no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper use of the
errors or the improvements which the history of it presents. Those who lived an
hundred or a thousand years ago, were then moderns, as we are now. They had
their ancients, and those ancients had others, and we also shall be ancients in
our turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life,
the people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well
take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred
or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving
everything, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way,
till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here
our enquiries find a resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute
about the rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the
creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred, and it is
to this same source of authority that we must now refer.
Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of
religion, yet it may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced
to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will
answer the question. Because there have been upstart governments, thrusting
themselves between, and presumptuously working to un-make man.
If any generation of men ever possessed the right of
dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the
first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding
generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The
illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man (for it has its
origin from the Maker of man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but
to generations of men succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in
rights to generations which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual
is born equal in rights with his contemporary.
Every history of the creation, and every traditionary
account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary
in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing
one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree,
and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in
the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of
generation, the latter being the only mode by which the former is carried
forward; and consequently every child born into the world must be considered as
deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the
first man that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.
The Mosaic account of the creation, whether taken as
divine authority or merely historical, is full to this point, the unity or
equality of man. The expression admits of no controversy. “And God said, Let us
make man in our own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female
created he them.” The distinction of sexes is pointed out, but no other
distinction is even implied. If this be not divine authority, it is at least
historical authority, and shows that the equality of man, so far from being a
modern doctrine, is the oldest upon record.
It is also to be observed that all the religions known in
the world are founded, so far as they relate to man, on the unity of man, as
being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man
may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only
distinctions. Nay, even the laws of governments are obliged to slide into this
principle, by making degrees to consist in crimes and not in persons.
It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the
highest advantage to cultivate. By considering man in this light, and by
instructing him to consider himself in this light, it places him in a close
connection with all his duties, whether to his Creator or to the creation, of
which he is a part; and it is only when he forgets his origin, or, to use a
more fashionable phrase, his birth and family, that he becomes dissolute. It is
not among the least of the evils of the present existing governments in all
parts of Europe that man, considered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance
from his Maker, and the artificial chasm filled up with a succession of
barriers, or sort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote
Mr. Burke’s catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and his Maker.
Putting himself in the character of a herald, he says: “We fear God- we look
with awe to kings- with affection to Parliaments with duty to magistrates- with
reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility.” Mr. Burke has forgotten to
put in “’chivalry.” He has also forgotten to put in Peter.
The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates,
through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and
simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must
feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by. If those
to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected: if not, they will
be despised; and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who
assume it, the rational world can know nothing of them.
Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the
natural rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and to
show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into society to
become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before,
but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation
of all his civil rights. But in order to pursue this distinction with more
precision, it will be necessary to mark the different qualities of natural and
civil rights.
A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those
which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the
intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting
as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to
the natural rights of others. Civil rights are those which appertain to man in
right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its
foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the
enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently
competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.
From this short review it will be easy to distinguish
between that class of natural rights which man retains after entering into
society and those which he throws into the common stock as a member of society.
The natural rights which he retains are all those in which
the Power to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among
this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or rights
of the mind; consequently religion is one of those rights. The natural rights
which are not retained, are all those in which, though the right is perfect in
the individual, the power to execute them is defective. They answer not his
purpose. A man, by natural right, has a right to judge in his own cause; and so
far as the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it. But what
availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress? He therefore deposits
this right in the common stock of society, and takes the ann of society, of
which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own. Society grants
him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws on the capital as
a matter of right.
From these premisses two or three certain conclusions will
follow:
First, That every civil right grows out of a natural
right; or, in other words, is a natural right exchanged.
Secondly, That civil power properly considered as such is
made up of the aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which
becomes defective in the individual in point of power, and answers not his
purpose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to the Purpose of
every one.
Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of
natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to
invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which
the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.
We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural
individual to a member of society, and shown, or endeavoured to show, the
quality of the natural rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for
civil rights. Let us now apply these principles to governments.
In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy
to distinguish the governments which have arisen out of society, or out of the
social compact, from those which have not; but to place this in a clearer light
than what a single glance may afford, it will be proper to take a review of the
several sources from which governments have arisen and on which they have been
founded.
They may be all comprehended under three heads.
First, Superstition.
Secondly, Power.
Thirdly, The common interest of society and the common rights
of man.
The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of
conquerors, and the third of reason.
When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of
oracles, to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up
the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under the
government of superstition. The oracles were consulted, and whatever they were
made to say became the law; and this sort of government lasted as long as this
sort of superstition lasted.
After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government,
like that of William the Conqueror, was founded in power, and the sword assumed
the name of a sceptre. Governments thus established last as long as the power
to support them lasts; but that they might avail themselves of every engine in
their favor, they united fraud to force, and set up an idol which they called
Divine Right, and which, in imitation of the Pope, who affects to be spiritual
and temporal, and in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion,
twisted itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called Church and
State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became quartered on one
another, and the wondering cheated multitude worshipped the invention.
When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel
(for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour
and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern
mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can
scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.
We have now to review the governments which arise out of
society, in contradistinction to those which arose out of superstition and
conquest.
It has been thought a considerable advance towards
establishing the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact
between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true,
because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed
before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did
not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form
such a compact with.
The fact therefore must be that the individuals
themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a
compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in
which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they
have a right to exist.
To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government
is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin. In doing this we shall
easily discover that governments must have arisen either out of the people or
over the people. Mr. Burke has made no distinction. He investigates nothing to
its source, and therefore he confounds everything; but he has signified his
intention of undertaking, at some future opportunity, a comparison between the
constitution of England and France. As he thus renders it a subject of
controversy by throwing the gauntlet, I take him upon his own ground. It is in
high challenges that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept it
with the more readiness because it affords me, at the same time, an opportunity
of pursuing the subject with respect to governments arising out of society.
But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by
a Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix also a
standard signification to it.
A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact.
It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced
in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a
government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The
constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people
constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which you can
refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the principles on which
the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised,
the powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of Parliaments,
or by what other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive
part of the government shall have; and in fine, everything that relates to the
complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles on which it
shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a
government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of
judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter
them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in
like manner governed by the constitution.
Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If
he cannot, we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about,
no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and consequently
that the people have yet a constitution to form.
Mr. Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have
already advanced- namely, that governments arise either out of the people or
over the people. The English Government is one of those which arose out of a
conquest, and not out of society, and consequently it arose over the people;
and though it has been much modified from the opportunity of circumstances
since the time of William the Conqueror, the country has never yet regenerated
itself, and is therefore without a constitution.
I readily perceive the reason why Mr. Burke declined going
into the comparison between the English and French constitutions, because he
could not but perceive, when he sat down to the task, that no such a thing as a
constitution existed on his side the question. His book is certainly bulky
enough to have contained all he could say on this subject, and it would have
been the best manner in which people could have judged of their separate
merits. Why then has he declined the only thing that was worth while to write
upon? It was the strongest ground he could take, if the advantages were on his
side, but the weakest if they were not; and his declining to take it is either
a sign that he could not possess it or could not maintain it.
Mr. Burke said, in a speech last winter in Parliament, “that
when the National Assembly first met in three Orders (the Tiers Etat, the
Clergy, and the Noblesse), France had then a good constitution.” This shows,
among numerous other instances, that Mr. Burke does not understand what a
constitution is. The persons so met were not a constitution, but a convention,
to make a constitution.
The present National Assembly of France is, strictly
speaking, the personal social compact. The members of it are the delegates of
the nation in its original character; future assemblies will be the delegates
of the nation in its organised character. The authority of the present Assembly
is different from what the authority of future Assemblies will be. The
authority of the present one is to form a constitution; the authority of future
assemblies will be to legislate according to the principles and forms
prescribed in that constitution; and if experience should hereafter show that
alterations, amendments, or additions are necessary, the constitution will
point out the mode by which such things shall be done, and not leave it to the
discretionary power of the future government.
A government on the principles on which constitutional
governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of
altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it
pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution.
The act by which the English Parliament empowered itself to sit seven years,
shows there is no constitution in England. It might, by the same
self-authority, have sat any great number of years, or for life. The bill which
the present Mr. Pitt brought into Parliament some years ago, to reform
Parliament, was on the same erroneous principle. The right of reform is in the
nation in its original character, and the constitutional method would be by a
general convention elected for the purpose. There is, moreover, a paradox in
the idea of vitiated bodies reforming themselves.
From these preliminaries I proceed to draw some
comparisons. I have already spoken of the declaration of rights; and as I mean
to be as concise as possible, I shall proceed to other parts of the French
Constitution.
The constitution of France says that every man who pays a
tax of sixty sous per annum (2s. 6d. English) is an elector. What article will
Mr. Burke place against this? Can anything be more limited, and at the same
time more capricious, than the qualification of electors is in England?
Limited- because not one man in an hundred (I speak much within compass) is
admitted to vote. Capricious- because the lowest character that can be supposed
to exist, and who has not so much as the visible means of an honest livelihood,
is an elector in some places: while in other places, the man who pays very
large taxes, and has a known fair character, and the farmer who rents to the
amount of three or four hundred pounds a year, with a property on that farm to
three or four times that amount, is not admitted to be an elector. Everything
is out of nature, as Mr. Burke says on another occasion, in this strange chaos,
and all sorts of follies are blended with all sorts of crimes. William the Conqueror
and his descendants parcelled out the country in this manner, and bribed some
parts of it by what they call charters to hold the other parts of it the better
subjected to their will. This is the reason why so many of those charters
abound in Cornwall; the people were averse to the Government established at the
Conquest, and the towns were garrisoned and bribed to enslave the country. All
the old charters are the badges of this conquest, and it is from this source
that the capriciousness of election arises.
The French Constitution says that the number of
representatives for any place shall be in a ratio to the number of taxable
inhabitants or electors. What article will Mr. Burke place against this? The
county of York, which contains nearly a million of souls, sends two county
members; and so does the county of Rutland, which contains not an hundredth
part of that number. The old town of Sarum, which contains not three houses,
sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upward of sixty
thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these
things? It is admitted that all this is altered, but there is much to be done
yet, before we have a fair representation of the people. Is there anything by
which you can trace the marks of freedom, or discover those of wisdom? No
wonder then Mr. Burke has declined the comparison, and endeavored to lead his
readers from the point by a wild, unsystematical display of paradoxical
rhapsodies.
The French Constitution says that the National Assembly
shall be elected every two years. What article will Mr. Burke place against
this? Why, that the nation has no right at all in the case; that the government
is perfectly arbitrary with respect to this point; and he can quote for his
authority the precedent of a former Parliament.
The French Constitution says there shall be no game laws,
that the farmer on whose lands wild game shall be found (for it is by the
produce of his lands they are fed) shall have a right to what he can take; that
there shall be no monopolies of any kind- that all trades shall be free and
every man free to follow any occupation by which he can procure an honest
livelihood, and in any place, town, or city throughout the nation. What will
Mr. Burke say to this? In England, game is made the property of those at whose
expense it is not fed; and with respect to monopolies, the country is cut up
into monopolies. Every chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself,
and the qualification of electors proceeds out of those chartered monopolies.
Is this freedom? Is this what Mr. Burke means by a constitution?
In these chartered monopolies, a man coming from another
part of the country is hunted from them as if he were a foreign enemy. An
Englishman is not free of his own country; every one of those places presents a
barrier in his way, and tells him he is not a freeman- that he has no rights.
Within these monopolies are other monopolies. In a city, such for instance as
Bath, which contains between twenty and thirty thousand inhabitants, the right
of electing representatives to Parliament is monopolised by about thirty-one
persons. And within these monopolies are still others. A man even of the same
town, whose parents were not in circumstances to give him an occupation, is debarred,
in many cases, from the natural right of acquiring one, be his genius or
industry what it may.
Are these things examples to hold out to a country
regenerating itself from slavery, like France? Certainly they are not, and
certain am I, that when the people of England come to reflect upon them they
will, like France, annihilate those badges of ancient oppression, those traces
of a conquered nation. Had Mr. Burke possessed talents similar to the author of
“On the Wealth of Nations.” he would have comprehended all the parts which
enter into, and, by assemblage, form a constitution. He would have reasoned
from minutiae to magnitude. It is not from his prejudices only, but from the
disorderly cast of his genius, that he is unfitted for the subject he writes upon.
Even his genius is without a constitution. It is a genius at random, and not a
genius constituted. But he must say something. He has therefore mounted in the
air like a balloon, to draw the eyes of the multitude from the ground they
stand upon.
Much is to be learned from the French Constitution.
Conquest and tyranny transplanted themselves with William the Conqueror from
Normandy into England, and the country is yet disfigured with the marks. May,
then, the example of all France contribute to regenerate the freedom which a
province of it destroyed!
The French Constitution says that to preserve the national
representation from being corrupt, no member of the National Assembly shall be
an officer of the government, a placeman or a pensioner. What will Mr. Burke
place against this? I will whisper his answer: Loaves and Fishes. Ah! this
government of loaves and fishes has more mischief in it than people have yet
reflected on. The National Assembly has made the discovery, and it holds out
the example to the world. Had governments agreed to quarrel on purpose to
fleece their countries by taxes, they could not have succeeded better than they
have done.
Everything in the English government appears to me the
reverse of what it ought to be, and of what it is said to be. The Parliament,
imperfectly and capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless supposed to hold
the national purse in trust for the nation; but in the manner in which an
English Parliament is constructed it is like a man being both mortgagor and mortgagee,
and in the case of misapplication of trust it is the criminal sitting in
judgment upon himself. If those who vote the supplies are the same persons who
receive the supplies when voted, and are to account for the expenditure of
those supplies to those who voted them, it is themselves accountable to
themselves, and the Comedy of Errors concludes with the pantomime of Hush.
Neither the Ministerial party nor the Opposition will touch upon this case. The
national purse is the common hack which each mounts upon. It is like what the
country people call “Ride and tie- you ride a little way, and then I.”*[5] They
order these things better in France.
The French Constitution says that the right of war and
peace is in the nation. Where else should it reside but in those who are to pay
the expense?
In England this right is said to reside in a metaphor
shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling a piece: so are the lions; and it
would be a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate
metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of
worshipping Aaron’s molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image; but why do
men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?
It may with reason be said that in the manner the English
nation is represented it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the
Crown or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who
participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries.
It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of
revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be
made for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its
wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by
interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that
wars were raised to carry on taxes.
Mr. Burke, as a member of the House of Commons, is a part
of the English Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war, he
abuses the French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He holds up the
English Government as a model, in all its parts, to France; but he should first
know the remarks which the French make upon it. They contend in favor of their
own, that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a
country more productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of all
despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it could do
either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is, therefore on
the ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for the readiness
which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars by remarking on
the different motives which produced them. In despotic governments wars are the
effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of
taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.
The French Constitution, therefore, to provide against
both these evils, has taken away the power of declaring war from kings and
ministers, and placed the right where the expense must fall.
When the question of the right of war and peace was
agitating in the National Assembly, the people of England appeared to be much
interested in the event, and highly to applaud the decision. As a principle it
applies as much to one country as another. William the Conqueror, as a
conqueror, held this power of war and peace in himself, and his descendants
have ever since claimed it under him as a right.
Although Mr. Burke has asserted the right of the
Parliament at the Revolution to bind and control the nation and posterity for
ever, he denies at the same time that the Parliament or the nation had any
right to alter what he calls the succession of the crown in anything but in
part, or by a sort of modification. By his taking this ground he throws the
case back to the Norman Conquest, and by thus running a line of succession
springing from William the Conqueror to the present day, he makes it necessary
to enquire who and what William the Conqueror was, and where he came from, and
into the origin, history and nature of what are called prerogatives. Everything
must have had a beginning, and the fog of time and antiquity should be
penetrated to discover it. Let, then, Mr. Burke bring forward his William of
Normandy, for it is to this origin that his argument goes. It also
unfortunately happens, in running this line of succession, that another line
parallel thereto presents itself, which is that if the succession runs in the
line of the conquest, the nation runs in the line of being conquered, and it
ought to rescue itself from this reproach.
But it will perhaps be said that though the power of
declaring war descends in the heritage of the conquest, it is held in check by
the right of Parliament to withhold the supplies. It will always happen when a
thing is originally wrong that amendments do not make it right, and it often
happens that they do as much mischief one way as good the other, and such is
the case here, for if the one rashly declares war as a matter of right, and the
other peremptorily withholds the supplies as a matter of right, the remedy
becomes as bad, or worse, than the disease. The one forces the nation to a
combat, and the other ties its hands; but the more probable issue is that the
contest will end in a collusion between the parties, and be made a screen to
both.
On this question of war, three things are to be
considered. First, the right of declaring it: secondly, the right of declaring
it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of conducting it
after it is declared. The French Constitution places the right where the
expense must fall, and this union can only be in the nation. The mode of
conducting it after it is declared, it consigns to the executive department.
Were this the case in all countries, we should hear but little more of wars.
Before I proceed to consider other parts of the French
Constitution, and by way of relieving the fatigue of argument, I will introduce
an anecdote which I had from Dr. Franklin.
While the Doctor resided in France as Minister from
America, during the war, he had numerous proposals made to him by projectors of
every country and of every kind, who wished to go to the land that floweth with
milk and honey, America; and among the rest, there was one who offered himself
to be king. He introduced his proposal to the Doctor by letter, which is now in
the hands of M. Beaumarchais, of Paris- stating, first, that as the Americans
had dismissed or sent away*[6] their King, that they would want another.
Secondly, that himself was a Norman. Thirdly, that he was of a more ancient
family than the Dukes of Normandy, and of a more honorable descent, his line
having never been bastardised. Fourthly, that there was already a precedent in
England of kings coming out of Normandy, and on these grounds he rested his
offer, enjoining that the Doctor would forward it to America. But as the Doctor
neither did this, nor yet sent him an answer, the projector wrote a second
letter, in which he did not, it is true, threaten to go over and conquer
America, but only with great dignity proposed that if his offer was not
accepted, an acknowledgment of about L30,000 might be made to him for his
generosity! Now, as all arguments respecting succession must necessarily
connect that succession with some beginning, Mr. Burke’s arguments on this
subject go to show that there is no English origin of kings, and that they are
descendants of the Norman line in right of the Conquest. It may, therefore, be
of service to his doctrine to make this story known, and to inform him, that in
case of that natural extinction to which all mortality is subject, Kings may
again be had from Normandy, on more reasonable terms than William the Conqueror;
and consequently, that the good people of England, at the revolution of 1688,
might have done much better, had such a generous Norman as this known their
wants, and they had known his. The chivalric character which Mr. Burke so much
admires, is certainly much easier to make a bargain with than a hard dealing
Dutchman. But to return to the matters of the constitutionThe French
Constitution says, There shall be no titles; and, of consequence, all that
class of equivocal generation which in some countries is called “aristocracy”
and in others “nobility,” is done away, and the peer is exalted into the Man.
Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title.
The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in
the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of
man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are
little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new
garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: “When I was a
child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
things.”
It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the
folly of titles has fallen. It has outgrown the baby clothes of Count and Duke,
and breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has
put down the dwarf, to set up the man. The punyism of a senseless word like
Duke, Count or Earl has ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have
disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the
rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society,
contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn
by the magician’s wand, to contract the sphere of man’s felicity. He lives
immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied
life of man.
Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France?
Is it not a greater wonder that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they?
What is their worth, and “what is their amount?” When we think or speak of a
Judge or a General, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we
think of gravity in one and bravery in the other; but when we use the word
merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of
Adam there is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect
any certain ideas with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness,
wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal.
What respect then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means
nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and
down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and
are a chimerical nondescript.
But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to
hold them in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is
common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse than
nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves
away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species of imaginary
consequence has visibly declined in every part of Europe, and it hastens to its
exit as the world of reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest
class of what are called nobility was more thought of than the highest is now,
and when a man in armour riding throughout Christendom in quest of adventures
was more stared at than a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and
it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its
fate. The patriots of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity
in society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must now
take the substantial ground of character, instead of the chimerical ground of
titles; and they have brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a
burnt-offering to Reason.
If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles
they would not have been worth a serious and formal destruction, such as the
National Assembly have decreed them; and this makes it necessary to enquire
farther into the nature and character of aristocracy.
That, then, which is called aristocracy in some countries
and nobility in others arose out of the governments founded upon conquest. It
was originally a military order for the purpose of supporting military
government (for such were all governments founded in conquest); and to keep up
a succession of this order for the purpose for which it was established, all
the younger branches of those families were disinherited and the law of
primogenitureship set up.
The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us
in this law. It is the law against every other law of nature, and Nature
herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy
falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six
children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never more than one child. The rest
are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the
natural parent prepares the unnatural repast.
As everything which is out of nature in man affects, more
or less, the interest of society, so does this. All the children which the
aristocracy disowns (which are all except the eldest) are, in general, cast
like orphans on a parish, to be provided for by the public, but at a greater
charge. Unnecessary offices and places in governments and courts are created at
the expense of the public to maintain them.
With what kind of parental reflections can the father or
mother contemplate their younger offspring? By nature they are children, and by
marriage they are heirs; but by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans. They
are the flesh and blood of their parents in the one line, and nothing akin to
them in the other. To restore, therefore, parents to their children, and
children to their parentsrelations to each other, and man to society- and to
exterminate the monster aristocracy, root and branch- the French Constitution
has destroyed the law of Primogenitureship. Here then lies the monster; and Mr.
Burke, if he pleases, may write its epitaph.
Hitherto we have considered aristocracy chiefly in one
point of view. We have now to consider it in another. But whether we view it
before or behind, or sideways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it is
still a monster.
In France aristocracy had one feature less in its
countenance than what it has in some other countries. It did not compose a body
of hereditary legislators. It was not “’a corporation of aristocracy, for such
I have heard M. de la Fayette describe an English House of Peers. Let us then
examine the grounds upon which the French Constitution has resolved against
having such a House in France.
Because, in the first place, as is already mentioned,
aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice.
Secondly. Because there is an unnatural unfitness in an
aristocracy to be legislators for a nation. Their ideas of distributive justice
are corrupted at the very source. They begin life by trampling on all their
younger brothers and sisters, and relations of every kind, and are taught and
educated so to do. With what ideas of justice or honour can that man enter a
house of legislation, who absorbs in his own person the inheritance of a whole
family of children or doles out to them some pitiful portion with the insolence
of a gift?
Thirdly. Because the idea of hereditary legislators is as
inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd
as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as
an hereditary poet laureate.
Fourthly. Because a body of men, holding themselves
accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.
Fifthly. Because it is continuing the uncivilised
principle of governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having
property in man, and governing him by personal right.
Sixthly. Because aristocracy has a tendency to deteriorate
the human species. By the universal economy of nature it is known, and by the
instance of the Jews it is proved, that the human species has a tendency to
degenerate, in any small number of persons, when separated from the general
stock of society, and inter-marrying constantly with each other. It defeats
even its pretended end, and becomes in time the opposite of what is noble in
man. Mr. Burke talks of nobility; let him show what it is. The greatest
characters the world have known have arisen on the democratic floor.
Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. The
artificial Noble shrinks into a dwarf before the Noble of Nature; and in the
few instances of those (for there are some in all countries) in whom nature, as
by a miracle, has survived in aristocracy, Those Men Despise It.- But it is
time to proceed to a new subject.
The French Constitution has reformed the condition of the
clergy. It has raised the income of the lower and middle classes, and taken
from the higher. None are now less than twelve hundred livres (fifty pounds
sterling), nor any higher than two or three thousand pounds. What will Mr.
Burke place against this? Hear what he says.
He says: “That the people of England can see without pain
or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke; they can see a Bishop of Durham, or
a Bishop of Winchester in possession of L10,000 a-year; and cannot see why it
is in worse hands than estates to a like amount, in the hands of this earl or
that squire.” And Mr. Burke offers this as an example to France.
As to the first part, whether the archbishop precedes the
duke, or the duke the bishop, it is, I believe, to the people in general,
somewhat like Sternhold and Hopkins, or Hopkins and Sternhold; you may put
which you please first; and as I confess that I do not understand the merits of
this case, I will not contest it with Mr. Burke.
But with respect to the latter, I have something to say.
Mr. Burke has not put the case right. The comparison is out of order, by being
put between the bishop and the earl or the squire. It ought to be put between
the bishop and the curate, and then it will stand thus:- “The people of England
can see without pain or grudging, a Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of
Winchester, in possession of ten thousand pounds a-year, and a curate on thirty
or forty pounds a-year, or less.” No, sir, they certainly do not see those
things without great pain or grudging. It is a case that applies itself to
every man’s sense of justice, and is one among many that calls aloud for a
constitution.
In France the cry of “the church! the church!” was
repeated as often as in Mr. Burke’s book, and as loudly as when the Dissenters’
Bill was before the English Parliament; but the generality of the French clergy
were not to be deceived by this cry any longer. They knew that whatever the
pretence might be, it was they who were one of the principal objects of it. It
was the cry of the high beneficed clergy, to prevent any regulation of income
taking place between those of ten thousand pounds a-year and the parish priest.
They therefore joined their case to those of every other oppressed class of
men, and by this union obtained redress.
The French Constitution has abolished tythes, that source
of perpetual discontent between the tythe-holder and the parishioner. When land
is held on tythe, it is in the condition of an estate held between two parties;
the one receiving one-tenth, and the other nine-tenths of the produce: and
consequently, on principles of equity, if the estate can be improved, and made
to produce by that improvement double or treble what it did before, or in any
other ratio, the expense of such improvement ought to be borne in like
proportion between the parties who are to share the produce. But this is not
the case in tythes: the farmer bears the whole expense, and the tythe-holder
takes a tenth of the improvement, in addition to the original tenth, and by
this means gets the value of two-tenths instead of one. This is another case
that calls for a constitution.
The French Constitution hath abolished or renounced
Toleration and Intolerance also, and hath established Universal Right Of
Conscience.
Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the
counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of
withholding Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the
Pope armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope selling or granting
indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and
traffic.
But Toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man
worships not himself, but his Maker; and the liberty of conscience which he
claims is not for the service of himself, but of his God. In this case,
therefore, we must necessarily have the associated idea of two things; the
mortal who renders the worship, and the Immortal Being who is worshipped.
Toleration, therefore, places itself, not between man and man, nor between
church and church, nor between one denomination of religion and another, but
between God and man; between the being who worships, and the Being who is
worshipped; and by the same act of assumed authority which it tolerates man to
pay his worship, it presumptuously and blasphemously sets itself up to tolerate
the Almighty to receive it.
Were a bill brought into any Parliament, entitled, “An Act
to tolerate or grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or
Turk,” or “to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it,” all men would startle
and call it blasphemy. There would be an uproar. The presumption of toleration
in religious matters would then present itself unmasked; but the presumption is
not the less because the name of “Man” only appears to those laws, for the
associated idea of the worshipper and the worshipped cannot be separated. Who
then art thou, vain dust and ashes! by whatever name thou art called, whether a
King, a Bishop, a Church, or a State, a Parliament, or anything else, that
obtrudest thine insignificance between the soul of man and its Maker? Mind
thine own concerns. If he believes not as thou believest, it is a proof that
thou believest not as he believes, and there is no earthly power can determine
between you.
With respect to what are called denominations of religion,
if every one is left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a
religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other’s religion,
there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and therefore all the world
is right, or all the world is wrong. But with respect to religion itself,
without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of
mankind to the Divine object of all adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker
the fruits of his heart; and though those fruits may differ from each other
like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.
A Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester, or the
archbishop who heads the dukes, will not refuse a tythe-sheaf of wheat because
it is not a cock of hay, nor a cock of hay because it is not a sheaf of wheat;
nor a pig, because it is neither one nor the other; but these same persons,
under the figure of an established church, will not permit their Maker to
receive the varied tythes of man’s devotion.
One of the continual choruses of Mr. Burke’s book is “Church
and State.” He does not mean some one particular church, or some one particular
state, but any church and state; and he uses the term as a general figure to
hold forth the political doctrine of always uniting the church with the state
in every country, and he censures the National Assembly for not having done
this in France. Let us bestow a few thoughts on this subject.
All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and
united with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at
first by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral.
Like everything else, they had their beginning; and they proceeded by
persuasion, exhortation, and example. How then is it that they lose their
native mildness, and become morose and intolerant?
It proceeds from the connection which Mr. Burke
recommends. By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal,
capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called the
Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent
mother, on whom it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks out and destroys.
The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the
religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between
the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same
heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in
England afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants,
and that drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution
is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked
feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the
law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In
America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good
neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this
proceeds independently of the men, from there being no law-establishment in
America.
If also we view this matter in a temporal sense, we shall
see the ill effects it has had on the prosperity of nations. The union of
church and state has impoverished Spain. The revoking the edict of Nantes drove
the silk manufacture from that country into England; and church and state are now
driving the cotton manufacture from England to America and France. Let then Mr.
Burke continue to preach his antipolitical doctrine of Church and State. It
will do some good. The National Assembly will not follow his advice, but will
benefit by his folly. It was by observing the ill effects of it in England,
that America has been warned against it; and it is by experiencing them in
France, that the National Assembly have abolished it, and, like America, have
established Universal Right Of Conscience, And Universal Right Of
Citizenship.*[7]
I will here cease the comparison with respect to the
principles of the French Constitution, and conclude this part of the subject
with a few observations on the organisation of the formal parts of the French
and English governments.
The executive power in each country is in the hands of a
person styled the King; but the French Constitution distinguishes between the
King and the Sovereign: It considers the station of King as official, and
places Sovereignty in the nation.
The representatives of the nation, who compose the
National Assembly, and who are the legislative power, originate in and from the
people by election, as an inherent right in the people.- In England it is
otherwise; and this arises from the original establishment of what is called
its monarchy; for, as by the conquest all the rights of the people or the
nation were absorbed into the hands of the Conqueror, and who added the title
of King to that of Conqueror, those same matters which in France are now held as
rights in the people, or in the nation, are held in England as grants from what
is called the crown. The Parliament in England, in both its branches, was
erected by patents from the descendants of the Conqueror. The House of Commons
did not originate as a matter of right in the people to delegate or elect, but
as a grant or boon.
By the French Constitution the nation is always named
before the king. The third article of the declaration of rights says: “The
nation is essentially the source (or fountain) of all sovereignty.” Mr. Burke
argues that in England a king is the fountain- that he is the fountain of all
honour. But as this idea is evidently descended from the conquest I shall make
no other remark upon it, than that it is the nature of conquest to turn
everything upside down; and as Mr. Burke will not be refused the privilege of
speaking twice, and as there are but two parts in the figure, the fountain and
the spout, he will be right the second time.
The French Constitution puts the legislative before the
executive, the law before the king; la loi, le roi. This also is in the natural
order of things, because laws must have existence before they can have
execution.
A king in France does not, in addressing himself to the
National Assembly, say, “My Assembly,” similar to the phrase used in England of
my “Parliament”; neither can he use it consistently with the constitution, nor
could it be admitted. There may be propriety in the use of it in England,
because as is before mentioned, both Houses of Parliament originated from what
is called the crown by patent or boon- and not from the inherent rights of the
people, as the National Assembly does in France, and whose name designates its
origin.
The President of the National Assembly does not ask the
King to grant to the Assembly liberty of speech, as is the case with the
English House of Commons. The constitutional dignity of the National Assembly
cannot debase itself. Speech is, in the first place, one of the natural rights
of man always retained; and with respect to the National Assembly the use of it
is their duty, and the nation is their authority. They were elected by the
greatest body of men exercising the right of election the European world ever
saw. They sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the vassal
representatives of aristocratical ones. Feeling the proper dignity of their
character they support it. Their Parliamentary language, whether for or against
a question, is free, bold and manly, and extends to all the parts and circumstances
of the case. If any matter or subject respecting the executive department or
the person who presides in it (the king) comes before them it is debated on
with the spirit of men, and in the language of gentlemen; and their answer or
their address is returned in the same style. They stand not aloof with the
gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe of sycophantic
insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves,
in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.
Let us now look to the other side of the question. In the
addresses of the English Parliaments to their kings we see neither the intrepid
spirit of the old Parliaments of France, nor the serene dignity of the present
National Assembly; neither do we see in them anything of the style of English
manners, which border somewhat on bluntness. Since then they are neither of
foreign extraction, nor naturally of English production, their origin must be
sought for elsewhere, and that origin is the Norman Conquest. They are
evidently of the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the
prostrate distance that exists in no other condition of men than between the
conqueror and the conquered. That this vassalage idea and style of speaking was
not got rid of even at the Revolution of 1688, is evident from the declaration
of Parliament to William and Mary in these words: “We do most humbly and
faithfully submit ourselves, our heirs and posterities, for ever.” Submission
is wholly a vassalage term, repugnant to the dignity of freedom, and an echo of
the language used at the Conquest.
As the estimation of all things is given by comparison,
the Revolution of 1688, however from circumstances it may have been exalted
beyond its value, will find its level. It is already on the wane, eclipsed by
the enlarging orb of reason, and the luminous revolutions of America and
France. In less than another century it will go, as well as Mr. Burke’s
labours, “to the family vault of all the Capulets.” Mankind will then scarcely
believe that a country calling itself free would send to Holland for a man, and
clothe him with power on purpose to put themselves in fear of him, and give him
almost a million sterling a year for leave to submit themselves and their
posterity, like bondmen and bondwomen, for ever.
But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have
had the opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances,
there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as courtiers.
But they well know, that if it were seen by others, as it is seen by them, the
juggle could not be kept up; they are in the condition of men who get their
living by a show, and to whom the folly of that show is so familiar that they
ridicule it; but were the audience to be made as wise in this respect as
themselves, there would be an end to the show and the profits with it. The
difference between a republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is
that the one opposes monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other
laughs at it, knowing it to be nothing.
As I used sometimes to correspond with Mr. Burke believing
him then to be a man of sounder principles than his book shows him to be, I
wrote to him last winter from Paris, and gave him an account how prosperously
matters were going on. Among other subjects in that letter, I referred to the
happy situation the National Assembly were placed in; that they had taken
ground on which their moral duty and their political interest were united. They
have not to hold out a language which they do not themselves believe, for the
fraudulent purpose of making others believe it. Their station requires no
artifice to support it, and can only be maintained by enlightening mankind. It
is not their interest to cherish ignorance, but to dispel it. They are not in
the case of a ministerial or an opposition party in England, who, though they
are opposed, are still united to keep up the common mystery. The National
Assembly must throw open a magazine of light. It must show man the proper
character of man; and the nearer it can bring him to that standard, the
stronger the National Assembly becomes.
In contemplating the French Constitution, we see in it a
rational order of things. The principles harmonise with the forms, and both
with their origin. It may perhaps be said as an excuse for bad forms, that they
are nothing more than forms; but this is a mistake. Forms grow out of
principles, and operate to continue the principles they grow from. It is
impossible to practise a bad form on anything but a bad principle. It cannot be
ingrafted on a good one; and wherever the forms in any government are bad, it
is a certain indication that the principles are bad also.
I will here finally close this subject. I began it by
remarking that Mr. Burke had voluntarily declined going into a comparison of
the English and French Constitutions. He apologises (in page 241) for not doing
it, by saying that he had not time. Mr. Burke’s book was upwards of eight
months in hand, and is extended to a volume of three hundred and sixty-six
pages. As his omission does injury to his cause, his apology makes it worse;
and men on the English side of the water will begin to consider, whether there
is not some radical defect in what is called the English constitution, that
made it necessary for Mr. Burke to suppress the comparison, to avoid bringing
it into view.
As Mr. Burke has not written on constitutions so neither
has he written on the French Revolution. He gives no account of its
commencement or its progress. He only expresses his wonder. “It looks,” says
he, “to me, as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone,
but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe. All circumstances taken
together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto
happened in the world.”
As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other
people at wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke’s
astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the French
Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it
is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in
France. The mind of the nation had changed beforehand, and the new order of
things has naturally followed the new order of thoughts. I will here, as
concisely as I can, trace out the growth of the French Revolution, and mark the
circumstances that have contributed to produce it.
The despotism of Louis XIV., united with the gaiety of his
Court, and the gaudy ostentation of his character, had so humbled, and at the
same time so fascinated the mind of France, that the people appeared to have
lost all sense of their own dignity, in contemplating that of their Grand
Monarch; and the whole reign of Louis XV., remarkable only for weakness and
effeminacy, made no other alteration than that of spreading a sort of lethargy
over the nation, from which it showed no disposition to rise.
The only signs which appeared to the spirit of Liberty
during those periods, are to be found in the writings of the French
philosophers. Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far
as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged
to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under
a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.
Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of
despotism, took another line. His forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the
superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had interwoven with
governments. It was not from the purity of his principles, or his love of
mankind (for satire and philanthropy are not naturally concordant), but from
his strong capacity of seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity
to expose it, that he made those attacks. They were, however, as formidable as
if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than the
esteem of mankind.
On the contrary, we find in the writings of Rousseau, and
the Abbe Raynal, a loveliness of sentiment in favour of liberty, that excites
respect, and elevates the human faculties; but having raised this animation,
they do not direct its operation, and leave the mind in love with an object,
without describing the means of possessing it.
The writings of Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those
authors, are of the serious kind; but they laboured under the same disadvantage
with Montesquieu; their writings abound with moral maxims of government, but
are rather directed to economise and reform the administration of the
government, than the government itself.
But all those writings and many others had their weight;
and by the different manner in which they treated the subject of government,
Montesquieu by his judgment and knowledge of laws, Voltaire by his wit,
Rousseau and Raynal by their animation, and Quesnay and Turgot by their moral
maxims and systems of economy, readers of every class met with something to
their taste, and a spirit of political inquiry began to diffuse itself through
the nation at the time the dispute between England and the then colonies of
America broke out.
In the war which France afterwards engaged in, it is very
well known that the nation appeared to be before-hand with the French ministry.
Each of them had its view; but those views were directed to different objects;
the one sought liberty, and the other retaliation on England. The French
officers and soldiers who after this went to America, were eventually placed in
the school of Freedom, and learned the practice as well as the principles of it
by heart.
As it was impossible to separate the military events which
took place in America from the principles of the American Revolution, the
publication of those events in France necessarily connected themselves with the
principles which produced them. Many of the facts were in themselves
principles; such as the declaration of American Independence, and the treaty of
alliance between France and America, which recognised the natural rights of
man, and justified resistance to oppression.
The then Minister of France, Count Vergennes, was not the
friend of America; and it is both justice and gratitude to say, that it was the
Queen of France who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French Court.
Count Vergennes was the personal and social friend of Dr. Franklin; and the
Doctor had obtained, by his sensible gracefulness, a sort of influence over
him; but with respect to principles Count Vergennes was a despot.
The situation of Dr. Franklin, as Minister from America to
France, should be taken into the chain of circumstances. The diplomatic
character is of itself the narrowest sphere of society that man can act in. It
forbids intercourse by the reciprocity of suspicion; and a diplomatic is a sort
of unconnected atom, continually repelling and repelled. But this was not the
case with Dr. Franklin. He was not the diplomatic of a Court, but of Man. His
character as a philosopher had been long established, and his circle of society
in France was universal.
Count Vergennes resisted for a considerable time the
publication in France of American constitutions, translated into the French
language: but even in this he was obliged to give way to public opinion, and a
sort of propriety in admitting to appear what he had undertaken to defend. The
American constitutions were to liberty what a grammar is to language: they
define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.
The peculiar situation of the then Marquis de la Fayette
is another link in the great chain. He served in America as an American officer
under a commission of Congress, and by the universality of his acquaintance was
in close friendship with the civil government of America, as well as with the
military line. He spoke the language of the country, entered into the
discussions on the principles of government, and was always a welcome friend at
any election.
When the war closed, a vast reinforcement to the cause of
Liberty spread itself over France, by the return of the French officers and
soldiers. A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all
that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity. Man cannot,
properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in
his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.
M. Neckar was displaced in May, 1781; and by the
ill-management of the finances afterwards, and particularly during the
extravagant administration of M. Calonne, the revenue of France, which was
nearly twenty-four millions sterling per year, was become unequal to the
expenditure, not because the revenue had decreased, but because the expenses
had increased; and this was a circumstance which the nation laid hold of to
bring forward a Revolution. The English Minister, Mr. Pitt, has frequently
alluded to the state of the French finances in his budgets, without
understanding the subject. Had the French Parliaments been as ready to register
edicts for new taxes as an English Parliament is to grant them, there had been
no derangement in the finances, nor yet any Revolution; but this will better
explain itself as I proceed.
It will be necessary here to show how taxes were formerly
raised in France. The King, or rather the Court or Ministry acting under the
use of that name, framed the edicts for taxes at their own discretion, and sent
them to the Parliaments to be registered; for until they were registered by the
Parliaments they were not operative. Disputes had long existed between. the
Court and the Parliaments with respect to the extent of the Parliament’s
authority on this head. The Court insisted that the authority of Parliaments
went no farther than to remonstrate or show reasons against the tax, reserving
to itself the right of determining whether the reasons were well or ill-founded;
and in consequence thereof, either to withdraw the edict as a matter of choice,
or to order it to be unregistered as a matter of authority. The Parliaments on
their part insisted that they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to
reject; and on this ground they were always supported by the nation.
But to return to the order of my narrative. M. Calonne
wanted money: and as he knew the sturdy disposition of the Parliaments with
respect to new taxes, he ingeniously sought either to approach them by a more
gentle means than that of direct authority, or to get over their heads by a
manoeuvre; and for this purpose he revived the project of assembling a body of
men from the several provinces, under the style of an “Assembly of the
Notables,” or men of note, who met in 1787, and who were either to recommend
taxes to the Parliaments, or to act as a Parliament themselves. An Assembly
under this name had been called in 1617.
As we are to view this as the first practical step towards
the Revolution, it will be proper to enter into some particulars respecting it.
The Assembly of the Notables has in some places been mistaken for the
States-General, but was wholly a different body, the States-General being
always by election. The persons who composed the Assembly of the Notables were
all nominated by the king, and consisted of one hundred and forty members. But
as M. Calonne could not depend upon a majority of this Assembly in his favour,
he very ingeniously arranged them in such a manner as to make forty-four a
majority of one hundred and forty; to effect this he disposed of them into
seven separate committees, of twenty members each. Every general question was
to be decided, not by a majority of persons, but by a majority of committee,
and as eleven votes would make a majority in a committee, and four committees a
majority of seven, M. Calonne had good reason to conclude that as forty-four
would determine any general question he could not be outvoted. But all his
plans deceived him, and in the event became his overthrow.
The then Marquis de la Fayette was placed in the second
committee, of which the Count D’Artois was president, and as money matters were
the object, it naturally brought into view every circumstance connected with
it. M. de la Fayette made a verbal charge against Calonne for selling crown
lands to the amount of two millions of livres, in a manner that appeared to be
unknown to the king. The Count D’Artois (as if to intimidate, for the Bastille
was then in being) asked the Marquis if he would render the charge in writing?
He replied that he would. The Count D’Artois did not demand it, but brought a
message from the king to that purport. M. de la Fayette then delivered in his
charge in writing, to be given to the king, undertaking to support it. No
farther proceedings were had upon this affair, but M. Calonne was soon after
dismissed by the king and set off to England.
As M. de la Fayette, from the experience of what he had
seen in America, was better acquainted with the science of civil government
than the generality of the members who composed the Assembly of the Notables
could then be, the brunt of the business fell considerably to his share. The
plan of those who had a constitution in view was to contend with the Court on
the ground of taxes, and some of them openly professed their object. Disputes
frequently arose between Count D’Artois and M. de la Fayette upon various
subjects. With respect to the arrears already incurred the latter proposed to
remedy them by accommodating the expenses to the revenue instead of the revenue
to the expenses; and as objects of reform he proposed to abolish the Bastille
and all the State prisons throughout the nation (the keeping of which was
attended with great expense), and to suppress Lettres de Cachet; but those
matters were not then much attended to, and with respect to Lettres de Cachet,
a majority of the Nobles appeared to be in favour of them.
On the subject of supplying the Treasury by new taxes the
Assembly declined taking the matter on themselves, concurring in the opinion
that they had not authority. In a debate on this subject M. de la Fayette said
that raising money by taxes could only be done by a National Assembly, freely
elected by the people, and acting as their representatives. Do you mean, said
the Count D’Artois, the States-General? M. de la Fayette replied that he did.
Will you, said the Count D’Artois, sign what you say to be given to the king?
The other replied that he would not only do this but that he would go farther,
and say that the effectual mode would be for the king to agree to the
establishment of a constitution.
As one of the plans had thus failed, that of getting the
Assembly to act as a Parliament, the other came into view, that of
recommending. On this subject the Assembly agreed to recommend two new taxes to
be unregistered by the Parliament: the one a stamp-tax and the other a
territorial tax, or sort of land-tax. The two have been estimated at about five
millions sterling per annum. We have now to turn our attention to the
Parliaments, on whom the business was again devolving.
The Archbishop of Thoulouse (since Archbishop of Sens, and
now a Cardinal), was appointed to the administration of the finances soon after
the dismission of Calonne. He was also made Prime Minister, an office that did
not always exist in France. When this office did not exist, the chief of each
of the principal departments transacted business immediately with the King, but
when a Prime Minister was appointed they did business only with him. The
Archbishop arrived to more state authority than any minister since the Duke de
Choiseul, and the nation was strongly disposed in his favour; but by a line of
conduct scarcely to be accounted for he perverted every opportunity, turned out
a despot, and sunk into disgrace, and a Cardinal.
The Assembly of the Notables having broken up, the
minister sent the edicts for the two new taxes recommended by the Assembly to
the Parliaments to be unregistered. They of course came first before the
Parliament of Paris, who returned for answer: “that with such a revenue as the
nation then supported the name of taxes ought not to be mentioned but for the
purpose of reducing them”; and threw both the edicts out.*[8] On this refusal
the Parliament was ordered to Versailles, where, in the usual form, the King
held what under the old government was called a Bed of justice; and the two
edicts were unregistered in presence of the Parliament by an order of State, in
the manner mentioned, earlier. On this the Parliament immediately returned to
Paris, renewed their session in form, and ordered the enregistering to be
struck out, declaring that everything done at Versailles was illegal. All the
members of the Parliament were then served with Lettres de Cachet, and exiled
to Troyes; but as they continued as inflexible in exile as before, and as
vengeance did not supply the place of taxes, they were after a short time
recalled to Paris.
The edicts were again tendered to them, and the Count D’Artois
undertook to act as representative of the King. For this purpose he came from
Versailles to Paris, in a train of procession; and the Parliament were
assembled to receive him. But show and parade had lost their influence in
France; and whatever ideas of importance he might set off with, he had to
return with those of mortification and disappointment. On alighting from his
carriage to ascend the steps of the Parliament House, the crowd (which was
numerously collected) threw out trite expressions, saying: “This is Monsieur D’Artois,
who wants more of our money to spend.” The marked disapprobation which he saw
impressed him with apprehensions, and the word Aux armes! (To arms!) was given
out by the officer of the guard who attended him. It was so loudly vociferated,
that it echoed through the avenues of the house, and produced a temporary
confusion. I was then standing in one of the apartments through which he had to
pass, and could not avoid reflecting how wretched was the condition of a
disrespected man.
He endeavoured to impress the Parliament by great words,
and opened his authority by saying, “The King, our Lord and Master.” The
Parliament received him very coolly, and with their usual determination not to
register the taxes: and in this manner the interview ended.
After this a new subject took place: In the various
debates and contests which arose between the Court and the Parliaments on the
subject of taxes, the Parliament of Paris at last declared that although it had
been customary for Parliaments to enregister edicts for taxes as a matter of
convenience, the right belonged only to the States-General; and that,
therefore, the Parliament could no longer with propriety continue to debate on
what it had not authority to act. The King after this came to Paris and held a
meeting with the Parliament, in which he continued from ten in the morning till
about six in the evening, and, in a manner that appeared to proceed from him as
if unconsulted upon with the Cabinet or Ministry, gave his word to the
Parliament that the States-General should be convened.
But after this another scene arose, on a ground different
from all the former. The Minister and the Cabinet were averse to calling the
States-General. They well knew that if the States-General were assembled,
themselves must fall; and as the King had not mentioned any time, they hit on a
project calculated to elude, without appearing to oppose.
For this purpose, the Court set about making a sort of
constitution itself. It was principally the work of M. Lamoignon, the Keeper of
the Seals, who afterwards shot himself. This new arrangement consisted in
establishing a body under the name of a Cour Pleniere, or Full Court, in which
were invested all the powers that the Government might have occasion to make
use of. The persons composing this Court were to be nominated by the King; the
contended right of taxation was given up on the part of the King, and a new
criminal code of laws and law proceedings was substituted in the room of the
former. The thing, in many points, contained better principles than those upon
which the Government had hitherto been administered; but with respect to the
Cour Pleniere, it was no other than a medium through which despotism was to
pass, without appearing to act directly from itself.
The Cabinet had high expectations from their new
contrivance. The people who were to compose the Cour Pleniere were already
nominated; and as it was necessary to carry a fair appearance, many of the best
characters in the nation were appointed among the number. It was to commence on
May 8, 1788; but an opposition arose to it on two groundsthe one as to
principle, the other as to form.
On the ground of Principle it was contended that
Government had not a right to alter itself, and that if the practice was once
admitted it would grow into a principle and be made a precedent for any future
alterations the Government might wish to establish: that the right of altering
the Government was a national right, and not a right of Government. And on the
ground of form it was contended that the Cour Pleniere was nothing more than a
larger Cabinet.
The then Duke de la Rochefoucault, Luxembourg, De
Noailles, and many others, refused to accept the nomination, and strenuously
opposed the whole plan. When the edict for establishing this new court was sent
to the Parliaments to be unregistered and put into execution, they resisted
also. The Parliament of Paris not only refused, but denied the authority; and
the contest renewed itself between the Parliament and the Cabinet more strongly
than ever. While the Parliament were sitting in debate on this subject, the
Ministry ordered a regiment of soldiers to surround the House and form a
blockade. The members sent out for beds and provisions, and lived as in a
besieged citadel: and as this had no effect, the commanding officer was ordered
to enter the Parliament House and seize them, which he did, and some of the
principal members were shut up in different prisons. About the same time a
deputation of persons arrived from the province of Brittany to remonstrate
against the establishment of the Cour Pleniere, and those the archbishop sent
to the Bastille. But the spirit of the nation was not to be overcome, and it
was so fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken- that of withholding
taxes- that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which
effectually overthrew all the plans at that time formed against it. The project
of the Cour Pleniere was at last obliged to be given up, and the Prime Minister
not long afterwards followed its fate, and M. Neckar was recalled into office.
The attempt to establish the Cour Pleniere had an effect
upon the nation which itself did not perceive. It was a sort of new form of
government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to
unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity. It was Government
dethroning Government; and the old one, by attempting to make a new one, made a
chasm.
The failure of this scheme renewed the subject of
convening the State-General; and this gave rise to a new series of politics.
There was no settled form for convening the States-General: all that it
positively meant was a deputation from what was then called the Clergy, the
Noblesse, and the Commons; but their numbers or their proportions had not been
always the same. They had been convened only on extraordinary occasions, the
last of which was in 1614; their numbers were then in equal proportions, and
they voted by orders.
It could not well escape the sagacity of M. Neckar, that
the mode of 1614 would answer neither the purpose of the then government nor of
the nation. As matters were at that time circumstanced it would have been too
contentious to agree upon anything. The debates would have been endless upon
privileges and exemptions, in which neither the wants of the Government nor the
wishes of the nation for a Constitution would have been attended to. But as he
did not choose to take the decision upon himself, he summoned again the
Assembly of the Notables and referred it to them. This body was in general
interested in the decision, being chiefly of aristocracy and high-paid clergy,
and they decided in favor of the mode of 1614. This decision was against the
sense of the Nation, and also against the wishes of the Court; for the
aristocracy opposed itself to both and contended for privileges independent of either.
The subject was then taken up by the Parliament, who recommended that the
number of the Commons should be equal to the other two: and they should all sit
in one house and vote in one body. The number finally determined on was 1,200;
600 to be chosen by the Commons (and this was less than their proportion ought
to have been when their worth and consequence is considered on a national
scale), 300 by the Clergy, and 300 by the Aristocracy; but with respect to the
mode of assembling themselves, whether together or apart, or the manner in
which they should vote, those matters were referred.*[9]
The election that followed was not a contested election,
but an animated one. The candidates were not men, but principles. Societies
were formed in Paris, and committees of correspondence and communication
established throughout the nation, for the purpose of enlightening the people,
and explaining to them the principles of civil government; and so orderly was
the election conducted, that it did not give rise even to the rumour of tumult.
The States-General were to meet at Versailles in April
1789, but did not assemble till May. They situated themselves in three separate
chambers, or rather the Clergy and Aristocracy withdrew each into a separate
chamber. The majority of the Aristocracy claimed what they called the privilege
of voting as a separate body, and of giving their consent or their negative in
that manner; and many of the bishops and the high-beneficed clergy claimed the
same privilege on the part of their Order.
The Tiers Etat (as they were then called) disowned any
knowledge of artificial orders and artificial privileges; and they were not
only resolute on this point, but somewhat disdainful. They began to consider
the Aristocracy as a kind of fungus growing out of the corruption of society,
that could not be admitted even as a branch of it; and from the disposition the
Aristocracy had shown by upholding Lettres de Cachet, and in sundry other
instances, it was manifest that no constitution could be formed by admitting
men in any other character than as National Men.
After various altercations on this head, the Tiers Etat or
Commons (as they were then called) declared themselves (on a motion made for
that purpose by the Abbe Sieyes) “The Representative Of The Nation; and that
the two Orders could be considered but as deputies of corporations, and could
only have a deliberate voice when they assembled in a national character with
the national representatives.” This proceeding extinguished the style of Etats
Generaux, or States-General, and erected it into the style it now bears, that
of L’Assemblee Nationale, or National Assembly.
This motion was not made in a precipitate manner. It was
the result of cool deliberation, and concerned between the national
representatives and the patriotic members of the two chambers, who saw into the
folly, mischief, and injustice of artificial privileged distinctions. It was
become evident, that no constitution, worthy of being called by that name,
could be established on anything less than a national ground. The Aristocracy
had hitherto opposed the despotism of the Court, and affected the language of
patriotism; but it opposed it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King
John) and it now opposed the nation from the same motives.
On carrying this motion, the national representatives, as
had been concerted, sent an invitation to the two chambers, to unite with them
in a national character, and proceed to business. A majority of the clergy,
chiefly of the parish priests, withdrew from the clerical chamber, and joined
the nation; and forty-five from the other chamber joined in like manner. There
is a sort of secret history belonging to this last circumstance, which is
necessary to its explanation; it was not judged prudent that all the patriotic
members of the chamber styling itself the Nobles, should quit it at once; and
in consequence of this arrangement, they drew off by degrees, always leaving
some, as well to reason the case, as to watch the suspected. In a little time
the numbers increased from forty-five to eighty, and soon after to a greater
number; which, with the majority of the clergy, and the whole of the national
representatives, put the malcontents in a very diminutive condition.
The King, who, very different from the general class
called by that name, is a man of a good heart, showed himself disposed to
recommend a union of the three chambers, on the ground the National Assembly
had taken; but the malcontents exerted themselves to prevent it, and began now
to have another project in view. Their numbers consisted of a majority of the
aristocratical chamber, and the minority of the clerical chamber, chiefly of
bishops and high-beneficed clergy; and these men were determined to put
everything to issue, as well by strength as by stratagem. They had no objection
to a constitution; but it must be such a one as themselves should dictate, and
suited to their own views and particular situations. On the other hand, the
Nation disowned knowing anything of them but as citizens, and was determined to
shut out all such up-start pretensions. The more aristocracy appeared, the more
it was despised; there was a visible imbecility and want of intellects in the
majority, a sort of je ne sais quoi, that while it affected to be more than
citizen, was less than man. It lost ground from contempt more than from hatred;
and was rather jeered at as an ass, than dreaded as a lion. This is the general
character of aristocracy, or what are called Nobles or Nobility, or rather
No-ability, in all countries.
The plan of the malcontents consisted now of two things;
either to deliberate and vote by chambers (or orders), more especially on all
questions respecting a Constitution (by which the aristocratical chamber would
have had a negative on any article of the Constitution); or, in case they could
not accomplish this object, to overthrow the National Assembly entirely.
To effect one or other of these objects they began to
cultivate a friendship with the despotism they had hitherto attempted to rival,
and the Count D’Artois became their chief. The king (who has since declared
himself deceived into their measures) held, according to the old form, a Bed of
Justice, in which he accorded to the deliberation and vote par tete (by head)
upon several subjects; but reserved the deliberation and vote upon all
questions respecting a constitution to the three chambers separately. This
declaration of the king was made against the advice of M. Neckar, who now began
to perceive that he was growing out of fashion at Court, and that another
minister was in contemplation.
As the form of sitting in separate chambers was yet
apparently kept up, though essentially destroyed, the national representatives
immediately after this declaration of the King resorted to their own chambers
to consult on a protest against it; and the minority of the chamber (calling
itself the Nobles), who had joined the national cause, retired to a private
house to consult in like manner. The malcontents had by this time concerted
their measures with the court, which the Count D’Artois undertook to conduct;
and as they saw from the discontent which the declaration excited, and the
opposition making against it, that they could not obtain a control over the
intended constitution by a separate vote, they prepared themselves for their
final object- that of conspiring against the National Assembly, and
overthrowing it.
The next morning the door of the chamber of the National
Assembly was shut against them, and guarded by troops; and the members were
refused admittance. On this they withdrew to a tennis-ground in the
neighbourhood of Versailles, as the most convenient place they could find, and,
after renewing their session, took an oath never to separate from each other,
under any circumstance whatever, death excepted, until they had established a
constitution. As the experiment of shutting up the house had no other effect
than that of producing a closer connection in the members, it was opened again
the next day, and the public business recommenced in the usual place.
We are now to have in view the forming of the new
ministry, which was to accomplish the overthrow of the National Assembly. But
as force would be necessary, orders were issued to assemble thirty thousand
troops, the command of which was given to Broglio, one of the intended new
ministry, who was recalled from the country for this purpose. But as some
management was necessary to keep this plan concealed till the moment it should
be ready for execution, it is to this policy that a declaration made by Count D’Artois
must be attributed, and which is here proper to be introduced.
It could not but occur while the malcontents continued to
resort to their chambers separate from the National Assembly, more jealousy
would be excited than if they were mixed with it, and that the plot might be
suspected. But as they had taken their ground, and now wanted a pretence for
quitting it, it was necessary that one should be devised. This was effectually
accomplished by a declaration made by the Count D’Artois: “That if they took
not a Part in the National Assembly, the life of the king would be endangered”:
on which they quitted their chambers, and mixed with the Assembly, in one body.
At the time this declaration was made, it was generally
treated as a piece of absurdity in Count D’Artois calculated merely to relieve
the outstanding members of the two chambers from the diminutive situation they
were put in; and if nothing more had followed, this conclusion would have been
good. But as things best explain themselves by their events, this apparent
union was only a cover to the machinations which were secretly going on; and
the declaration accommodated itself to answer that purpose. In a little time
the National Assembly found itself surrounded by troops, and thousands more
were daily arriving. On this a very strong declaration was made by the National
Assembly to the King, remonstrating on the impropriety of the measure, and
demanding the reason. The King, who was not in the secret of this business, as
himself afterwards declared, gave substantially for answer, that he had no
other object in view than to preserve the public tranquility, which appeared to
be much disturbed.
But in a few days from this time the plot unravelled
itself M. Neckar and the ministry were displaced, and a new one formed of the
enemies of the Revolution; and Broglio, with between twenty-five and thirty
thousand foreign troops, was arrived to support them. The mask was now thrown
off, and matters were come to a crisis. The event was that in a space of three
days the new ministry and their abettors found it prudent to fly the nation;
the Bastille was taken, and Broglio and his foreign troops dispersed, as is
already related in the former part of this work.
There are some curious circumstances in the history of this
short-lived ministry, and this short-lived attempt at a counter-revolution. The
Palace of Versailles, where the Court was sitting, was not more than four
hundred yards distant from the hall where the National Assembly was sitting.
The two places were at this moment like the separate headquarters of two
combatant armies; yet the Court was as perfectly ignorant of the information
which had arrived from Paris to the National Assembly, as if it had resided at
an hundred miles distance. The then Marquis de la Fayette, who (as has been
already mentioned) was chosen to preside in the National Assembly on this
particular occasion, named by order of the Assembly three successive
deputations to the king, on the day and up to the evening on which the Bastille
was taken, to inform and confer with him on the state of affairs; but the
ministry, who knew not so much as that it was attacked, precluded all
communication, and were solacing themselves how dextrously they had succeeded;
but in a few hours the accounts arrived so thick and fast that they had to
start from their desks and run. Some set off in one disguise, and some in
another, and none in their own character. Their anxiety now was to outride the
news, lest they should be stopt, which, though it flew fast, flew not so fast
as themselves.
It is worth remarking that the National Assembly neither
pursued those fugitive conspirators, nor took any notice of them, nor sought to
retaliate in any shape whatever. Occupied with establishing a constitution
founded on the Rights of Man and the Authority of the People, the only
authority on which Government has a right to exist in any country, the National
Assembly felt none of those mean passions which mark the character of
impertinent governments, founding themselves on their own authority, or on the
absurdity of hereditary succession. It is the faculty of the human mind to
become what it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.
The conspiracy being thus dispersed, one of the first
works of the National Assembly, instead of vindictive proclamations, as has
been the case with other governments, was to publish a declaration of the
Rights of Man, as the basis on which the new constitution was to be built, and
which is here subjoined:
Declaration
Of The
Rights Of Man And Of Citizens
By The National Assembly Of France
The representatives of the people of France, formed into a
National Assembly, considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human
rights, are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of Government,
have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration, these natural,
imprescriptible, and inalienable rights: that this declaration being constantly
present to the minds of the members of the body social, they may be forever
kept attentive to their rights and their duties; that the acts of the
legislative and executive powers of Government, being capable of being every
moment compared with the end of political institutions, may be more respected;
and also, that the future claims of the citizens, being directed by simple and
incontestable principles, may always tend to the maintenance of the
Constitution, and the general happiness.
For these reasons the National Assembly doth recognize and
declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being, and with the hope of his
blessing and favour, the following sacred rights of men and of citizens:
One: Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in
respect of their Rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on
Public Utility.
Two: The end of all Political associations is the
Preservation of the Natural and Imprescriptible Rights of Man; and these rights
are Liberty, Property, Security, and Resistance of Oppression.
Three: The Nation is essentially the source of all
Sovereignty; nor can any individual, or any body of Men, be entitled to any
authority which is not expressly derived from it.
Four: Political Liberty consists in the power of doing
whatever does not Injure another. The exercise of the Natural Rights of every
Man, has no other limits than those which are necessary to secure to every
other Man the Free exercise of the same Rights; and these limits are
determinable only by the Law
Five: The Law ought to Prohibit only actions hurtful to
Society. What is not Prohibited by the Law should not be hindered; nor should
anyone be compelled to that which the Law does not Require
Six: the Law is an expression of the Will of the
Community. All Citizens have a right to concur, either personally or by their
Representatives, in its formation. It Should be the same to all, whether it
protects or punishes; and all being equal in its sight, are equally eligible to
all Honours, Places, and employments, according to their different abilities,
without any other distinction than that created by their Virtues and talents
Seven: No Man should be accused, arrested, or held in
confinement, except in cases determined by the Law, and according to the forms
which it has prescribed. All who promote, solicit, execute, or cause to be
executed, arbitrary orders, ought to be punished, and every Citizen called
upon, or apprehended by virtue of the Law, ought immediately to obey, and
renders himself culpable by resistance.
Eight: The Law ought to impose no other penalties but such
as are absolutely and evidently necessary; and no one ought to be punished, but
in virtue of a Law promulgated before the offence, and Legally applied.
Nine: Every Man being presumed innocent till he has been
convicted, whenever his detention becomes indispensable, all rigour to him,
more than is necessary to secure his person, ought to be provided against by
the Law.
Ten: No Man ought to be molested on account of his
opinions, not even on account of his Religious opinions, provided his avowal of
them does not disturb the Public Order established by the Law.
Eleven: The unrestrained communication of thoughts and
opinions being one of the Most Precious Rights of Man, every Citizen may speak,
write, and publish freely, provided he is responsible for the abuse of this
Liberty, in cases determined by the Law.
Twelve: A Public force being necessary to give security to
the Rights of Men and of Citizens, that force is instituted for the benefit of
the Community and not for the particular benefit of the persons to whom it is
intrusted.
Thirteen: A common contribution being necessary for the
support of the Public force, and for defraying the other expenses of
Government, it ought to be divided equally among the Members of the Community,
according to their abilities.
Fourteen: every Citizen has a Right, either by himself or
his Representative, to a free voice in determining the necessity of Public
Contributions, the appropriation of them, and their amount, mode of assessment,
and duration.
Fifteen: every Community has a Right to demand of all its
agents an account of their conduct.
Sixteen: every Community in which a Separation of Powers
and a Security of Rights is not Provided for, wants a Constitution.
Seventeen: The Right to Property being inviolable and
sacred, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident Public
necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just Indemnity.
ON THE
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
The first three articles comprehend in general terms the
whole of a Declaration of Rights, all the succeeding articles either originate
from them or follow as elucidations. The 4th, 5th, and 6th
define more particularly what is only generally expressed in the 1st,
2nd, and 3rd.
The 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th,
and 11th articles are declaratory of principles upon which laws
shall be constructed, conformable to rights already declared. But it is
questioned by some very good people in France, as well as in other countries,
whether the 10th article sufficiently guarantees the right it is
intended to accord with; besides which it takes off from the divine dignity of
religion, and weakens its operative force upon the mind, to make it a subject
of human laws. It then presents itself to man like light intercepted by a
cloudy medium, in which the source of it is obscured from his sight, and he sees
nothing to reverence in the dusky ray.*[10]
The remaining articles, beginning with the twelfth, are
substantially contained in the principles of the preceding articles; but in the
particular situation in which France then was, having to undo what was wrong,
as well as to set up what was right, it was proper to be more particular than
what in another condition of things would be necessary.
While the Declaration of Rights was before the National
Assembly some of its members remarked that if a declaration of rights were
published it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation
discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far
enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties
also. Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it
becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
The three first articles are the base of Liberty, as well
individual as national; nor can any country be called free whose government
does not take its beginning from the principles they contain, and continue to
preserve them pure; and the whole of the Declaration of Rights is of more value
to the world, and will do more good, than all the laws and statutes that have
yet been promulgated.
In the declaratory exordium which prefaces the Declaration
of Rights we see the solemn and majestic spectacle of a nation opening its
commission, under the auspices of its Creator, to establish a Government, a
scene so new, and so transcendantly unequalled by anything in the European
world, that the name of a Revolution is diminutive of its character, and it
rises into a Regeneration of man. What are the present Governments of Europe
but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own
inhabitants say it is a market where every man has his price, and where
corruption is common traffic at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder,
then, that the French Revolution is traduced. Had it confined itself merely to
the destruction of flagrant despotism perhaps Mr. Burke and some others had
been silent. Their cry now is, “It has gone too far”- that is, it has gone too
far for them. It stares corruption in the face, and the venal tribe are all
alarmed. Their fear discovers itself in their outrage, and they are but
publishing the groans of a wounded vice. But from such opposition the French
Revolution, instead of suffering, receives an homage. The more it is struck the
more sparks it will emit; and the fear is it will not be struck enough. It has
nothing to dread from attacks; truth has given it an establishment, and time
will record it with a name as lasting as his own.
Having now traced the progress of the French Revolution
through most of its principal stages, from its commencement to the taking of
the Bastille, and its establishment by the Declaration of Rights, I will close
the subject with the energetic apostrophe of M. de la Fayette”May this great
monument, raised to Liberty, serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an example
to the oppressed!”*[11]
To prevent interrupting the argument in the preceding part
of this work, or the narrative that follows it, I reserved some observations to
be thrown together in a Miscellaneous Chapter; by which variety might not be
censured for confusion. Mr. Burke’s book is all Miscellany. His intention was
to make an attack on the French Revolution; but instead of proceeding with an
orderly arrangement, he has stormed it with a mob of ideas tumbling over and
destroying one another.
But this confusion and contradiction in Mr. Burke’s Book
is easily accounted for.- When a man in a wrong cause attempts to steer his
course by anything else than some polar truth or principle, he is sure to be
lost. It is beyond the compass of his capacity to keep all the parts of an
argument together, and make them unite in one issue, by any other means than
having this guide always in view. Neither memory nor invention will supply the
want of it. The former fails him, and the latter betrays him.
Notwithstanding the nonsense, for it deserves no better
name, that Mr. Burke has asserted about hereditary rights, and hereditary
succession, and that a Nation has not a right to form a Government of itself;
it happened to fall in his way to give some account of what Government is. “Government,”
says he, “is a contrivance of human wisdom.
Admitting that government is a contrivance of human
wisdom, it must necessarily follow, that hereditary succession, and hereditary
rights (as they are called), can make no part of it, because it is impossible
to make wisdom hereditary; and on the other hand, that cannot be a wise
contrivance, which in its operation may commit the government of a nation to
the wisdom of an idiot. The ground which Mr. Burke now takes is fatal to every
part of his cause. The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary
wisdom; and the question is, Who is the wisest man? He must now show that every
one in the line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not
good to be a king. What a stroke has Mr. Burke now made! To use a sailor’s
phrase, he has swabbed the deck, and scarcely left a name legible in the list
of Kings; and he has mowed down and thinned the House of Peers, with a scythe
as formidable as Death and Time.
But Mr. Burke appears to have been aware of this retort;
and he has taken care to guard against it, by making government to be not only
a contrivance of human wisdom, but a monopoly of wisdom. He puts the nation as
fools on one side, and places his government of wisdom, all wise men of Gotham,
on the other side; and he then proclaims, and says that “Men have a Right that
their Wants should be provided for by this wisdom.” Having thus made
proclamation, he next proceeds to explain to them what their wants are, and
also what their rights are. In this he has succeeded dextrously, for he makes
their wants to be a want of wisdom; but as this is cold comfort, he then
informs them, that they have a right (not to any of the wisdom) but to be
governed by it; and in order to impress them with a solemn reverence for this
monopoly-government of wisdom, and of its vast capacity for all purposes,
possible or impossible, right or wrong, he proceeds with astrological
mysterious importance, to tell to them its powers in these words: “The rights
of men in government are their advantages; and these are often in balance
between differences of good; and in compromises sometimes between good and
evil, and sometimes between evil and evil. Political reason is a computing
principle; adding- subtracting- multiplying- and dividing, morally and not
metaphysically or mathematically, true moral denominations.”
As the wondering audience, whom Mr. Burke supposes himself
talking to, may not understand all this learned jargon, I will undertake to be
its interpreter. The meaning, then, good people, of all this, is: That
government is governed by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or
good evil, just as it pleases. In short, that government is arbitrary power.
But there are some things which Mr. Burke has forgotten.
First, he has not shown where the wisdom originally came from: and secondly, he
has not shown by what authority it first began to act. In the manner he
introduces the matter, it is either government stealing wisdom, or wisdom
stealing government. It is without an origin, and its powers without authority.
In short, it is usurpation.
Whether it be from a sense of shame, or from a
consciousness of some radical defect in a government necessary to be kept out
of sight, or from both, or from any other cause, I undertake not to determine,
but so it is, that a monarchical reasoner never traces government to its
source, or from its source. It is one of the shibboleths by which he may be
known. A thousand years hence, those who shall live in America or France, will
look back with contemplative pride on the origin of their government, and say,
This was the work of our glorious ancestors! But what can a monarchical talker
say? What has he to exult in? Alas he has nothing. A certain something forbids
him to look back to a beginning, lest some robber, or some Robin Hood, should
rise from the long obscurity of time and say, I am the origin. Hard as Mr.
Burke laboured at the Regency Bill and Hereditary Succession two years ago, and
much as he dived for precedents, he still had not boldness enough to bring up
William of Normandy, and say, There is the head of the list! there is the
fountain of honour! the son of a prostitute, and the plunderer of the English
nation.
The opinions of men with respect to government are changing
fast in all countries. The Revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam
of light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of
governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once
the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar
nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not
originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though
man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant. The mind, in discovering
truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering
objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind
back to the same condition it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a
counter-revolution in France, show how little they understand of man. There
does not exist in the compass of language an arrangement of words to express so
much as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an
obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make man
unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts.
Mr. Burke is labouring in vain to stop the progress of
knowledge; and it comes with the worse grace from him, as there is a certain
transaction known in the city which renders him suspected of being a pensioner
in a fictitious name. This may account for some strange doctrine he has
advanced in his book, which though he points it at the Revolution Society, is
effectually directed against the whole nation.
“The King of England,” says he, “holds his crown (for it
does not belong to the Nation, according to Mr. Burke) in contempt of the
choice of the Revolution Society, who have not a single vote for a king among
them either individually or collectively; and his Majesty’s heirs each in their
time and order, will come to the Crown with the same contempt of their choice,
with which his Majesty has succeeded to that which he now wears.”
As to who is King in England, or elsewhere, or whether
there is any King at all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief, or a
Hessian hussar for a King, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about- be
that to themselves; but with respect to the doctrine, so far as it relates to
the Rights of Men and Nations, it is as abominable as anything ever uttered in
the most enslaved country under heaven. Whether it sounds worse to my ear, by
not being accustomed to hear such despotism, than what it does to another
person, I am not so well a judge of; but of its abominable principle I am at no
loss to judge.
It is not the Revolution Society that Mr. Burke means; it
is the Nation, as well in its original as in its representative character; and
he has taken care to make himself understood, by saying that they have not a
vote either collectively or individually. The Revolution Society is composed of
citizens of all denominations, and of members of both the Houses of Parliament;
and consequently, if there is not a right to a vote in any of the characters,
there can be no right to any either in the nation or in its Parliament. This
ought to be a caution to every country how to import foreign families to be
kings. It is somewhat curious to observe, that although the people of England
had been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a Foreign House of
Kings; hating Foreigners yet governed by them.- It is now the House of
Brunswick, one of the petty tribes of Germany.
It has hitherto been the practice of the English
Parliaments to regulate what was called the succession (taking it for granted
that the Nation then continued to accord to the form of annexing a monarchical
branch of its government; for without this the Parliament could not have had
authority to have sent either to Holland or to Hanover, or to impose a king
upon the nation against its will). And this must be the utmost limit to which
Parliament can go upon this case; but the right of the Nation goes to the whole
case, because it has the right of changing its whole form of government. The
right of a Parliament is only a right in trust, a right by delegation, and that
but from a very small part of the Nation; and one of its Houses has not even
this. But the right of the Nation is an original right, as universal as
taxation. The nation is the paymaster of everything, and everything must
conform to its general will.
I remember taking notice of a speech in what is called the
English House of Peers, by the then Earl of Shelburne, and I think it was at
the time he was Minister, which is applicable to this case. I do not directly
charge my memory with every particular; but the words and the purport, as
nearly as I remember, were these: “That the form of a Government was a matter
wholly at the will of the Nation at all times, that if it chose a monarchical
form, it had a right to have it so; and if it afterwards chose to be a
Republic, it had a right to be a Republic, and to say to a King, “We have no
longer any occasion for you.”
When Mr. Burke says that “His Majesty’s heirs and
successors, each in their time and order, will come to the crown with the same
content of their choice with which His Majesty had succeeded to that he wears,”
it is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country; part of
whose daily labour goes towards making up the million sterling a-year, which
the country gives the person it styles a king. Government with insolence is
despotism; but when contempt is added it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt
is the excess of slavery. This species of government comes from Germany; and
reminds me of what one of the Brunswick soldiers told me, who was taken
prisoner by, the Americans in the late war: “Ah!” said he, “America is a fine
free country, it is worth the people’s fighting for; I know the difference by
knowing my own: in my country, if the prince says eat straw, we eat straw.” God
help that country, thought I, be it England or elsewhere, whose liberties are
to be protected by German principles of government, and Princes of Brunswick!
As Mr. Burke sometimes speaks of England, sometimes of
France, and sometimes of the world, and of government in general, it is
difficult to answer his book without apparently meeting him on the same ground.
Although principles of Government are general subjects, it is next to
impossible, in many cases, to separate them from the idea of place and
circumstance, and the more so when circumstances are put for arguments, which
is frequently the case with Mr. Burke.
In the former part of his book, addressing himself to the
people of France, he says: “No experience has taught us (meaning the English),
that in any other course or method than that of a hereditary crown, can our
liberties be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary
right.” I ask Mr. Burke, who is to take them away? M. de la Fayette, in
speaking to France, says: “For a Nation to be free, it is sufficient that she
wills it.” But Mr. Burke represents England as wanting capacity to take care of
itself, and that its liberties must be taken care of by a King holding it in “contempt.”
If England is sunk to this, it is preparing itself to eat straw, as in Hanover,
or in Brunswick. But besides the folly of the declaration, it happens that the
facts are all against Mr. Burke. It was by the government being hereditary,
that the liberties of the people were endangered. Charles I. and James Ii. are
instances of this truth; yet neither of them went so far as to hold the Nation
in contempt.
As it is sometimes of advantage to the people of one
country to hear what those of other countries have to say respecting it, it is
possible that the people of France may learn something from Mr. Burke’s book,
and that the people of England may also learn something from the answers it
will occasion. When Nations fall out about freedom, a wide field of debate is
opened. The argument commences with the rights of war, without its evils, and
as knowledge is the object contended for, the party that sustains the defeat
obtains the prize.
Mr. Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown,
as if it were some production of Nature; or as if, like Time, it had a power to
operate, not only independently, but in spite of man; or as if it were a thing
or a subject universally consented to. Alas! it has none of those properties,
but is the reverse of them all. It is a thing in imagination, the propriety of
which is more than doubted, and the legality of which in a few years will be
denied.
But, to arrange this matter in a clearer view than what
general expression can heads under which (what is called) an hereditary crown,
or more properly speaking, an hereditary succession to the Government of a
Nation, can be considered; which areFirst, The right of a particular Family to
establish itself.
Secondly, The right of a Nation to establish a particular
Family.
With respect to the first of these heads, that of a Family
establishing itself with hereditary powers on its own authority, and
independent of the consent of a Nation, all men will concur in calling it
despotism; and it would be trespassing on their understanding to attempt to
prove it.
But the second head, that of a Nation establishing a
particular Family with hereditary powers, does not present itself as despotism
on the first reflection; but if men will permit it a second reflection to take
place, and carry that reflection forward but one remove out of their own
persons to that of their offspring, they will then see that hereditary
succession becomes in its consequences the same despotism to others, which they
reprobated for themselves. It operates to preclude the consent of the
succeeding generations; and the preclusion of consent is despotism. When the
person who at any time shall be in possession of a Government, or those who
stand in succession to him, shall say to a Nation, I hold this power in “contempt”
of you, it signifies not on what authority he pretends to say it. It is no
relief, but an aggravation to a person in slavery, to reflect that he was sold
by his parent; and as that which heightens the criminality of an act cannot be
produced to prove the legality of it, hereditary succession cannot be
established as a legal thing.
In order to arrive at a more perfect decision on this
head, it will be proper to consider the generation which undertakes to
establish a Family with hereditary powers, apart and separate from the
generations which are to follow; and also to consider the character in which
the first generation acts with respect to succeeding generations.
The generation which first selects a person, and puts him
at the head of its Government, either with the title of King, or any other distinction,
acts on its own choice, be it wise or foolish, as a free agent for itself The
person so set up is not hereditary, but selected and appointed; and the
generation who sets him up, does not live under a hereditary government, but
under a government of its own choice and establishment. Were the generation who
sets him up, and the person so set up, to live for ever, it never could become
hereditary succession; and of consequence hereditary succession can only follow
on the death of the first parties.
As, therefore, hereditary succession is out of the
question with respect to the first generation, we have now to consider the
character in which that generation acts with respect to the commencing
generation, and to all succeeding ones.
It assumes a character, to which it has neither right nor
title. It changes itself from a Legislator to a Testator, and effects to make
its Will, which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to
bequeath the Government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to establish
on the succeeding generation, a new and different form of Government under
which itself lived. Itself, as already observed, lived not under a hereditary
Government but under a Government of its own choice and establishment; and it
now attempts, by virtue of a will and testament (and which it has not authority
to make), to take from the commencing generation, and all future ones, the
rights and free agency by which itself acted.
But, exclusive of the right which any generation has to
act collectively as a testator, the objects to which it applies itself in this
case, are not within the compass of any law, or of any will or testament.
The rights of men in society, are neither devisable or
transferable, nor annihilable, but are descendable only, and it is not in the
power of any generation to intercept finally, and cut off the descent. If the
present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen
the right of the succeeding generation to be free. Wrongs cannot have a legal descent.
When Mr. Burke attempts to maintain that the English nation did at the
Revolution of 1688, most solemnly renounce and abdicate their rights for
themselves, and for all their posterity for ever, he speaks a language that
merits not reply, and which can only excite contempt for his prostitute
principles, or pity for his ignorance.
In whatever light hereditary succession, as growing out of
the will and testament of some former generation, presents itself, it is an
absurdity. A cannot make a will to take from B the property of B, and give it
to C; yet this is the manner in which (what is called) hereditary succession by
law operates. A certain former generation made a will, to take away the rights
of the commencing generation, and all future ones, and convey those rights to a
third person, who afterwards comes forward, and tells them, in Mr. Burke’s
language, that they have no rights, that their rights are already bequeathed to
him and that he will govern in contempt of them. From such principles, and such
ignorance, good Lord deliver the world!
But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown, or
rather what is monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is
it a “contrivance of human wisdom,” or of human craft to obtain money from a nation
under specious pretences? Is it a thing necessary to a nation? If it is, in
what does that necessity consist, what service does it perform, what is its
business, and what are its merits? Does the virtue consist in the metaphor, or
in the man? Doth the goldsmith that makes the crown, make the virtue also? Doth
it operate like Fortunatus’s wishing-cap, or Harlequin’s wooden sword? Doth it
make a man a conjurer? In fine, what is it? It appears to be something going
much out of fashion, falling into ridicule, and rejected in some countries,
both as unnecessary and expensive. In America it is considered as an absurdity;
and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of the man, and the
respect for his personal character, are the only things that preserve the
appearance of its existence.
If government be what Mr. Burke describes it, “a
contrivance of human wisdom” I might ask him, if wisdom was at such a low ebb
in England, that it was become necessary to import it from Holland and from
Hanover? But I will do the country the justice to say, that was not the case;
and even if it was it mistook the cargo. The wisdom of every country, when
properly exerted, is sufficient for all its purposes; and there could exist no
more real occasion in England to have sent for a Dutch Stadtholder, or a German
Elector, than there was in America to have done a similar thing. If a country
does not understand its own affairs, how is a foreigner to understand them, who
knows neither its laws, its manners, nor its language? If there existed a man
so transcendently wise above all others, that his wisdom was necessary to
instruct a nation, some reason might be offered for monarchy; but when we cast
our eyes about a country, and observe how every part understands its own affairs;
and when we look around the world, and see that of all men in it, the race of
kings are the most insignificant in capacity, our reason cannot fail to ask us-
What are those men kept for?
If there is anything in monarchy which we people of
America do not understand, I wish Mr. Burke would be so kind as to inform us. I
see in America, a government extending over a country ten times as large as
England, and conducted with regularity, for a fortieth part of the expense
which Government costs in England. If I ask a man in America if he wants a
King, he retorts, and asks me if I take him for an idiot? How is it that this
difference happens? are we more or less wise than others? I see in America the
generality of people living in a style of plenty unknown in monarchical
countries; and I see that the principle of its government, which is that of the
equal Rights of Man, is making a rapid progress in the world.
If monarchy is a useless thing, why is it kept up
anywhere? and if a necessary thing, how can it be dispensed with? That civil
government is necessary, all civilized nations will agree; but civil government
is republican government. All that part of the government of England which
begins with the office of constable, and proceeds through the department of magistrate,
quarter-sessions, and general assize, including trial by jury, is republican
government. Nothing of monarchy appears in any part of it, except in the name
which William the Conqueror imposed upon the English, that of obliging them to
call him “Their Sovereign Lord the King.”
It is easy to conceive that a band of interested men, such
as Placemen, Pensioners, Lords of the bed-chamber, Lords of the kitchen, Lords
of the necessary-house, and the Lord knows what besides, can find as many
reasons for monarchy as their salaries, paid at the expense of the country,
amount to; but if I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the
tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to the common labourer,
what service monarchy is to him? he can give me no answer. If I ask him what
monarchy is, he believes it is something like a sinecure.
Notwithstanding the taxes of England amount to almost
seventeen millions a year, said to be for the expenses of Government, it is
still evident that the sense of the Nation is left to govern itself, and does
govern itself, by magistrates and juries, almost at its own charge, on
republican principles, exclusive of the expense of taxes. The salaries of the
judges are almost the only charge that is paid out of the revenue. Considering
that all the internal government is executed by the people, the taxes of
England ought to be the lightest of any nation in Europe; instead of which,
they are the contrary. As this cannot be accounted for on the score of civil
government, the subject necessarily extends itself to the monarchical part.
When the people of England sent for George the First (and
it would puzzle a wiser man than Mr. Burke to discover for what he could be
wanted, or what service he could render), they ought at least to have
conditioned for the abandonment of Hanover. Besides the endless German
intrigues that must follow from a German Elector being King of England, there
is a natural impossibility of uniting in the same person the principles of
Freedom and the principles of Despotism, or as it is usually called in England
Arbitrary Power. A German Elector is in his electorate a despot; how then could
it be expected that he should be attached to principles of liberty in one
country, while his interest in another was to be supported by despotism? The
union cannot exist; and it might easily have been foreseen that German Electors
would make German Kings, or in Mr. Burke’s words, would assume government with “contempt.”
The English have been in the habit of considering a King of England only in the
character in which he appears to them; whereas the same person, while the
connection lasts, has a home-seat in another country, the interest of which is
different to their own, and the principles of the governments in opposition to
each other. To such a person England will appear as a town-residence, and the
Electorate as the estate. The English may wish, as I believe they do, success
to the principles of liberty in France, or in Germany; but a German Elector
trembles for the fate of despotism in his electorate; and the Duchy of
Mecklenburgh, where the present Queen’s family governs, is under the same
wretched state of arbitrary power, and the people in slavish vassalage.
There never was a time when it became the English to watch
continental intrigues more circumspectly than at the present moment, and to
distinguish the politics of the Electorate from the politics of the Nation. The
Revolution of France has entirely changed the ground with respect to England
and France, as nations; but the German despots, with Prussia at their head, are
combining against liberty; and the fondness of Mr. Pitt for office, and the
interest which all his family connections have obtained, do not give sufficient
security against this intrigue.
As everything which passes in the world becomes matter for
history, I will now quit this subject, and take a concise review of the state
of parties and politics in England, as Mr. Burke has done in France.
Whether the present reign commenced with contempt, I leave
to Mr. Burke: certain, however, it is, that it had strongly that appearance.
The animosity of the English nation, it is very well remembered, ran high; and,
had the true principles of Liberty been as well understood then as they now
promise to be, it is probable the Nation would not have patiently submitted to
so much. George the First and Second were sensible of a rival in the remains of
the Stuarts; and as they could not but consider themselves as standing on their
good behaviour, they had prudence to keep their German principles of government
to themselves; but as the Stuart family wore away, the prudence became less
necessary.
The contest between rights, and what were called
prerogatives, continued to heat the nation till some time after the conclusion
of the American War, when all at once it fell a calm- Execration exchanged
itself for applause, and Court popularity sprung up like a mushroom in a night.
To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to
observe that there are two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by
merit, and the other by resentment. As the Nation had formed itself into two
parties, and each was extolling the merits of its parliamentary champions for
and against prerogative, nothing could operate to give a more general shock
than an immediate coalition of the champions themselves. The partisans of each
being thus suddenly left in the lurch, and mutually heated with disgust at the
measure, felt no other relief than uniting in a common execration against both.
A higher stimulus or resentment being thus excited than what the contest on
prerogatives occasioned, the nation quitted all former objects of rights and
wrongs, and sought only that of gratification. The indignation at the Coalition
so effectually superseded the indignation against the Court as to extinguish
it; and without any change of principles on the part of the Court, the same
people who had reprobated its despotism united with it to revenge themselves on
the Coalition Parliament. The case was not, which they liked best, but which
they hated most; and the least hated passed for love. The dissolution of the
Coalition Parliament, as it afforded the means of gratifying the resentment of
the Nation, could not fail to be popular; and from hence arose the popularity
of the Court.
Transitions of this kind exhibit a Nation under the
government of temper, instead of a fixed and steady principle; and having once
committed itself, however rashly, it feels itself urged along to justify by
continuance its first proceeding. Measures which at other times it would
censure it now approves, and acts persuasion upon itself to suffocate its
judgment.
On the return of a new Parliament, the new Minister, Mr.
Pitt, found himself in a secure majority; and the Nation gave him credit, not
out of regard to himself, but because it had resolved to do it out of
resentment to another. He introduced himself to public notice by a proposed
Reform of Parliament, which in its operation would have amounted to a public
justification of corruption. The Nation was to be at the expense of buying up
the rotten boroughs, whereas it ought to punish the persons who deal in the
traffic.
Passing over the two bubbles of the Dutch business and the
million a-year to sink the national debt, the matter which most presents itself,
is the affair of the Regency. Never, in the course of my observation, was
delusion more successfully acted, nor a nation more completely deceived. But,
to make this appear, it will be necessary to go over the circumstances.
Mr. Fox had stated in the House of Commons, that the
Prince of Wales, as heir in succession, had a right in himself to assume the
Government. This was opposed by Mr. Pitt; and, so far as the opposition was
confined to the doctrine, it was just. But the principles which Mr. Pitt maintained
on the contrary side were as bad, or worse in their extent, than those of Mr.
Fox; because they went to establish an aristocracy over the nation, and over
the small representation it has in the House of Commons.
Whether the English form of Government be good or bad, is
not in this case the question; but, taking it as it stands, without regard to
its merits or demerits, Mr. Pitt was farther from the point than Mr. Fox.
It is supposed to consist of three parts:- while therefore
the Nation is disposed to continue this form, the parts have a national
standing, independent of each other, and are not the creatures of each other.
Had Mr. Fox passed through Parliament, and said that the person alluded to
claimed on the, ground of the Nation, Mr. Pitt must then have contended what he
called the right of the Parliament against the right of the Nation.
By the appearance which the contest made, Mr. Fox took the
hereditary ground, and Mr. Pitt the Parliamentary ground; but the fact is, they
both took hereditary ground, and Mr. Pitt took the worst of the two.
What is called the Parliament is made up of two Houses,
one of which is more hereditary, and more beyond the control of the Nation than
what the Crown (as it is called) is supposed to be. It is an hereditary aristocracy,
assuming and asserting indefeasible, irrevocable rights and authority, wholly
independent of the Nation. Where, then, was the merited popularity of exalting
this hereditary power over another hereditary power less independent of the
Nation than what itself assumed to be, and of absorbing the rights of the
Nation into a House over which it has neither election nor control?
The general impulse of the Nation was right; but it acted
without reflection. It approved the opposition made to the right set up by Mr.
Fox, without perceiving that Mr. Pitt was supporting another indefeasible right
more remote from the Nation, in opposition to it.
With respect to the House of Commons, it is elected but by
a small part of the Nation; but were the election as universal as taxation,
which it ought to be, it would still be only the organ of the Nation, and
cannot possess inherent rights.- When the National Assembly of France resolves
a matter, the resolve is made in right of the Nation; but Mr. Pitt, on all
national questions, so far as they refer to the House of Commons, absorbs the
rights of the Nation into the organ, and makes the organ into a Nation, and the
Nation itself into a cypher.
In a few words, the question on the Regency was a question
of a million a-year, which is appropriated to the executive department: and Mr.
Pitt could not possess himself of any management of this sum, without setting
up the supremacy of Parliament; and when this was accomplished, it was
indifferent who should be Regent, as he must be Regent at his own cost. Among
the curiosities which this contentious debate afforded, was that of making the
Great Seal into a King, the affixing of which to an act was to be royal
authority. If, therefore, Royal Authority is a Great Seal, it consequently is
in itself nothing; and a good Constitution would be of infinitely more value to
the Nation than what the three Nominal Powers, as they now stand, are worth.
The continual use of the word Constitution in the English
Parliament shows there is none; and that the whole is merely a form of
government without a Constitution, and constituting itself with what powers it
pleases. If there were a Constitution, it certainly could be referred to; and
the debate on any constitutional point would terminate by producing the
Constitution. One member says this is Constitution, and another says that is
Constitution- To-day it is one thing; and to-morrow something else- while the
maintaining of the debate proves there is none. Constitution is now the cant
word of Parliament, tuning itself to the ear of the Nation. Formerly it was the
universal supremacy of Parliament- the omnipotence of Parliament: But since the
progress of Liberty in France, those phrases have a despotic harshness in their
note; and the English Parliament have catched the fashion from the National
Assembly, but without the substance, of speaking of Constitution.
As the present generation of the people in England did not
make the Government, they are not accountable for any of its defects; but, that
sooner or later, it must come into their hands to undergo a constitutional
reformation, is as certain as that the same thing has happened in France. If
France, with a revenue of nearly twenty-four millions sterling, with an extent
of rich and fertile country above four times larger than England, with a
population of twenty-four millions of inhabitants to support taxation, with
upwards of ninety millions sterling of gold and silver circulating in the
nation, and with a debt less than the present debt of England- still found it
necessary, from whatever cause, to come to a settlement of its affairs, it
solves the problem of funding for both countries.
It is out of the question to say how long what is called
the English constitution has lasted, and to argue from thence how long it is to
last; the question is, how long can the funding system last? It is a thing but
of modern invention, and has not yet continued beyond the life of a man; yet in
that short space it has so far accumulated, that, together with the current expenses,
it requires an amount of taxes at least equal to the whole landed rental of the
nation in acres to defray the annual expenditure. That a government could not
have always gone on by the same system which has been followed for the last
seventy years, must be evident to every man; and for the same reason it cannot
always go on.
The funding system is not money; neither is it, properly
speaking, credit. It, in effect, creates upon paper the sum which it appears to
borrow, and lays on a tax to keep the imaginary capital alive by the payment of
interest and sends the annuity to market, to be sold for paper already in
circulation. If any credit is given, it is to the disposition of the people to
pay the tax, and not to the government, which lays it on. When this disposition
expires, what is supposed to be the credit of Government expires with it. The
instance of France under the former Government shows that it is impossible to
compel the payment of taxes by force, when a whole nation is determined to take
its stand upon that ground.
Mr. Burke, in his review of the finances of France, states
the quantity of gold and silver in France, at about eighty-eight millions
sterling. In doing this, he has, I presume, divided by the difference of
exchange, instead of the standard of twenty-four livres to a pound sterling;
for M. Neckar’s statement, from which Mr. Burke’s is taken, is two thousand two
hundred millions of livres, which is upwards of ninety-one millions and a half
sterling.
M. Neckar in France, and Mr. George Chalmers at the Office
of Trade and Plantation in England, of which Lord Hawkesbury is president,
published nearly about the same time (1786) an account of the quantity of money
in each nation, from the returns of the Mint of each nation. Mr. Chalmers, from
the returns of the English Mint at the Tower of London, states the quantity of
money in England, including Scotland and Ireland, to be twenty millions
sterling.*[12]
M. Neckar*[13] says that the amount of money in France,
recoined from the old coin which was called in, was two thousand five hundred
millions of livres (upwards of one hundred and four millions sterling); and,
after deducting for waste, and what may be in the West Indies and other
possible circumstances, states the circulation quantity at home to be
ninety-one millions and a half sterling; but, taking it as Mr. Burke has put
it, it is sixty-eight millions more than the national quantity in England.
That the quantity of money in France cannot be under this
sum, may at once be seen from the state of the French Revenue, without
referring to the records of the French Mint for proofs. The revenue of France,
prior to the Revolution, was nearly twenty-four millions sterling; and as paper
had then no existence in France the whole revenue was collected upon gold and
silver; and it would have been impossible to have collected such a quantity of
revenue upon a less national quantity than M. Neckar has stated. Before the
establishment of paper in England, the revenue was about a fourth part of the
national amount of gold and silver, as may be known by referring to the revenue
prior to King William, and the quantity of money stated to be in the nation at
that time, which was nearly as much as it is now.
It can be of no real service to a nation, to impose upon
itself, or to permit itself to be imposed upon; but the prejudices of some, and
the imposition of others, have always represented France as a nation possessing
but little money- whereas the quantity is not only more than four times what
the quantity is in England, but is considerably greater on a proportion of
numbers. To account for this deficiency on the part of England, some reference
should be had to the English system of funding. It operates to multiply paper,
and to substitute it in the room of money, in various shapes; and the more
paper is multiplied, the more opportunities are offered to export the specie;
and it admits of a possibility (by extending it to small notes) of increasing
paper till there is no money left.
I know this is not a pleasant subject to English readers;
but the matters I am going to mention, are so important in themselves, as to
require the attention of men interested in money transactions of a public
nature. There is a circumstance stated by M. Neckar, in his treatise on the
administration of the finances, which has never been attended to in England,
but which forms the only basis whereon to estimate the quantity of money (gold
and silver) which ought to be in every nation in Europe, to preserve a relative
proportion with other nations.
Lisbon and Cadiz are the two ports into which (money) gold
and silver from South America are imported, and which afterwards divide and
spread themselves over Europe by means of commerce, and increase the quantity
of money in all parts of Europe. If, therefore, the amount of the annual
importation into Europe can be known, and the relative proportion of the
foreign commerce of the several nations by which it can be distributed can be
ascertained, they give a rule sufficiently true, to ascertain the quantity of
money which ought to be found in any nation, at any given time.
M. Neckar shows from the registers of Lisbon and Cadiz,
that the importation of gold and silver into Europe, is five millions sterling
annually. He has not taken it on a single year, but on an average of fifteen
succeeding years, from 1763 to 1777, both inclusive; in which time, the amount
was one thousand eight hundred million livres, which is seventy-five millions
sterling.*[14]
From the commencement of the Hanover succession in 1714 to
the time Mr. Chalmers published, is seventy-two years; and the quantity
imported into Europe, in that time, would be three hundred and sixty millions
sterling.
If the foreign commerce of Great Britain be stated at a
sixth part of what the whole foreign commerce of Europe amounts to (which is
probably an inferior estimation to what the gentlemen at the Exchange would
allow) the proportion which Britain should draw by commerce of this sum, to
keep herself on a proportion with the rest of Europe, would be also a sixth
part which is sixty millions sterling; and if the same allowance for waste and
accident be made for England which M. Neckar makes for France, the quantity
remaining after these deductions would be fifty-two millions; and this sum ought
to have been in the nation (at the time Mr. Chalmers published), in addition to
the sum which was in the nation at the commencement of the Hanover succession,
and to have made in the whole at least sixty-six millions sterling; instead of
which there were but twenty millions, which is forty-six millions below its
proportionate quantity.
As the quantity of gold and silver imported into Lisbon
and Cadiz is more exactly ascertained than that of any commodity imported into
England, and as the quantity of money coined at the Tower of London is still
more positively known, the leading facts do not admit of controversy. Either,
therefore, the commerce of England is unproductive of profit, or the gold and
silver which it brings in leak continually away by unseen means at the average
rate of about three-quarters of a million a year, which, in the course of
seventy-two years, accounts for the deficiency; and its absence is supplied by
paper.*[15]
The Revolution of France is attended with many novel
circumstances, not only in the political sphere, but in the circle of money
transactions. Among others, it shows that a government may be in a state of
insolvency and a nation rich. So far as the fact is confined to the late
Government of France, it was insolvent; because the nation would no longer
support its extravagance, and therefore it could no longer support itself- but
with respect to the nation all the means existed. A government may be said to
be insolvent every time it applies to the nation to discharge its arrears. The
insolvency of the late Government of France and the present of England differed
in no other respect than as the dispositions of the people differ. The people
of France refused their aid to the old Government; and the people of England
submit to taxation without inquiry. What is called the Crown in England has
been insolvent several times; the last of which, publicly known, was in May,
1777, when it applied to the nation to discharge upwards of L600,000 private
debts, which otherwise it could not pay.
It was the error of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke, and all those who
were unacquainted with the affairs of France to confound the French nation with
the French Government. The French nation, in effect, endeavoured to render the
late Government insolvent for the purpose of taking government into its own
hands: and it reserved its means for the support of the new Government. In a
country of such vast extent and population as France the natural means cannot
be wanting, and the political means appear the instant the nation is disposed
to permit them. When Mr. Burke, in a speech last winter in the British
Parliament, “cast his eyes over the map of Europe, and saw a chasm that once
was France,” he talked like a dreamer of dreams. The same natural France
existed as before, and all the natural means existed with it. The only chasm
was that the extinction of despotism had left, and which was to be filled up
with the Constitution more formidable in resources than the power which had
expired.
Although the French Nation rendered the late Government
insolvent, it did not permit the insolvency to act towards the creditors; and
the creditors, considering the Nation as the real pay-master, and the
Government only as the agent, rested themselves on the nation, in preference to
the Government. This appears greatly to disturb Mr. Burke, as the precedent is
fatal to the policy by which governments have supposed themselves secure. They
have contracted debts, with a view of attaching what is called the monied
interest of a Nation to their support; but the example in France shows that the
permanent security of the creditor is in the Nation, and not in the Government;
and that in all possible revolutions that may happen in Governments, the means
are always with the Nation, and the Nation always in existence. Mr. Burke
argues that the creditors ought to have abided the fate of the Government which
they trusted; but the National Assembly considered them as the creditors of the
Nation, and not of the Government- of the master, and not of the steward.
Notwithstanding the late government could not discharge
the current expenses, the present government has paid off a great part of the
capital. This has been accomplished by two means; the one by lessening the
expenses of government, and the other by the sale of the monastic and
ecclesiastical landed estates. The devotees and penitent debauchees,
extortioners and misers of former days, to ensure themselves a better world
than that they were about to leave, had bequeathed immense property in trust to
the priesthood for pious uses; and the priesthood kept it for themselves. The
National Assembly has ordered it to be sold for the good of the whole nation,
and the priesthood to be decently provided for.
In consequence of the revolution, the annual interest of
the debt of France will be reduced at least six millions sterling, by paying
off upwards of one hundred millions of the capital; which, with lessening the
former expenses of government at least three millions, will place France in a
situation worthy the imitation of Europe.
Upon a whole review of the subject, how vast is the
contrast! While Mr. Burke has been talking of a general bankruptcy in France,
the National Assembly has been paying off the capital of its debt; and while
taxes have increased near a million a year in England, they have lowered
several millions a year in France. Not a word has either Mr. Burke or Mr. Pitt
said about the French affairs, or the state of the French finances, in the
present Session of Parliament. The subject begins to be too well understood,
and imposition serves no longer.
There is a general enigma running through the whole of Mr.
Burke’s book. He writes in a rage against the National Assembly; but what is he
enraged about? If his assertions were as true as they are groundless, and that
France by her Revolution, had annihilated her power, and become what he calls a
chasm, it might excite the grief of a Frenchman (considering himself as a
national man), and provoke his rage against the National Assembly; but why
should it excite the rage of Mr. Burke? Alas! it is not the nation of France
that Mr. Burke means, but the Court; and every Court in Europe, dreading the
same fate, is in mourning. He writes neither in the character of a Frenchman
nor an Englishman, but in the fawning character of that creature known in all
countries, and a friend to none- a courtier. Whether it be the Court of
Versailles, or the Court of St. James, or Carlton-House, or the Court in
expectation, signifies not; for the caterpillar principle of all Courts and Courtiers
are alike. They form a common policy throughout Europe, detached and separate
from the interest of Nations: and while they appear to quarrel, they agree to
plunder. Nothing can be more terrible to a Court or Courtier than the
Revolution of France. That which is a blessing to Nations is bitterness to
them: and as their existence depends on the duplicity of a country, they
tremble at the approach of principles, and dread the precedent that threatens
their overthrow.
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other,
influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered
sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily
on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
The two modes of the Government which prevail in the
world, are First, Government by election and representation.
Secondly, Government by hereditary succession.
The former is generally known by the name of republic; the
latter by that of monarchy and aristocracy.
Those two distinct and opposite forms erect themselves on
the two distinct and opposite bases of Reason and Ignorance.- As the exercise
of Government requires talents and abilities, and as talents and abilities
cannot have hereditary descent, it is evident that hereditary succession
requires a belief from man to which his reason cannot subscribe, and which can
only be established upon his ignorance; and the more ignorant any country is,
the better it is fitted for this species of Government.
On the contrary, Government, in a well-constituted
republic, requires no belief from man beyond what his reason can give. He sees
the rationale of the whole system, its origin and its operation; and as it is
best supported when best understood, the human faculties act with boldness, and
acquire, under this form of government, a gigantic manliness.
As, therefore, each of those forms acts on a different
base, the one moving freely by the aid of reason, the other by ignorance; we
have next to consider, what it is that gives motion to that species of
Government which is called mixed Government, or, as it is sometimes ludicrously
styled, a Government of this, that and t’ other.
The moving power in this species of Government is, of
necessity, Corruption. However imperfect election and representation may be in
mixed Governments, they still give exercise to a greater portion of reason than
is convenient to the hereditary Part; and therefore it becomes necessary to buy
the reason up. A mixed Government is an imperfect everything, cementing and
soldering the discordant parts together by corruption, to act as a whole. Mr.
Burke appears highly disgusted that France, since she had resolved on a
revolution, did not adopt what he calls “A British Constitution”; and the
regretful manner in which he expresses himself on this occasion implies a
suspicion that the British Constitution needed something to keep its defects in
countenance.
In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts
cover each other till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves
the machine, contrives at the same time its own escape. When it is laid down as
a maxim, that a King can do no wrong, it places him in a state of similar
security with that of idiots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of
the question with respect to himself. It then descends upon the Minister, who
shelters himself under a majority in Parliament, which, by places, pensions,
and corruption, he can always command; and that majority justifies itself by
the same authority with which it protects the Minister. In this rotatory
motion, responsibility is thrown off from the parts, and from the whole.
When there is a Part in a Government which can do no
wrong, it implies that it does nothing; and is only the machine of another
power, by whose advice and direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King
in the mixed Governments, is the Cabinet; and as the Cabinet is always a part
of the Parliament, and the members justifying in one character what they advise
and act in another, a mixed Government becomes a continual enigma; entailing
upon a country by the quantity of corruption necessary to solder the parts, the
expense of supporting all the forms of government at once, and finally
resolving itself into a Government by Committee; in which the advisers, the
actors, the approvers, the justifiers, the persons responsible, and the persons
not responsible, are the same persons.
By this pantomimical contrivance, and change of scene and
character, the parts help each other out in matters which neither of them
singly would assume to act. When money is to be obtained, the mass of variety
apparently dissolves, and a profusion of parliamentary praises passes between
the parts. Each admires with astonishment, the wisdom, the liberality, the
disinterestedness of the other: and all of them breathe a pitying sigh at the
burthens of the Nation.
But in a well-constituted republic, nothing of this
soldering, praising, and pitying, can take place; the representation being
equal throughout the country, and complete in itself, however it may be
arranged into legislative and executive, they have all one and the same natural
source. The parts are not foreigners to each other, like democracy,
aristocracy, and monarchy. As there are no discordant distinctions, there is
nothing to corrupt by compromise, nor confound by contrivance. Public measures
appeal of themselves to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their
own merits, disown any flattering applications to vanity. The continual whine of
lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practised in
mixed Governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If
taxes are necessary, they are of course advantageous; but if they require an
apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why, then, is man thus
imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?
When men are spoken of as kings and subjects, or when
Government is mentioned under the distinct and combined heads of monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, what is it that reasoning man is to understand by
the terms? If there really existed in the world two or more distinct and
separate elements of human power, we should then see the several origins to
which those terms would descriptively apply; but as there is but one species of
man, there can be but one element of human power; and that element is man
himself. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, are but creatures of
imagination; and a thousand such may be contrived as well as three.
From the Revolutions of America and France, and the
symptoms that have appeared in other countries, it is evident that the opinion
of the world is changing with respect to systems of Government, and that
revolutions are not within the compass of political calculations. The progress
of time and circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great
changes, is too mechanical to measure the force of the mind, and the rapidity
of reflection, by which revolutions are generated: All the old governments have
received a shock from those that already appear, and which were once more
improbable, and are a greater subject of wonder, than a general revolution in
Europe would be now.
When we survey the wretched condition of man, under the
monarchical and hereditary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one
power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it
becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in
the principle and construction of Governments is necessary.
What is government more than the management of the affairs
of a Nation? It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any
particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is
supported; and though by force and contrivance it has been usurped into an
inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a
matter of right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual; and
a Nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of
Government it finds inconvenient, and to establish such as accords with its
interest, disposition and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction of
men into Kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers,
cannot that of citizens; and is exploded by the principle upon which
Governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the Sovereignty, and,
as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be only
to the laws.
When men think of what Government is, they must
necessarily suppose it to possess a knowledge of all the objects and matters
upon which its authority is to be exercised. In this view of Government, the
republican system, as established by America and France, operates to embrace
the whole of a Nation; and the knowledge necessary to the interest of all the
parts, is to be found in the center, which the parts by representation form:
But the old Governments are on a construction that excludes knowledge as well
as happiness; government by Monks, who knew nothing of the world beyond the
walls of a Convent, is as consistent as government by Kings.
What were formerly called Revolutions, were little more
than a change of persons, or an alteration of local circumstances. They rose
and fell like things of course, and had nothing in their existence or their
fate that could influence beyond the spot that produced them. But what we now
see in the world, from the Revolutions of America and France, are a renovation
of the natural order of things, a system of principles as universal as truth
and the existence of man, and combining moral with political happiness and
national prosperity.
“I. Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in
respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on
public utility.
“II. The end of all political associations is the
preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights
are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
“III. The nation is essentially the source of all
sovereignty; nor can any Individual, or Any Body Of Men, be entitled to any
authority which is not expressly derived from it.”
In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation
into confusion by inflaming ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom
and abilities, and to exercise them for the public good, and not for the
emolument or aggrandisement of particular descriptions of men or families.
Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is
abolished; and the sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original
place, the Nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars
would be taken away.
It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of
enlarged and benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan
for abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an European
Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific Republic; by appointing
delegates from the several Nations who were to act as a Court of arbitration in
any disputes that might arise between nation and nation.
Had such a plan been adopted at the time it was proposed,
the taxes of England and France, as two of the parties, would have been at
least ten millions sterling annually to each Nation less than they were at the
commencement of the French Revolution.
To conceive a cause why such a plan has not been adopted
(and that instead of a Congress for the purpose of preventing war, it has been
called only to terminate a war, after a fruitless expense of several years) it
will be necessary to consider the interest of Governments as a distinct
interest to that of Nations.
Whatever is the cause of taxes to a Nation, becomes also
the means of revenue to Government. Every war terminates with an addition of
taxes, and consequently with an addition of revenue; and in any event of war,
in the manner they are now commenced and concluded, the power and interest of
Governments are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it
easily furnishes the pretence of necessity for taxes and appointments to places
and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments; and to
establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations,
would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches. The
frivolous matters upon which war is made, show the disposition and avidity of
Governments to uphold the system of war, and betray the motives upon which they
act.
Why are not Republics plunged into war, but because the
nature of their Government does not admit of an interest distinct from that of
the Nation? Even Holland, though an ill-constructed Republic, and with a
commerce extending over the world, existed nearly a century without war: and
the instant the form of Government was changed in France, the republican
principles of peace and domestic prosperity and economy arose with the new
Government; and the same consequences would follow the cause in other Nations.
As war is the system of Government on the old construction,
the animosity which Nations reciprocally entertain, is nothing more than what
the policy of their Governments excites to keep up the spirit of the system.
Each Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a
means of heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing
them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a
false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the
ambition of Kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of
such Governments; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom
of a Nation should apply itself to reform the system.
Whether the forms and maxims of Governments which are
still in practice, were adapted to the condition of the world at the period
they were established, is not in this case the question. The older they are,
the less correspondence can they have with the present state of things. Time,
and change of circumstances and opinions, have the same progressive effect in
rendering modes of Government obsolete as they have upon customs and manners.-
Agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the tranquil arts, by which the
prosperity of Nations is best promoted, require a different system of
Government, and a different species of knowledge to direct its operations, than
what might have been required in the former condition of the world.
As it is not difficult to perceive, from the enlightened
state of mankind, that hereditary Governments are verging to their decline, and
that Revolutions on the broad basis of national sovereignty and Government by
representation, are making their way in Europe, it would be an act of wisdom to
anticipate their approach, and produce Revolutions by reason and accommodation,
rather than commit them to the issue of convulsions.
From what we now see, nothing of reform in the political
world ought to be held improbable. It is an age of Revolutions, in which
everything may be looked for. The intrigue of Courts, by which the system of
war is kept up, may provoke a confederation of Nations to abolish it: and an
European Congress to patronise the progress of free Government, and promote the
civilisation of Nations with each other, is an event nearer in probability,
than once were the revolutions and alliance of France and America.
END OF PART I.
RIGHTS OF MAN.
When I began the chapter entitled the “Conclusion” in the
former part of the RIGHTS OF MAN, published last year, it was my intention to
have extended it to a greater length; but in casting the whole matter in my
mind, which I wish to add, I found that it must either make the work too bulky,
or contract my plan too much. I therefore brought it to a close as soon as the
subject would admit, and reserved what I had further to say to another
opportunity.
Several other reasons contributed to produce this
determination. I wished to know the manner in which a work, written in a style
of thinking and expression different to what had been customary in England,
would be received before I proceeded farther. A great field was opening to the
view of mankind by means of the French Revolution. Mr. Burke’s outrageous
opposition thereto brought the controversy into England. He attacked principles
which he knew (from information) I would contest with him, because they are
principles I believe to be good, and which I have contributed to establish, and
conceive myself bound to defend. Had he not urged the controversy, I had most
probably been a silent man.
Another reason for deferring the remainder of the work
was, that Mr. Burke promised in his first publication to renew the subject at
another opportunity, and to make a comparison of what he called the English and
French Constitutions. I therefore held myself in reserve for him. He has
published two works since, without doing this: which he certainly would not
have omitted, had the comparison been in his favour.
In his last work, his “Appeal from the New to the Old
Whigs,” he has quoted about ten pages from the RIGHTS OF MAN, and having given
himself the trouble of doing this, says he “shall not attempt in the smallest
degree to refute them,” meaning the principles therein contained. I am enough
acquainted with Mr. Burke to know that he would if he could. But instead of
contesting them, he immediately after consoles himself with saying that “he has
done his part.”- He has not done his part. He has not performed his promise of
a comparison of constitutions. He started the controversy, he gave the challenge,
and has fled from it; and he is now a case in point with his own opinion that “the
age of chivalry is gone!”
The title, as well as the substance of his last work, his “Appeal,”
is his condemnation. Principles must stand on their own merits, and if they are
good they certainly will. To put them under the shelter of other men’s
authority, as Mr. Burke has done, serves to bring them into suspicion. Mr.
Burke is not very fond of dividing his honours, but in this case he is artfully
dividing the disgrace.
But who are those to whom Mr. Burke has made his appeal? A
set of childish thinkers, and half-way politicians born in the last century,
men who went no farther with any principle than as it suited their purposes as
a party; the nation was always left out of the question; and this has been the
character of every party from that day to this. The nation sees nothing of such
works, or such politics, worthy its attention. A little matter will move a
party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.
Though I see nothing in Mr. Burke’s “Appeal” worth taking
much notice of, there is, however, one expression upon which I shall offer a
few remarks. After quoting largely from the RIGHTS OF MAN, and declining to
contest the principles contained in that work, he says: “This will most
probably be done (if such writings shall be thought to deserve any other
refutation than that of criminal justice) by others, who may think with Mr.
Burke and with the same zeal.”
In the first place, it has not yet been done by anybody.
Not less, I believe, than eight or ten pamphlets intended as answers to the
former part of the RIGHTS OF MAN have been published by different persons, and
not one of them to my knowledge, has extended to a second edition, nor are even
the titles of them so much as generally remembered. As I am averse to
unnecessary multiplying publications, I have answered none of them. And as I
believe that a man may write himself out of reputation when nobody else can do
it, I am careful to avoid that rock.
But as I would decline unnecessary publications on the one
hand, so would I avoid everything that might appear like sullen pride on the
other. If Mr. Burke, or any person on his side the question, will produce an
answer to the RIGHTS OF MAN that shall extend to a half, or even to a fourth
part of the number of copies to which the Rights Of Man extended, I will reply
to his work. But until this be done, I shall so far take the sense of the
public for my guide (and the world knows I am not a flatterer) that what they do
not think worth while to read, is not worth mine to answer. I suppose the
number of copies to which the first part of the RIGHTS OF MAN extended, taking
England, Scotland, and Ireland, is not less than between forty and fifty
thousand.
I now come to remark on the remaining part of the
quotation I have made from Mr. Burke.
“If,” says he, “such writings shall be thought to deserve
any other refutation than that of criminal justice.”
Pardoning the pun, it must be criminal justice indeed that
should condemn a work as a substitute for not being able to refute it. The
greatest condemnation that could be passed upon it would be a refutation. But
in proceeding by the method Mr. Burke alludes to, the condemnation would, in
the final event, pass upon the criminality of the process and not upon the
work, and in this case, I had rather be the author, than be either the judge or
the jury that should condemn it.
But to come at once to the point. I have differed from
some professional gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find
they are falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as
concisely as I can.
I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then
compare it with a government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a
constitution.
It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is
called arbitrary power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles,
good or bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.
If a law be bad it is one thing to oppose the practice of
it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its
defects, and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to
be substituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion (making it also
my practice) that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time
of every argument to show its errors and procure its repeal, than forcibly to
violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force,
and lead to a discretionary violation, of those which are good.
The case is the same with respect to principles and forms
of government, or to what are called constitutions and the parts of which they
are, composed.
It is for the good of nations and not for the emolument or
aggrandisement of particular individuals, that government ought to be
established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The defects
of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a
parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it
is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out. When those
defects, and the means of remedying them, are generally seen by a nation, that
nation will reform its government or its constitution in the one case, as the
government repealed or reformed the law in the other. The operation of
government is restricted to the making and the administering of laws; but it is
to a nation that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating
constitutions and governments belong; and consequently those subjects, as
subjects of investigation, are always before a country as a matter of right,
and cannot, without invading the general rights of that country, be made
subjects for prosecution. On this ground I will meet Mr. Burke whenever he
please. It is better that the whole argument should come out than to seek to
stifle it. It was himself that opened the controversy, and he ought not to
desert it.
I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will
continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries in Europe. If
better reasons can be shown for them than against them, they will stand; if the
contrary, they will not. Mankind are not now to be told they shall not think,
or they shall not read; and publications that go no farther than to investigate
principles of government, to invite men to reason and to reflect, and to show
the errors and excellences of different systems, have a right to appear. If
they do not excite attention, they are not worth the trouble of a prosecution;
and if they do, the prosecution will amount to nothing, since it cannot amount
to a prohibition of reading. This would be a sentence on the public, instead of
the author, and would also be the most effectual mode of making or hastening revolution.
On all cases that apply universally to a nation, with
respect to systems of government, a jury of twelve men is not competent to
decide. Where there are no witnesses to be examined, no facts to be proved, and
where the whole matter is before the whole public, and the merits or demerits
of it resting on their opinion; and where there is nothing to be known in a
court, but what every body knows out of it, every twelve men is equally as good
a jury as the other, and would most probably reverse each other’s verdict; or,
from the variety of their opinions, not be able to form one. It is one case,
whether a nation approve a work, or a plan; but it is quite another case,
whether it will commit to any such jury the power of determining whether that
nation have a right to, or shall reform its government or not. I mention those
cases that Mr. Burke may see I have not written on Government without
reflecting on what is Law, as well as on what are Rights.- The only effectual
jury in such cases would be a convention of the whole nation fairly elected;
for in all such cases the whole nation is the vicinage. If Mr. Burke will
propose such a jury, I will waive all privileges of being the citizen of
another country, and, defending its principles, abide the issue, provided he
will do the same; for my opinion is, that his work and his principles would be
condemned instead of mine.
As to the prejudices which men have from education and
habit, in favour of any particular form or system of government, those
prejudices have yet to stand the test of reason and reflection. In fact, such
prejudices are nothing. No man is prejudiced in favour of a thing, knowing it
to be wrong. He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he
sees it is not so, the prejudice will be gone. We have but a defective idea of
what prejudice is. It might be said, that until men think for themselves the
whole is prejudice, and not opinion; for that only is opinion which is the
result of reason and reflection. I offer this remark, that Mr. Burke may not
confide too much in what have been the customary prejudices of the country.
I do not believe that the people of England have ever been
fairly and candidly dealt by. They have been imposed upon by parties, and by
men assuming the character of leaders. It is time that the nation should rise
above those trifles. It is time to dismiss that inattention which has so long
been the encouraging cause of stretching taxation to excess. It is time to
dismiss all those songs and toasts which are calculated to enslave, and operate
to suffocate reflection. On all such subjects men have but to think, and they
will neither act wrong nor be misled. To say that any people are not fit for
freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded
with taxes than not. If such a case could be proved, it would equally prove
that those who govern are not fit to govern them, for they are a part of the
same national mass.
But admitting governments to be changed all over Europe;
it certainly may be done without convulsion or revenge. It is not worth making
changes or revolutions, unless it be for some great national benefit: and when
this shall appear to a nation, the danger will be, as in America and France, to
those who oppose; and with this reflection I close my Preface.
London, Feb. 9, 1792
RIGHTS OF MAN
PART II.
What Archimedes said of the mechanical powers, may be
applied to Reason and Liberty. “Had we,” said he, “a place to stand upon, we
might raise the world.”
The revolution of America presented in politics what was
only theory in mechanics. So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old
world, and so effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit
established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia,
Africa, or Europe, to reform the political condition of man. Freedom had been
hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of
fear had made men afraid to think.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it
asks,- and all it wants,- is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no
inscription to distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American
governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock and
man began to contemplate redress.
The independence of America, considered merely as a
separation from England, would have been a matter but of little importance, had
it not been accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of
governments. She made a stand, not for herself only, but for the world, and
looked beyond the advantages herself could receive. Even the Hessian, though
hired to fight against her, may live to bless his defeat; and England,
condemning the viciousness of its government, rejoice in its miscarriage.
As America was the only spot in the political world where
the principle of universal reformation could begin, so also was it the best in
the natural world. An assemblage of circumstances conspired, not only to give
birth, but to add gigantic maturity to its principles. The scene which that
country presents to the eye of a spectator, has something in it which generates
and encourages great ideas. Nature appears to him in magnitude. The mighty
objects he beholds, act upon his mind by enlarging it, and he partakes of the
greatness he contemplates.- Its first settlers were emigrants from different
European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from the
governmental persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as enemies,
but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the cultivation of a
wilderness produced among them a state of society, which countries long
harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had neglected to
cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He sees his species,
not with the inhuman idea of a natural enemy, but as kindred; and the example
shows to the artificial world, that man must go back to Nature for information.
From the rapid progress which America makes in every
species of improvement, it is rational to conclude that, if the governments of
Asia, Africa, and Europe had begun on a principle similar to that of America,
or had not been very early corrupted therefrom, those countries must by this
time have been in a far superior condition to what they are. Age after age has
passed away, for no other purpose than to behold their wretchedness. Could we
suppose a spectator who knew nothing of the world, and who was put into it
merely to make his observations, he would take a great part of the old world to
be new, just struggling with the difficulties and hardships of an infant
settlement. He could not suppose that the hordes of miserable poor with which
old countries abound could be any other than those who had not yet had time to
provide for themselves. Little would he think they were the consequence of what
in such countries they call government.
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look
at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement we still find the greedy
hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry,
and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to
furnish new pretences for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its
prey, and permits none to escape without a tribute.
As revolutions have begun (and as the probability is
always greater against a thing beginning, than of proceeding after it has
begun), it is natural to expect that other revolutions will follow. The amazing
and still increasing expenses with which old governments are conducted, the
numerous wars they engage in or provoke, the embarrassments they throw in the
way of universal civilisation and commerce, and the oppression and usurpation
acted at home, have wearied out the patience, and exhausted the property of the
world. In such a situation, and with such examples already existing,
revolutions are to be looked for. They are become subjects of universal
conversation, and may be considered as the Order of the day.
If systems of government can be introduced less expensive
and more productive of general happiness than those which have existed, all
attempts to oppose their progress will in the end be fruitless. Reason, like
time, will make its own way, and prejudice will fall in a combat with interest.
If universal peace, civilisation, and commerce are ever to be the happy lot of
man, it cannot be accomplished but by a revolution in the system of
governments. All the monarchical governments are military. War is their trade,
plunder and revenue their objects. While such governments continue, peace has
not the absolute security of a day. What is the history of all monarchical
governments but a disgustful picture of human wretchedness, and the accidental
respite of a few years’ repose? Wearied with war, and tired with human
butchery, they sat down to rest, and called it peace. This certainly is not the
condition that heaven intended for man; and if this be monarchy, well might
monarchy be reckoned among the sins of the Jews.
The revolutions which formerly took place in the world had
nothing in them that interested the bulk of mankind. They extended only to a
change of persons and measures, but not of principles, and rose or fell among
the common transactions of the moment. What we now behold may not improperly be
called a “counter-revolution.” Conquest and tyranny, at some earlier period,
dispossessed man of his rights, and he is now recovering them. And as the tide
of all human affairs has its ebb and flow in directions contrary to each other,
so also is it in this. Government founded on a moral theory, on a system of
universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights of Man, is now revolving
from west to east by a stronger impulse than the government of the sword
revolved from east to west. It interests not particular individuals, but
nations in its progress, and promises a new era to the human race.
The danger to which the success of revolutions is most
exposed is that of attempting them before the principles on which they proceed,
and the advantages to result from them, are sufficiently seen and understood.
Almost everything appertaining to the circumstances of a nation, has been
absorbed and confounded under the general and mysterious word government.
Though it avoids taking to its account the errors it commits, and the mischiefs
it occasions, it fails not to arrogate to itself whatever has the appearance of
prosperity. It robs industry of its honours, by pedantically making itself the
cause of its effects; and purloins from the general character of man, the
merits that appertain to him as a social being.
It may therefore be of use in this day of revolutions to
discriminate between those things which are the effect of government, and those
which are not. This will best be done by taking a review of society and
civilisation, and the consequences resulting therefrom, as things distinct from
what are called governments. By beginning with this investigation, we shall be
able to assign effects to their proper causes and analyse the mass of common
errors.
Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not
the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and
the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would
exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and
reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised
community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it
together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the
tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from
the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and
forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater
influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself
almost everything which is ascribed to government.
To understand the nature and quantity of government proper
for man, it is necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for
social life, she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made
his natural wants greater than his individual powers. No one man is capable,
without the aid of society, of supplying his own wants, and those wants, acting
upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as
gravitation acts to a centre.
But she has gone further. She has not only forced man into
society by a diversity of wants which the reciprocal aid of each other can
supply, but she has implanted in him a system of social affections, which,
though not necessary to his existence, are essential to his happiness. There is
no period in life when this love for society ceases to act. It begins and ends
with our being.
If we examine with attention into the composition and
constitution of man, the diversity of his wants, and the diversity of talents
in different men for reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his
propensity to society, and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting
from it, we shall easily discover, that a great part of what is called
government is mere imposition.
Government is no farther necessary than to supply the few
cases to which society and civilisation are not conveniently competent; and
instances are not wanting to show, that everything which government can
usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society,
without government.
For upwards of two years from the commencement of the
American War, and to a longer period in several of the American States, there
were no established forms of government. The old governments had been
abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defence to employ its
attention in establishing new governments; yet during this interval order and
harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a
natural aptness in man, and more so in society, because it embraces a greater
variety of abilities and resource, to accommodate itself to whatever situation
it is in. The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act: a
general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
So far is it from being true, as has been pretended, that
the abolition of any formal government is the dissolution of society, that it
acts by a contrary impulse, and brings the latter the closer together. All that
part of its organisation which it had committed to its government, devolves
again upon itself, and acts through its medium. When men, as well from natural
instinct as from reciprocal benefits, have habituated themselves to social and
civilised life, there is always enough of its principles in practice to carry
them through any changes they may find necessary or convenient to make in their
government. In short, man is so naturally a creature of society that it is
almost impossible to put him out of it.
Formal government makes but a small part of civilised
life; and when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is
a thing more in name and idea than in fact. It is to the great and fundamental
principles of society and civilisation- to the common usage universally
consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained- to the unceasing
circulation of interest, which, passing through its million channels,
invigorates the whole mass of civilised man- it is to these things, infinitely
more than to anything which even the best instituted government can perform,
that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.
The more perfect civilisation is, the less occasion has it
for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern
itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the
case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to
diminish. It is but few general laws that civilised life requires, and those of
such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of
government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the
principles are that first condense men into society, and what are the motives
that regulate their mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time
we arrive at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business
is performed by the natural operation of the parts upon each other.
Man, with respect to all those matters, is more a creature
of consistency than he is aware, or than governments would wish him to believe.
All the great laws of society are laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce,
whether with respect to the intercourse of individuals or of nations, are laws
of mutual and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed, because it is
the interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws
their governments may impose or interpose.
But how often is the natural propensity to society
disturbed or destroyed by the operations of government! When the latter,
instead of being ingrafted on the principles of the former, assumes to exist
for itself, and acts by partialities of favour and oppression, it becomes the
cause of the mischiefs it ought to prevent.
If we look back to the riots and tumults which at various
times have happened in England, we shall find that they did not proceed from
the want of a government, but that government was itself the generating cause;
instead of consolidating society it divided it; it deprived it of its natural
cohesion, and engendered discontents and disorders which otherwise would not
have existed. In those associations which men promiscuously form for the
purpose of trade, or of any concern in which government is totally out of the
question, and in which they act merely on the principles of society, we see how
naturally the various parties unite; and this shows, by comparison, that
governments, so far from being always the cause or means of order, are often
the destruction of it. The riots of 1780 had no other source than the remains
of those prejudices which the government itself had encouraged. But with
respect to England there are also other causes.
Excess and inequality of taxation, however disguised in
the means, never fail to appear in their effects. As a great mass of the
community are thrown thereby into poverty and discontent, they are constantly
on the brink of commotion; and deprived, as they unfortunately are, of the
means of information, are easily heated to outrage. Whatever the apparent cause
of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness. It shows that
something is wrong in the system of government that injures the felicity by
which society is to be preserved.
But as a fact is superior to reasoning, the instance of
America presents itself to confirm these observations. If there is a country in
the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least
expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different
nations,*[16] accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking
different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear
that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation
of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man,
every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison.
There the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not
mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expense. Their
taxes are few, because their government is just: and as there is nothing to
render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.
A metaphysical man, like Mr. Burke, would have tortured
his invention to discover how such a people could be governed. He would have
supposed that some must be managed by fraud, others by force, and all by some
contrivance; that genius must be hired to impose upon ignorance, and show and
parade to fascinate the vulgar. Lost in the abundance of his researches, he
would have resolved and re-resolved, and finally overlooked the plain and easy
road that lay directly before him.
One of the great advantages of the American Revolution has
been, that it led to a discovery of the principles, and laid open the
imposition, of governments. All the revolutions till then had been worked
within the atmosphere of a court, and never on the grand floor of a nation. The
parties were always of the class of courtiers; and whatever was their rage for
reformation, they carefully preserved the fraud of the profession.
In all cases they took care to represent government as a
thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood; and they hid from
the understanding of the nation the only thing that was beneficial to know,
namely, That government is nothing more than a national association adding on
the principles of society.
Having thus endeavoured to show that the social and
civilised state of man is capable of performing within itself almost everything
necessary to its protection and government, it will be proper, on the other
hand, to take a review of the present old governments, and examine whether
their principles and practice are correspondent thereto.
It is impossible that such governments as have hitherto
existed in the world, could have commenced by any other means than a total
violation of every principle sacred and moral. The obscurity in which the
origin of all the present old governments is buried, implies the iniquity and
disgrace with which they began. The origin of the present government of America
and France will ever be remembered, because it is honourable to record it; but
with respect to the rest, even Flattery has consigned them to the tomb of time,
without an inscription.
It could have been no difficult thing in the early and
solitary ages of the world, while the chief employment of men was that of
attending flocks and herds, for a banditti of ruffians to overrun a country,
and lay it under contributions. Their power being thus established, the chief
of the band contrived to lose the name of Robber in that of Monarch; and hence
the origin of Monarchy and Kings.
The origin of the Government of England, so far as relates
to what is called its line of monarchy, being one of the latest, is perhaps the
best recorded. The hatred which the Norman invasion and tyranny begat, must
have been deeply rooted in the nation, to have outlived the contrivance to
obliterate it. Though not a courtier will talk of the curfew-bell, not a
village in England has forgotten it.
Those bands of robbers having parcelled out the world, and
divided it into dominions, began, as is naturally the case, to quarrel with
each other. What at first was obtained by violence was considered by others as
lawful to be taken, and a second plunderer succeeded the first. They
alternately invaded the dominions which each had assigned to himself, and the
brutality with which they treated each other explains the original character of
monarchy. It was ruffian torturing ruffian. The conqueror considered the
conquered, not as his prisoner, but his property. He led him in triumph rattling
in chains, and doomed him, at pleasure, to slavery or death. As time
obliterated the history of their beginning, their successors assumed new
appearances, to cut off the entail of their disgrace, but their principles and
objects remained the same. What at first was plunder, assumed the softer name
of revenue; and the power originally usurped, they affected to inherit.
From such beginning of governments, what could be expected
but a continued system of war and extortion? It has established itself into a
trade. The vice is not peculiar to one more than to another, but is the common
principle of all. There does not exist within such governments sufficient
stamina whereon to engraft reformation; and the shortest and most effectual
remedy is to begin anew on the ground of the nation.
What scenes of horror, what perfection of iniquity,
present themselves in contemplating the character and reviewing the history of
such governments! If we would delineate human nature with a baseness of heart
and hypocrisy of countenance that reflection would shudder at and humanity
disown, it is kings, courts and cabinets that must sit for the portrait. Man,
naturally as he is, with all his faults about him, is not up to the character.
Can we possibly suppose that if governments had originated
in a right principle, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, the
world could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition we have seen
it? What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay aside
his peaceful pursuit, and go to war with the farmer of another country? or what
inducement has the manufacturer? What is dominion to them, or to any class of
men in a nation? Does it add an acre to any man’s estate, or raise its value?
Are not conquest and defeat each of the same price, and taxes the never-failing
consequence?- Though this reasoning may be good to a nation, it is not so to a
government. War is the Pharo-table of governments, and nations the dupes of the
game.
If there is anything to wonder at in this miserable scene
of governments more than might be expected, it is the progress which the
peaceful arts of agriculture, manufacture and commerce have made beneath such a
long accumulating load of discouragement and oppression. It serves to show that
instinct in animals does not act with stronger impulse than the principles of
society and civilisation operate in man. Under all discouragements, he pursues
his object, and yields to nothing but impossibilities.
Nothing can appear more contradictory than the principles
on which the old governments began, and the condition to which society,
civilisation and commerce are capable of carrying mankind. Government, on the
old system, is an assumption of power, for the aggrandisement of itself; on the
new, a delegation of power for the common benefit of society. The former
supports itself by keeping up a system of war; the latter promotes a system of
peace, as the true means of enriching a nation. The one encourages national
prejudices; the other promotes universal society, as the means of universal
commerce. The one measures its prosperity, by the quantity of revenue it
extorts; the other proves its excellence, by the small quantity of taxes it
requires.
Mr. Burke has talked of old and new whigs. If he can amuse
himself with childish names and distinctions, I shall not interrupt his
pleasure. It is not to him, but to the Abbe Sieyes, that I address this
chapter. I am already engaged to the latter gentleman to discuss the subject of
monarchical government; and as it naturally occurs in comparing the old and new
systems, I make this the opportunity of presenting to him my observations. I
shall occasionally take Mr. Burke in my way.
Though it might be proved that the system of government
now called the New, is the most ancient in principle of all that have existed,
being founded on the original, inherent Rights of Man: yet, as tyranny and the
sword have suspended the exercise of those rights for many centuries past, it
serves better the purpose of distinction to call it the new, than to claim the
right of calling it the old.
The first general distinction between those two systems,
is, that the one now called the old is hereditary, either in whole or in part;
and the new is entirely representative. It rejects all hereditary government:
First, As being an imposition on mankind.
Secondly, As inadequate to the purposes for which
government is necessary.
With respect to the first of these heads- It cannot be
proved by what right hereditary government could begin; neither does there
exist within the compass of mortal power a right to establish it. Man has no
authority over posterity in matters of personal right; and, therefore, no man,
or body of men, had, or can have, a right to set up hereditary government. Were
even ourselves to come again into existence, instead of being succeeded by
posterity, we have not now the right of taking from ourselves the rights which
would then be ours. On what ground, then, do we pretend to take them from
others?
All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An
heritable crown, or an heritable throne, or by what other fanciful name such
things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind
are heritable property. To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as
if they were flocks and herds.
With respect to the second head, that of being inadequate
to the purposes for which government is necessary, we have only to consider
what government essentially is, and compare it with the circumstances to which
hereditary succession is subject.
Government ought to be a thing always in full maturity. It
ought to be so constructed as to be superior to all the accidents to which
individual man is subject; and, therefore, hereditary succession, by being
subject to them all, is the most irregular and imperfect of all the systems of
government.
We have heard the Rights of Man called a levelling system;
but the only system to which the word levelling is truly applicable, is the
hereditary monarchical system. It is a system of mental levelling. It
indiscriminately admits every species of character to the same authority. Vice
and virtue, ignorance and wisdom, in short, every quality good or bad, is put
on the same level. Kings succeed each other, not as rationals, but as animals.
It signifies not what their mental or moral characters are. Can we then be
surprised at the abject state of the human mind in monarchical countries, when
the government itself is formed on such an abject levelling system?- It has no
fixed character. To-day it is one thing; to-morrow it is something else. It
changes with the temper of every succeeding individual, and is subject to all
the varieties of each. It is government through the medium of passions and
accidents. It appears under all the various characters of childhood,
decrepitude, dotage, a thing at nurse, in leading-strings, or in crutches. It
reverses the wholesome order of nature. It occasionally puts children over men,
and the conceits of nonage over wisdom and experience. In short, we cannot
conceive a more ridiculous figure of government, than hereditary succession, in
all its cases, presents.
Could it be made a decree in nature, or an edict
registered in heaven, and man could know it, that virtue and wisdom should
invariably appertain to hereditary succession, the objection to it would be
removed; but when we see that nature acts as if she disowned and sported with
the hereditary system; that the mental character of successors, in all
countries, is below the average of human understanding; that one is a tyrant,
another an idiot, a third insane, and some all three together, it is impossible
to attach confidence to it, when reason in man has power to act.
It is not to the Abbe Sieyes that I need apply this reasoning;
he has already saved me that trouble by giving his own opinion upon the case. “If
it be asked,” says he, “what is my opinion with respect to hereditary right, I
answer without hesitation, That in good theory, an hereditary transmission of
any power of office, can never accord with the laws of a true representation.
Hereditaryship is, in this sense, as much an attaint upon principle, as an
outrage upon society. But let us,” continues he, “refer to the history of all
elective monarchies and principalities: is there one in which the elective mode
is not worse than the hereditary succession?”
As to debating on which is the worst of the two, it is
admitting both to be bad; and herein we are agreed. The preference which the
Abbe has given, is a condemnation of the thing that he prefers. Such a mode of
reasoning on such a subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts to an
accusation upon Providence, as if she had left to man no other choice with
respect to government than between two evils, the best of which he admits to be
“an attaint upon principle, and an outrage upon society.”
Passing over, for the present, all the evils and mischiefs
which monarchy has occasioned in the world, nothing can more effectually prove
its uselessness in a state of civil government, than making it hereditary.
Would we make any office hereditary that required wisdom and abilities to fill
it? And where wisdom and abilities are not necessary, such an office, whatever
it may be, is superfluous or insignificant.
Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It
puts it in the most ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any
child or idiot may fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but
to be a king requires only the animal figure of man- a sort of breathing
automaton. This sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it cannot
long resist the awakened reason and interest of man.
As to Mr. Burke, he is a stickler for monarchy, not
altogether as a pensioner, if he is one, which I believe, but as a political
man. He has taken up a contemptible opinion of mankind, who, in their turn, are
taking up the same of him. He considers them as a herd of beings that must be
governed by fraud, effigy, and show; and an idol would be as good a figure of monarchy
with him, as a man. I will, however, do him the justice to say that, with
respect to America, he has been very complimentary. He always contended, at
least in my hearing, that the people of America were more enlightened than
those of England, or of any country in Europe; and that therefore the
imposition of show was not necessary in their governments.
Though the comparison between hereditary and elective
monarchy, which the Abbe has made, is unnecessary to the case, because the
representative system rejects both: yet, were I to make the comparison, I
should decide contrary to what he has done.
The civil wars which have originated from contested
hereditary claims, are more numerous, and have been more dreadful, and of
longer continuance, than those which have been occasioned by election. All the
civil wars in France arose from the hereditary system; they were either
produced by hereditary claims, or by the imperfection of the hereditary form,
which admits of regencies or monarchy at nurse. With respect to England, its
history is full of the same misfortunes. The contests for succession between
the houses of York and Lancaster lasted a whole century; and others of a
similar nature have renewed themselves since that period. Those of 1715 and
1745 were of the same kind. The succession war for the crown of Spain embroiled
almost half Europe. The disturbances of Holland are generated from the
hereditaryship of the Stadtholder. A government calling itself free, with an
hereditary office, is like a thorn in the flesh, that produces a fermentation
which endeavours to discharge it.
But I might go further, and place also foreign wars, of
whatever kind, to the same cause. It is by adding the evil of hereditary
succession to that of monarchy, that a permanent family interest is created,
whose constant objects are dominion and revenue. Poland, though an elective
monarchy, has had fewer wars than those which are hereditary; and it is the
only government that has made a voluntary essay, though but a small one, to
reform the condition of the country.
Having thus glanced at a few of the defects of the old, or
hereditary systems of government, let us compare it with the new, or
representative system.
The representative system takes society and civilisation
for its basis; nature, reason, and experience, for its guide.
Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has
demonstrated that it is impossible to control Nature in her distribution of
mental powers. She gives them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which
she, apparently to us, scatters them among mankind, that rule remains a secret
to man. It would be as ridiculous to attempt to fix the hereditaryship of human
beauty, as of wisdom. Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless
plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced.
There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all
purposes; but with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing
its place. It rises in one to-day, in another to-morrow, and has most probably
visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn.
As this is in the order of nature, the order of government
must necessarily follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate
into ignorance. The hereditary system, therefore, is as repugnant to human
wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as it is unjust.
As the republic of letters brings forward the best
literary productions, by giving to genius a fair and universal chance; so the
representative system of government is calculated to produce the wisest laws,
by collecting wisdom from where it can be found. I smile to myself when I
contemplate the ridiculous insignificance into which literature and all the
sciences would sink, were they made hereditary; and I carry the same idea into
governments. An hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author.
I know not whether Homer or Euclid had sons; but I will venture an opinion that
if they had, and had left their works unfinished, those sons could not have
completed them.
Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of
hereditary government than is seen in the descendants of those men, in any line
of life, who once were famous? Is there scarcely an instance in which there is
not a total reverse of the character? It appears as if the tide of mental
faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its
course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system,
which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to
flow! By continuing this absurdity, man is perpetually in contradiction with
himself; he accepts, for a king, or a chief magistrate, or a legislator, a
person whom he would not elect for a constable.
It appears to general observation, that revolutions create
genius and talents; but those events do no more than bring them forward. There
is existing in man, a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless
something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to
the grave. As it is to the advantage of society that the whole of its faculties
should be employed, the construction of government ought to be such as to bring
forward, by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity which
never fails to appear in revolutions.
This cannot take place in the insipid state of hereditary
government, not only because it prevents, but because it operates to benumb.
When the mind of a nation is bowed down by any political superstition in its
government, such as hereditary succession is, it loses a considerable portion
of its powers on all other subjects and objects. Hereditary succession requires
the same obedience to ignorance, as to wisdom; and when once the mind can bring
itself to pay this indiscriminate reverence, it descends below the stature of
mental manhood. It is fit to be great only in little things. It acts a
treachery upon itself, and suffocates the sensations that urge the detection.
Though the ancient governments present to us a miserable
picture of the condition of man, there is one which above all others exempts
itself from the general description. I mean the democracy of the Athenians. We
see more to admire, and less to condemn, in that great, extraordinary people,
than in anything which history affords.
Mr. Burke is so little acquainted with constituent
principles of government, that he confounds democracy and representation
together. Representation was a thing unknown in the ancient democracies. In
those the mass of the people met and enacted laws (grammatically speaking) in
the first person. Simple democracy was no other than the common hall of the
ancients. It signifies the form, as well as the public principle of the
government. As those democracies increased in population, and the territory
extended, the simple democratical form became unwieldy and impracticable; and
as the system of representation was not known, the consequence was, they either
degenerated convulsively into monarchies, or became absorbed into such as then
existed. Had the system of representation been then understood, as it now is,
there is no reason to believe that those forms of government, now called
monarchical or aristocratical, would ever have taken place. It was the want of
some method to consolidate the parts of society, after it became too populous,
and too extensive for the simple democratical form, and also the lax and
solitary condition of shepherds and herdsmen in other parts of the world, that
afforded opportunities to those unnatural modes of government to begin.
As it is necessary to clear away the rubbish of errors,
into which the subject of government has been thrown, I will proceed to remark
on some others.
It has always been the political craft of courtiers and
court-governments, to abuse something which they called republicanism; but what
republicanism was, or is, they never attempt to explain. let us examine a
little into this case.
The only forms of government are the democratical, the
aristocratical, the monarchical, and what is now called the representative.
What is called a republic is not any particular form of
government. It is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter or object for
which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed,
Res-Publica, the public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated,
the public thing. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to
be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally
opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means
arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and
not the res-publica, is the object.
Every government that does not act on the principle of a
Republic, or in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and
sole object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than
government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well
individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular
form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being
best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of
supporting it.
Various forms of government have affected to style
themselves a republic. Poland calls itself a republic, which is an hereditary
aristocracy, with what is called an elective monarchy. Holland calls itself a
republic, which is chiefly aristocratical, with an hereditary stadtholdership.
But the government of America, which is wholly on the system of representation,
is the only real Republic, in character and in practice, that now exists. Its
government has no other object than the public business of the nation, and
therefore it is properly a republic; and the Americans have taken care that
This, and no other, shall always be the object of their government, by their
rejecting everything hereditary, and establishing governments on the system of
representation only. Those who have said that a republic is not a form of
government calculated for countries of great extent, mistook, in the first
place, the business of a government, for a form of government; for the
res-publica equally appertains to every extent of territory and population.
And, in the second place, if they meant anything with respect to form, it was
the simple democratical form, such as was the mode of government in the ancient
democracies, in which there was no representation. The case, therefore, is not,
that a republic cannot be extensive, but that it cannot be extensive on the
simple democratical form; and the question naturally presents itself, What is
the best form of government for conducting the Res-Publica, or the Public
Business of a nation, after it becomes too extensive and populous for the
simple democratical form? It cannot be monarchy, because monarchy is subject to
an objection of the same amount to which the simple democratical form was
subject.
It is possible that an individual may lay down a system of
principles, on which government shall be constitutionally established to any
extent of territory. This is no more than an operation of the mind, acting by
its own powers. But the practice upon those principles, as applying to the
various and numerous circumstances of a nation, its agriculture, manufacture,
trade, commerce, etc., etc., a knowledge of a different kind, and which can be
had only from the various parts of society. It is an assemblage of practical
knowledge, which no individual can possess; and therefore the monarchical form
is as much limited, in useful practice, from the incompetency of knowledge, as
was the democratical form, from the multiplicity of population. The one
degenerates, by extension, into confusion; the other, into ignorance and
incapacity, of which all the great monarchies are an evidence. The monarchical
form, therefore, could not be a substitute for the democratical, because it has
equal inconveniences.
Much less could it when made hereditary. This is the most
effectual of all forms to preclude knowledge. Neither could the high democratical
mind have voluntarily yielded itself to be governed by children and idiots, and
all the motley insignificance of character, which attends such a mere animal
system, the disgrace and the reproach of reason and of man.
As to the aristocratical form, it has the same vices and
defects with the monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better
from the proportion of numbers, but there is still no security for the right
use and application of them.*[17]
Referring them to the original simple democracy, it
affords the true data from which government on a large scale can begin. It is
incapable of extension, not from its principle, but from the inconvenience of
its form; and monarchy and aristocracy, from their incapacity. Retaining, then,
democracy as the ground, and rejecting the corrupt systems of monarchy and
aristocracy, the representative system naturally presents itself; remedying at
once the defects of the simple democracy as to form, and the incapacity of the
other two with respect to knowledge.
Simple democracy was society governing itself without the
aid of secondary means. By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive
at a system of government capable of embracing and confederating all the
various interests and every extent of territory and population; and that also
with advantages as much superior to hereditary government, as the republic of
letters is to hereditary literature.
It is on this system that the American government is
founded. It is representation ingrafted upon democracy. It has fixed the form
by a scale parallel in all cases to the extent of the principle. What Athens
was in miniature America will be in magnitude. The one was the wonder of the
ancient world; the other is becoming the admiration of the present. It is the
easiest of all the forms of government to be understood and the most eligible
in practice; and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the
hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.
It is impossible to conceive a system of government
capable of acting over such an extent of territory, and such a circle of
interests, as is immediately produced by the operation of representation.
France, great and populous as it is, is but a spot in the capaciousness of the
system. It is preferable to simple democracy even in small territories. Athens,
by representation, would have outrivalled her own democracy.
That which is called government, or rather that which we
ought to conceive government to be, is no more than some common center in which
all the parts of society unite. This cannot be accomplished by any method so
conducive to the various interests of the community, as by the representative
system. It concentrates the knowledge necessary to the interest of the parts,
and of the whole. It places government in a state of constant maturity. It is,
as has already been observed, never young, never old. It is subject neither to
nonage, nor dotage. It is never in the cradle, nor on crutches. It admits not
of a separation between knowledge and power, and is superior, as government
always ought to be, to all the accidents of individual man, and is therefore
superior to what is called monarchy.
A nation is not a body, the figure of which is to be
represented by the human body; but is like a body contained within a circle,
having a common center, in which every radius meets; and that center is formed
by representation. To connect representation with what is called monarchy, is
eccentric government. Representation is of itself the delegated monarchy of a
nation, and cannot debase itself by dividing it with another.
Mr. Burke has two or three times, in his parliamentary
speeches, and in his publications, made use of a jingle of words that convey no
ideas. Speaking of government, he says, “It is better to have monarchy for its
basis, and republicanism for its corrective, than republicanism for its basis,
and monarchy for its corrective.”- If he means that it is better to correct
folly with wisdom, than wisdom with folly, I will no otherwise contend with
him, than that it would be much better to reject the folly entirely.
But what is this thing which Mr. Burke calls monarchy?
Will he explain it? All men can understand what representation is; and that it
must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents. But what security
is there for the same qualities on the part of monarchy? or, when the monarchy
is a child, where then is the wisdom? What does it know about government? Who
then is the monarch, or where is the monarchy? If it is to be performed by
regency, it proves to be a farce. A regency is a mock species of republic, and
the whole of monarchy deserves no better description. It is a thing as various
as imagination can paint. It has none of the stable character that government
ought to possess. Every succession is a revolution, and every regency a
counter-revolution. The whole of it is a scene of perpetual court cabal and
intrigue, of which Mr. Burke is himself an instance. To render monarchy
consistent with government, the next in succession should not be born a child,
but a man at once, and that man a Solomon. It is ridiculous that nations are to
wait and government be interrupted till boys grow to be men.
Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be
imposed upon; whether I have too much or too little pride, or of anything else,
I leave out of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy,
always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something
kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss,
and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the
curtain happens to be open- and the company see what it is, they burst into
laughter.
In the representative system of government, nothing of
this can happen. Like the nation itself, it possesses a perpetual stamina, as
well of body as of mind, and presents itself on the open theatre of the world
in a fair and manly manner. Whatever are its excellences or defects, they are
visible to all. It exists not by fraud and mystery; it deals not in cant and
sophistry; but inspires a language that, passing from heart to heart, is felt
and understood.
We must shut our eyes against reason, we must basely
degrade our understanding, not to see the folly of what is called monarchy.
Nature is orderly in all her works; but this is a mode of government that
counteracts nature. It turns the progress of the human faculties upside down.
It subjects age to be governed by children, and wisdom by folly.
On the contrary, the representative system is always
parallel with the order and immutable laws of nature, and meets the reason of
man in every part. For example:
In the American Federal Government, more power is
delegated to the President of the United States than to any other individual
member of Congress. He cannot, therefore, be elected to this office under the
age of thirty-five years. By this time the judgment of man becomes more
matured, and he has lived long enough to be acquainted with men and things, and
the country with him.- But on the monarchial plan (exclusive of the numerous
chances there are against every man born into the world, of drawing a prize in
the lottery of human faculties), the next in succession, whatever he may be, is
put at the head of a nation, and of a government, at the age of eighteen years.
Does this appear like an action of wisdom? Is it consistent with the proper
dignity and the manly character of a nation? Where is the propriety of calling
such a lad the father of the people?- In all other cases, a person is a minor until
the age of twenty-one years. Before this period, he is not trusted with the
management of an acre of land, or with the heritable property of a flock of
sheep, or an herd of swine; but, wonderful to tell! he may, at the age of
eighteen years, be trusted with a nation.
That monarchy is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to
procure money, is evident (at least to me) in every character in which it can
be viewed. It would be impossible, on the rational system of representative
government, to make out a bill of expenses to such an enormous amount as this
deception admits. Government is not of itself a very chargeable institution.
The whole expense of the federal government of America, founded, as I have
already said, on the system of representation, and extending over a country
nearly ten times as large as England, is but six hundred thousand dollars, or
one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds sterling.
I presume that no man in his sober senses will compare the
character of any of the kings of Europe with that of General Washington. Yet,
in France, and also in England, the expense of the civil list only, for the
support of one man, is eight times greater than the whole expense of the
federal government in America. To assign a reason for this, appears almost
impossible. The generality of people in America, especially the poor, are more
able to pay taxes, than the generality of people either in France or England.
But the case is, that the representative system diffuses
such a body of knowledge throughout a nation, on the subject of government, as
to explode ignorance and preclude imposition. The craft of courts cannot be
acted on that ground. There is no place for mystery; nowhere for it to begin.
Those who are not in the representation, know as much of the nature of business
as those who are. An affectation of mysterious importance would there be
scouted. Nations can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of
individuals, are always their defects.
In the representative system, the reason for everything
must publicly appear. Every man is a proprietor in government, and considers it
a necessary part of his business to understand. It concerns his interest,
because it affects his property. He examines the cost, and compares it with the
advantages; and above all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following
what in other governments are called Leaders.
It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and
making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that
excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this
end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and
quiet them into taxes.
The government of a free country, properly speaking, is
not in the persons, but in the laws. The enacting of those requires no great
expense; and when they are administered, the whole of civil government is
performed- the rest is all court contrivance.
That men mean distinct and separate things when they speak
of constitutions and of governments, is evident; or why are those terms
distinctly and separately used? A constitution is not the act of a government,
but of a people constituting a government; and government without a
constitution, is power without a right.
All power exercised over a nation, must have some
beginning. It must either be delegated or assumed. There are no other sources.
All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does
not alter the nature and quality of either.
In viewing this subject, the case and circumstances of
America present themselves as in the beginning of a world; and our enquiry into
the origin of government is shortened, by referring to the facts that have
arisen in our own day. We have no occasion to roam for information into the
obscure field of antiquity, nor hazard ourselves upon conjecture. We are
brought at once to the point of seeing government begin, as if we had lived in
the beginning of time. The real volume, not of history, but of facts, is
directly before us, unmutilated by contrivance, or the errors of tradition.
I will here concisely state the commencement of the
American constitutions; by which the difference between constitutions and
governments will sufficiently appear.
It may not appear improper to remind the reader that the
United States of America consist of thirteen separate states, each of which
established a government for itself, after the declaration of independence,
done the 4th of July, 1776. Each state acted independently of the
rest, in forming its governments; but the same general principle pervades the
whole. When the several state governments were formed, they proceeded to form
the federal government, that acts over the whole in all matters which concern
the interest of the whole, or which relate to the intercourse of the several
states with each other, or with foreign nations. I will begin with giving an
instance from one of the state governments (that of Pennsylvania) and then
proceed to the federal government.
The state of Pennsylvania, though nearly of the same
extent of territory as England, was then divided into only twelve counties.
Each of those counties had elected a committee at the commencement of the
dispute with the English government; and as the city of Philadelphia, which
also had its committee, was the most central for intelligence, it became the
center of communication to the several country committees. When it became
necessary to proceed to the formation of a government, the committee of
Philadelphia proposed a conference of all the committees, to be held in that
city, and which met the latter end of July, 1776.
Though these committees had been duly elected by the
people, they were not elected expressly for the purpose, nor invested with the
authority of forming a constitution; and as they could not, consistently with
the American idea of rights, assume such a power, they could only confer upon
the matter, and put it into a train of operation. The conferees, therefore, did
no more than state the case, and recommend to the several counties to elect six
representatives for each county, to meet in convention at Philadelphia, with
powers to form a constitution, and propose it for public consideration.
This convention, of which Benjamin Franklin was president,
having met and deliberated, and agreed upon a constitution, they next ordered
it to be published, not as a thing established, but for the consideration of
the whole people, their approbation or rejection, and then adjourned to a
stated time. When the time of adjournment was expired, the convention
re-assembled; and as the general opinion of the people in approbation of it was
then known, the constitution was signed, sealed, and proclaimed on the
authority of the people and the original instrument deposited as a public record.
The convention then appointed a day for the general election of the
representatives who were to compose the government, and the time it should
commence; and having done this they dissolved, and returned to their several
homes and occupations.
In this constitution were laid down, first, a declaration
of rights; then followed the form which the government should have, and the
powers it should possess- the authority of the courts of judicature, and of
juries- the manner in which elections should be conducted, and the proportion
of representatives to the number of electors- the time which each succeeding
assembly should continue, which was one year- the mode of levying, and of
accounting for the expenditure, of public money- of appointing public officers,
etc., etc., etc.
No article of this constitution could be altered or
infringed at the discretion of the government that was to ensue. It was to that
government a law. But as it would have been unwise to preclude the benefit of
experience, and in order also to prevent the accumulation of errors, if any
should be found, and to preserve an unison of government with the circumstances
of the state at all times, the constitution provided that, at the expiration of
every seven years, a convention should be elected, for the express purpose of
revising the constitution, and making alterations, additions, or abolitions
therein, if any such should be found necessary.
Here we see a regular process- a government issuing out of
a constitution, formed by the people in their original character; and that
constitution serving, not only as an authority, but as a law of control to the
government. It was the political bible of the state. Scarcely a family was
without it. Every member of the government had a copy; and nothing was more
common, when any debate arose on the principle of a bill, or on the extent of
any species of authority, than for the members to take the printed constitution
out of their pocket, and read the chapter with which such matter in debate was
connected.
Having thus given an instance from one of the states, I
will show the proceedings by which the federal constitution of the United
States arose and was formed.
Congress, at its two first meetings, in September 1774,
and May 1775, was nothing more than a deputation from the legislatures of the
several provinces, afterwards states; and had no other authority than what
arose from common consent, and the necessity of its acting as a public body. In
everything which related to the internal affairs of America, congress went no
further than to issue recommendations to the several provincial assemblies, who
at discretion adopted them or not. Nothing on the part of congress was
compulsive; yet, in this situation, it was more faithfully and affectionately
obeyed than was any government in Europe. This instance, like that of the
national assembly in France, sufficiently shows, that the strength of
government does not consist in any thing itself, but in the attachment of a
nation, and the interest which a people feel in supporting it. When this is
lost, government is but a child in power; and though, like the old government
in France, it may harass individuals for a while, it but facilitates its own
fall.
After the declaration of independence, it became
consistent with the principle on which representative government is founded,
that the authority of congress should be defined and established. Whether that
authority should be more or less than congress then discretionarily exercised
was not the question. It was merely the rectitude of the measure.
For this purpose, the act, called the act of confederation
(which was a sort of imperfect federal constitution), was proposed, and, after
long deliberation, was concluded in the year 1781. It was not the act of
congress, because it is repugnant to the principles of representative
government that a body should give power to itself. Congress first informed the
several states, of the powers which it conceived were necessary to be invested
in the union, to enable it to perform the duties and services required from it;
and the states severally agreed with each other, and concentrated in congress
those powers.
It may not be improper to observe that in both those
instances (the one of Pennsylvania, and the other of the United States), there
is no such thing as the idea of a compact between the people on one side, and
the government on the other. The compact was that of the people with each
other, to produce and constitute a government. To suppose that any government
can be a party in a compact with the whole people, is to suppose it to have
existence before it can have a right to exist. The only instance in which a
compact can take place between the people and those who exercise the
government, is, that the people shall pay them, while they choose to employ
them.
Government is not a trade which any man, or any body of
men, has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is
altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by
whom it is always resumeable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether
duties.
Having thus given two instances of the original formation
of a constitution, I will show the manner in which both have been changed since
their first establishment.
The powers vested in the governments of the several
states, by the state constitutions, were found, upon experience, to be too
great; and those vested in the federal government, by the act of confederation,
too little. The defect was not in the principle, but in the distribution of
power.
Numerous publications, in pamphlets and in the newspapers,
appeared, on the propriety and necessity of new modelling the federal
government. After some time of public discussion, carried on through the
channel of the press, and in conversations, the state of Virginia, experiencing
some inconvenience with respect to commerce, proposed holding a continental
conference; in consequence of which, a deputation from five or six state
assemblies met at Annapolis, in Maryland, in 1786. This meeting, not conceiving
itself sufficiently authorised to go into the business of a reform, did no more
than state their general opinions of the propriety of the measure, and
recommend that a convention of all the states should be held the year
following.
The convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, of which
General Washington was elected president. He was not at that time connected
with any of the state governments, or with congress. He delivered up his
commission when the war ended, and since then had lived a private citizen.
The convention went deeply into all the subjects; and
having, after a variety of debate and investigation, agreed among themselves
upon the several parts of a federal constitution, the next question was, the
manner of giving it authority and practice.
For this purpose they did not, like a cabal of courtiers,
send for a Dutch Stadtholder, or a German Elector; but they referred the whole
matter to the sense and interest of the country.
They first directed that the proposed constitution should
be published. Secondly, that each state should elect a convention, expressly
for the purpose of taking it into consideration, and of ratifying or rejecting
it; and that as soon as the approbation and ratification of any nine states
should be given, that those states shall proceed to the election of their
proportion of members to the new federal government; and that the operation of
it should then begin, and the former federal government cease.
The several states proceeded accordingly to elect their
conventions. Some of those conventions ratified the constitution by very large
majorities, and two or three unanimously. In others there were much debate and
division of opinion. In the Massachusetts convention, which met at Boston, the
majority was not above nineteen or twenty, in about three hundred members; but
such is the nature of representative government, that it quietly decides all
matters by majority. After the debate in the Massachusetts convention was
closed, and the vote taken, the objecting members rose and declared, “That
though they had argued and voted against it, because certain parts appeared to
them in a different light to what they appeared to other members; yet, as the
vote had decided in favour of the constitution as proposed, they should give it
the same practical support as if they had for it.”
As soon as nine states had concurred (and the rest
followed in the order their conventions were elected), the old fabric of the
federal government was taken down, and the new one erected, of which General
Washington is president.- In this place I cannot help remarking, that the
character and services of this gentleman are sufficient to put all those men
called kings to shame. While they are receiving from the sweat and labours of
mankind, a prodigality of pay, to which neither their abilities nor their
services can entitle them, he is rendering every service in his power, and
refusing every pecuniary reward. He accepted no pay as commander-in-chief; he
accepts none as president of the United States.
After the new federal constitution was established, the
state of Pennsylvania, conceiving that some parts of its own constitution
required to be altered, elected a convention for that purpose. The proposed
alterations were published, and the people concurring therein, they were established.
In forming those constitutions, or in altering them,
little or no inconvenience took place. The ordinary course of things was not
interrupted, and the advantages have been much. It is always the interest of a
far greater number of people in a nation to have things right, than to let them
remain wrong; and when public matters are open to debate, and the public
judgment free, it will not decide wrong, unless it decides too hastily.
In the two instances of changing the constitutions, the
governments then in being were not actors either way. Government has no right
to make itself a party in any debate respecting the principles or modes of
forming, or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who
exercise the powers of government that constitutions, and the governments
issuing from them, are established. In all those matters the right of judging
and acting are in those who pay, and not in those who receive.
A constitution is the property of a nation, and not of
those who exercise the government. All the constitutions of America are
declared to be established on the authority of the people. In France, the word
nation is used instead of the people; but in both cases, a constitution is a
thing antecedent to the government, and always distinct there from.
In England it is not difficult to perceive that everything
has a constitution, except the nation. Every society and association that is
established, first agreed upon a number of original articles, digested into
form, which are its constitution. It then appointed its officers, whose powers
and authorities are described in that constitution, and the government of that
society then commenced. Those officers, by whatever name they are called, have
no authority to add to, alter, or abridge the original articles. It is only to
the constituting power that this right belongs.
From the want of understanding the difference between a
constitution and a government, Dr. Johnson, and all writers of his description,
have always bewildered themselves. They could not but perceive, that there must
necessarily be a controlling power existing somewhere, and they placed this
power in the discretion of the persons exercising the government, instead of
placing it in a constitution formed by the nation. When it is in a
constitution, it has the nation for its support, and the natural and the
political controlling powers are together. The laws which are enacted by
governments, control men only as individuals, but the nation, through its
constitution, controls the whole government, and has a natural ability to do
so. The final controlling power, therefore, and the original constituting
power, are one and the same power.
Dr. Johnson could not have advanced such a position in any
country where there was a constitution; and he is himself an evidence that no
such thing as a constitution exists in England. But it may be put as a
question, not improper to be investigated, that if a constitution does not
exist, how came the idea of its existence so generally established?
In order to decide this question, it is necessary to
consider a constitution in both its cases:- First, as creating a government and
giving it powers. Secondly, as regulating and restraining the powers so given.
If we begin with William of Normandy, we find that the
government of England was originally a tyranny, founded on an invasion and
conquest of the country. This being admitted, it will then appear, that the
exertion of the nation, at different periods, to abate that tyranny, and render
it less intolerable, has been credited for a constitution.
Magna Charta, as it was called (it is now like an almanack
of the same date), was no more than compelling the government to renounce a
part of its assumptions. It did not create and give powers to government in a
manner a constitution does; but was, as far as it went, of the nature of a
re-conquest, and not a constitution; for could the nation have totally expelled
the usurpation, as France has done its despotism, it would then have had a
constitution to form.
The history of the Edwards and the Henries, and up to the
commencement of the Stuarts, exhibits as many instances of tyranny as could be
acted within the limits to which the nation had restricted it. The Stuarts
endeavoured to pass those limits, and their fate is well known. In all those
instances we see nothing of a constitution, but only of restrictions on assumed
power.
After this, another William, descended from the same
stock, and claiming from the same origin, gained possession; and of the two
evils, James and William, the nation preferred what it thought the least;
since, from circumstances, it must take one. The act, called the Bill of
Rights, comes here into view. What is it, but a bargain, which the parts of the
government made with each other to divide powers, profits, and privileges? You
shall have so much, and I will have the rest; and with respect to the nation,
it said, for your share, You shall have the right of petitioning. This being
the case, the bill of rights is more properly a bill of wrongs, and of insult.
As to what is called the convention parliament, it was a thing that made
itself, and then made the authority by which it acted. A few persons got
together, and called themselves by that name. Several of them had never been
elected, and none of them for the purpose.
From the time of William a species of government arose,
issuing out of this coalition bill of rights; and more so, since the corruption
introduced at the Hanover succession by the agency of Walpole; that can be
described by no other name than a despotic legislation. Though the parts may
embarrass each other, the whole has no bounds; and the only right it
acknowledges out of itself, is the right of petitioning. Where then is the
constitution either that gives or restrains power?
It is not because a part of the government is elective,
that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected possess afterwards,
as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated
from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.
I cannot believe that any nation, reasoning on its own
rights, would have thought of calling these things a constitution, if the cry
of constitution had not been set up by the government. It has got into
circulation like the words bore and quoz [quiz], by being chalked up in the
speeches of parliament, as those words were on window shutters and doorposts;
but whatever the constitution may be in other respects, it has undoubtedly been
the most productive machine of taxation that was ever invented. The taxes in
France, under the new constitution, are not quite thirteen shillings per
head,*[18] and the taxes in England, under what is called its present
constitution, are forty-eight shillings and sixpence per head- men, women, and
children- amounting to nearly seventeen millions sterling, besides the expense
of collecting, which is upwards of a million more.
In a country like England, where the whole of the civil
Government is executed by the people of every town and county, by means of
parish officers, magistrates, quarterly sessions, juries, and assize; without
any trouble to what is called the government or any other expense to the
revenue than the salary of the judges, it is astonishing how such a mass of
taxes can be employed. Not even the internal defence of the country is paid out
of the revenue. On all occasions, whether real or contrived, recourse is
continually had to new loans and new taxes. No wonder, then, that a machine of
government so advantageous to the advocates of a court, should be so
triumphantly extolled! No wonder, that St. James’s or St. Stephen’s should echo
with the continual cry of constitution; no wonder, that the French revolution
should be reprobated, and the res-publica treated with reproach! The red book
of England, like the red book of France, will explain the reason.*[19]
I will now, by way of relaxation, turn a thought or two to
Mr. Burke. I ask his pardon for neglecting him so long.
“America,” says he (in his speech on the Canada
Constitution bill), “never dreamed of such absurd doctrine as the Rights of
Man.”
Mr. Burke is such a bold presumer, and advances his
assertions and his premises with such a deficiency of judgment, that, without
troubling ourselves about principles of philosophy or politics, the mere logical
conclusions they produce, are ridiculous. For instance,
If governments, as Mr. Burke asserts, are not founded on
the Rights of Man, and are founded on any rights at all, they consequently must
be founded on the right of something that is not man. What then is that
something?
Generally speaking, we know of no other creatures that
inhabit the earth than man and beast; and in all cases, where only two things
offer themselves, and one must be admitted, a negation proved on any one,
amounts to an affirmative on the other; and therefore, Mr. Burke, by proving
against the Rights of Man, proves in behalf of the beast; and consequently,
proves that government is a beast; and as difficult things sometimes explain
each other, we now see the origin of keeping wild beasts in the Tower; for they
certainly can be of no other use than to show the origin of the government.
They are in the place of a constitution. O John Bull, what honours thou hast
lost by not being a wild beast. Thou mightest, on Mr. Burke’s system, have been
in the Tower for life.
If Mr. Burke’s arguments have not weight enough to keep
one serious, the fault is less mine than his; and as I am willing to make an
apology to the reader for the liberty I have taken, I hope Mr. Burke will also
make his for giving the cause.
Having thus paid Mr. Burke the compliment of remembering
him, I return to the subject.
From the want of a constitution in England to restrain and
regulate the wild impulse of power, many of the laws are irrational and
tyrannical, and the administration of them vague and problematical.
The attention of the government of England (for I rather
choose to call it by this name than the English government) appears, since its
political connection with Germany, to have been so completely engrossed and
absorbed by foreign affairs, and the means of raising taxes, that it seems to
exist for no other purposes. Domestic concerns are neglected; and with respect
to regular law, there is scarcely such a thing.
Almost every case must now be determined by some
precedent, be that precedent good or bad, or whether it properly applies or
not; and the practice is become so general as to suggest a suspicion, that it
proceeds from a deeper policy than at first sight appears.
Since the revolution of America, and more so since that of
France, this preaching up the doctrines of precedents, drawn from times and
circumstances antecedent to those events, has been the studied practice of the
English government. The generality of those precedents are founded on
principles and opinions, the reverse of what they ought; and the greater
distance of time they are drawn from, the more they are to be suspected. But by
associating those precedents with a superstitious reverence for ancient things,
as monks show relics and call them holy, the generality of mankind are deceived
into the design. Governments now act as if they were afraid to awaken a single
reflection in man. They are softly leading him to the sepulchre of precedents,
to deaden his faculties and call attention from the scene of revolutions. They
feel that he is arriving at knowledge faster than they wish, and their policy
of precedents is the barometer of their fears. This political popery, like the
ecclesiastical popery of old, has had its day, and is hastening to its exit.
The ragged relic and the antiquated precedent, the monk and the monarch, will
moulder together.
Government by precedent, without any regard to the
principle of the precedent, is one of the vilest systems that can be set up. In
numerous instances, the precedent ought to operate as a warning, and not as an
example, and requires to be shunned instead of imitated; but instead of this,
precedents are taken in the lump, and put at once for constitution and for law.
Either the doctrine of precedents is policy to keep a man
in a state of ignorance, or it is a practical confession that wisdom
degenerates in governments as governments increase in age, and can only hobble
along by the stilts and crutches of precedents. How is it that the same persons
who would proudly be thought wiser than their predecessors, appear at the same
time only as the ghosts of departed wisdom? How strangely is antiquity treated!
To some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance, and to
answer others, it is put for the light of the world.
If the doctrine of precedents is to be followed, the
expenses of government need not continue the same. Why pay men extravagantly,
who have but little to do? If everything that can happen is already in
precedent, legislation is at an end, and precedent, like a dictionary,
determines every case. Either, therefore, government has arrived at its dotage,
and requires to be renovated, or all the occasions for exercising its wisdom
have occurred.
We now see all over Europe, and particularly in England,
the curious phenomenon of a nation looking one way, and the government the
other- the one forward and the other backward. If governments are to go on by
precedent, while nations go on by improvement, they must at last come to a
final separation; and the sooner, and the more civilly they determine this
point, the better.*[20]
Having thus spoken of constitutions generally, as things
distinct from actual governments, let us proceed to consider the parts of which
a constitution is composed.
Opinions differ more on this subject than with respect to
the whole. That a nation ought to have a constitution, as a rule for the
conduct of its government, is a simple question in which all men, not directly
courtiers, will agree. It is only on the component parts that questions and
opinions multiply.
But this difficulty, like every other, will diminish when
put into a train of being rightly understood.
The first thing is, that a nation has a right to establish
a constitution.
Whether it exercises this right in the most judicious
manner at first is quite another case. It exercises it agreeably to the
judgment it possesses; and by continuing to do so, all errors will at last be
exploded.
When this right is established in a nation, there is no
fear that it will be employed to its own injury. A nation can have no interest
in being wrong.
Though all the constitutions of America are on one general
principle, yet no two of them are exactly alike in their component parts, or in
the distribution of the powers which they give to the actual governments. Some
are more, and others less complex.
In forming a constitution, it is first necessary to
consider what are the ends for which government is necessary? Secondly, what
are the best means, and the least expensive, for accomplishing those ends?
Government is nothing more than a national association;
and the object of this association is the good of all, as well individually as
collectively. Every man wishes to pursue his occupation, and to enjoy the
fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and
with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the
objects for which government ought to be established are answered.
It has been customary to consider government under three
distinct general heads. The legislative, the executive, and the judicial.
But if we permit our judgment to act unincumbered by the habit of multiplied terms, we can perceive no more than two divisions of power, of which civil government is composed, namely, that of legisl