doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain meaning of
their words and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then
equivocations and slippery constructions come into play. When they say
the king owes his crown to the choice of his people, and is therefore
the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they
mean to say no more than that some of the king's predecessors have been
called to the throne by some sort of choice, and therefore he owes his
crown to the choice of his people. Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they
hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. They are
welcome to the asylum they seek for their offence, since they take
refuge in their folly. For, if you admit this interpretation, how does
their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? And how does
the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line, derived from James
the First, come to legalize our monarchy rather than that of any of the
neighboring countries? At some time or other, to be sure, all the
beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called them to govern.
There is ground enough for the opinion that all the kingdoms of Europe
were at a remote period elective, with more or fewer limitations in the
objects of choice. But whatever kings might have been here or elsewhere
a thousand years ago, or in whatever manner the ruling dynasties of
England or France may have begun, the king of Great Britain is at this
day king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his
country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty
are performed by him, (as they are performed,) he holds his crown in
contempt of the choice of the Revolution Society, who have not a single
vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively:
though I make no doubt they would soon erect themselves into an
electoral college, if things were ripe to give effect to their claim.
His Majesty's heirs and successors, each in his time and order, will
come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which his
Majesty has succeeded to that he wears.
Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross
error _fact_, which supposes that his Majesty (though he holds it in
concurrence with the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people,
yet nothing can evade their full, explicit declaration concerning the
principle of a right in the people to choose,--which right is directly
maintained, and tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique insinuations
concerning election bottom in this proposition, and are referable to it.
Lest the foundation of the king's exclusive legal title should pass for
a mere rant of adulatory freedom, the political divine proceeds
dogmatically to assert,[80] that, by the principles of the Revolution,
the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all of
which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short
sentence: namely, that we have acquired a right
1. "To choose our own governors."
2. "To cashier them for misconduct."
3. "To frame a government for ourselves."
This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though made in the
name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction
only. The body of the people of England have no share in it. They
utterly disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of it with
their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their
country, made at the time of that very Revolution which is appealed to
in favor of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses
its name.
These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the
Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about
forty years before, and the late French Revolution, so much before their
eyes and in their hearts, that they are constantly confounding all the
three together. It is necessary that we should separate what they
confound. We must recall their erring fancies to the _acts_ of the
Revolution which we revere, for the discovery of its true _principles_.
If the _principles_ of the Revolution of 1688 are anywhere to be found,
it is in the statute called the _Declaration of Right_. In that most
wise, sober, and considerate declaration, drawn up by great lawyers and
great statesmen, and not by warm and inexperienced enthusiasts, not one
word is said, nor one suggestion made, of a general right "to choose our
own _governors_, to cashier them for misconduct, and to _form_ a
government for _ourselves_."
This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of William and Mary, sess.
2, ch. 2) is the corner-stone of our Constitution, as reinforced,
explained, improved, and in its fundamental principles forever settled.
It is called "An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the
subject, and for _settling_ the _succession_ of the crown." You will
observe that these rights and this succession are declared in one body,
and bound indissolubly together.
A few years after this period, a second opportunity offered for
asserting a right of election to the crown. On the prospect of a total
failure of issue from King William, and from the princess, afterwards
Queen Anne, the consideration of the settlement of the Crown, and of a
further security for the liberties of the people, again came before the
legislature. Did they this second time make any provision for legalizing
the crown on the spurious Revolution principles of the Old Jewry? No.
They followed the principles which prevailed in the Declaration of
Right; indicating with more precision the persons who were to inherit in
the Protestant line. This act also incorporated, by the same policy, our
liberties and an hereditary succession in the same act. Instead of a
right to choose our own governors, they declared that the _succession_
in that line (the Protestant line drawn from James the First) was
absolutely necessary "for the peace, quiet, and security of the realm,"
and that it was equally urgent on them "to maintain a _certainty in the
succession_ thereof, to which the subjects may safely have recourse for
their protection." Both these acts, in which are heard the unerring,
unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the
delusive gypsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors," prove
to a demonstration how totally adverse the wisdom of the nation was from
turning a case of necessity into a rule of law.
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King
William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a
regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles
of jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made in a special case
and regarding an individual person. _Privilegium non transit in
exemplum_. If ever there was a time favorable for establishing the
principle that a king of popular choice was the only legal king, without
all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not being done at that time is
a proof that the nation was of opinion it ought not to be done at any
time. There is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to
know that the majority in Parliament, of both parties, were so little
disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were
determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince of
Orange, but on that of his wife, Mary, daughter of King James, the
eldest born of the issue of that king, which they acknowledged as
undoubtedly his. It would be to repeat a very trite story, to recall to
your memory all those circumstances which demonstrated that their
accepting King William was not properly a _choice_; but to all those who
did not wish in effect to recall King James, or to deluge their country
in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into
the peril they had just escaped, it was an act of _necessity_, in the
strictest moral sense in which necessity can be taken.
In the very act in which, for a time, and in a single case, Parliament
departed from the strict order of inheritance, in favor of a prince who,
though not next, was, however, very near in the line of succession, it
is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew the bill called the
Declaration of Right, has comported himself on that delicate occasion.
It is curious to observe with what address this temporary solution of
continuity is kept from the eye; whilst all that could be found in this
act of necessity to countenance the idea of an hereditary succession is
brought forward, and fostered, and made the most of, by this great man,
and by the legislature who followed him. Quitting the dry, imperative
style of an act of Parliament, he makes the Lords and Commons fall to a
pious legislative ejaculation, and declare that they consider it "as a
marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to
preserve their said Majesties' _royal_ persons most happily to reign
over us _on the throne of their ancestors_, for which, from the bottom
of their hearts, they return their humblest thanks and praises." The
legislature plainly had in view the Act of Recognition of the first of
Queen Elizabeth, chap. 3rd, and of that of James the First, chap. 1st,
both acts strongly declaratory of the inheritable nature of the crown;
and in many parts they follow, with a nearly literal precision, the
words, and even the form of thanksgiving which is found in these old
declaratory statutes.
The two Houses, in the act of King William, did not thank God that they
had found a fair opportunity to assert a right to choose their own
governors, much less to make an election the _only lawful_ title to the
crown. Their having been in a condition to avoid the very appearance of
it, as much as possible, was by them considered as a providential
escape. They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance
tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession
they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any
future departure from what they had then settled forever. Accordingly,
that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy, and that they
might preserve a close conformity to the practice of their ancestors, as
it appeared in the declaratory statutes of Queen Mary[81] and Queen
Elizabeth, in the next clause they vest, by recognition, in their
Majesties _all_ the legal prerogatives of the crown, declaring "that in
them they are most _fully_, rightfully, and _entirely_ invested,
incorporated, united, and annexed." In the clause which follows, for
preventing questions, by reason of any pretended titles to the crown,
they declare (observing also in this the traditionary language, along
with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a
rubric the language of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that
on the preserving "a _certainty_ in the SUCCESSION thereof the unity,
peace, and tranquillity of this nation doth, under God, wholly depend."
They knew that a doubtful title of succession would but too much
resemble an election, and that an election would be utterly destructive
of the "unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation," which they
thought to be considerations of some moment. To provide for these
objects, and therefore to exclude forever the Old Jewry doctrine of "a
right to choose our own governors," they follow with a clause containing
a most solemn pledge, taken from the preceding act of Queen
Elizabeth,--as solemn a pledge as ever was or can be given in favor of
an hereditary succession, and as solemn a renunciation as could be made
of the principles by this society imputed to them:--"The Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid,
most humbly and faithfully submit _themselves, their heirs, and
posterities forever_; and do faithfully promise that they will stand to,
maintain, and defend their said Majesties, and also the _limitation of
the crown_, herein specified and contained, to the utmost of their
powers," &c., &c.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution
to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English
nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for
themselves, and for all their posterity forever. These gentlemen may
value themselves as much as they please on their Whig principles; but I
never desire to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to
understand the principles of the Revolution better than those by whom it
was brought about, or to read in the Declaration of Right any mysteries
unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances,
and in our hearts, the words and spirit of that immortal law.
It is true, that, aided with the powers derived from force and
opportunity, the nation was at that time, in some sense, free to take
what course it pleased for filling the throne,--but only free to do so
upon the same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their
monarchy, and every other part of their Constitution. However, they did
not think such bold changes within their commission. It is, indeed,
difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere _abstract_
competence of the supreme power, such as was exercised by Parliament at
that time; but the limits of a _moral_ competence, subjecting, even in
powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will to permanent reason,
and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental
policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding upon those who
exercise any authority, under any name, or under any title, in the
state. The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to
dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to
abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for
the monarchy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the House of
Commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement and pact
of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution,
forbids such invasion and such surrender. The constituent parts of a
state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with
all those who derive any serious interest under their engagements, as
much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate
communities: otherwise, competence and power would soon be confounded,
and no law be left but the will of a prevailing force. On this
principle, the succession of the crown has always been what it now is,
an hereditary succession by law: in the old line it was a succession by
the Common Law; in the new by the statute law, operating on the
principles of the Common Law, not changing the substance, but regulating
the mode and describing the persons. Both these descriptions of law are
of the same force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating
from the common agreement and original compact of the state, _communi
sponsione reipublicæ_, and as such are equally binding on king, and
people too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the
same body politic.
It is far from impossible to reconcile, if we do not suffer ourselves to
be entangled in the mazes of metaphysic sophistry, the use both of a
fixed rule and an occasional deviation,--the sacredness of an hereditary
principle of succession in our government with a power of change in its
application in cases of extreme emergency. Even in that extremity, (if
we take the measure of our rights by our exercise of them at the
Revolution,) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only,--to
the part which produced the necessary deviation; and even then it is to
be effected without a decomposition of the whole civil and political
mass, for the purpose of originating a new civil order out of the first
elements of society.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its
conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that
part of the Constitution which it wished the most religiously to
preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated
strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution,
when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the
nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice: they did
not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases
they regenerated the deficient part of the old Constitution through the
parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they
were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the
ancient organized states in the shape of their old organization, and not
by the organic _moleculæ_ of a disbanded people. At no time, perhaps,
did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that
fundamental principle of British constitutional policy than at the time
of the Revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary
succession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it
had before moved; but the new line was derived from the same stock. It
was still a line of hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in
the same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified with
Protestantism. When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the
principle, they showed that they held it inviolable.
On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted some amendment in
the old time, and long before the era of the Revolution. Some time after
the Conquest great questions arose upon the legal principles of
hereditary descent. It became a matter of doubt whether the heir _per
capita_ or the heir _per stirpes_ was to succeed; but whether the heir
_per capita_ gave way when the heirdom _per stirpes_ took place, or the
Catholic heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable
principle survived with a sort of immortality through all
transmigrations,--
Multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domûs, et avi numerantur avorum.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course,
but in all its revolutions. Whoever came in, or however he came in,
whether he obtained the crown by law or by force, the hereditary
succession was either continued or adopted.
The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see nothing in that of 1688
but the deviation from the Constitution; and they take the deviation
from the principle for the principle. They have little regard to the
obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it
leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of
this country. When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that
no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who
preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid. Do these
theorists mean to imitate some of their predecessors, who dragged the
bodies of our ancient sovereigns out of the quiet of their tombs? Do
they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have
reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of
England with the blot of a continual usurpation? Do they mean to
invalidate, annul, or to call into question, together with the titles of
the whole line of our kings, that great body of our statute law which
passed under those whom they treat as usurpers? to annul laws of
inestimable value to our liberties,--of as great value at least as any
which have passed at or since the period of the Revolution? If kings who
did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to
make laws, what will become of the statute _De tallagio non concedendo?_
of the _Petition of Right?_ of the act of _Habeas Corpus?_ Do these new
doctors of the rights of men presume to assert that King James the
Second, who came to the crown as next of blood, according to the rules
of a then unqualified succession, was not to all intents and purposes a
lawful king of England, before he had done any of those acts which were
justly construed into an abdication of his crown? If he was not, much
trouble in Parliament might have been saved at the period these
gentlemen commemorate. But King James was a bad king with a good title,
and not an usurper. The princes who succeeded according to the act of
Parliament which settled the crown on the Electress Sophia and on her
descendants, being Protestants, came in as much by a title of
inheritance as King James did. He came in according to the law, as it
stood at his accession to the crown; and the princes of the House of
Brunswick came to the inheritance of the crown, not by election, but by
the law, as it stood at their several accessions, of Protestant descent
and inheritance, as I hope I have shown sufficiently.
The law by which this royal family is specifically destined to the
succession is the act of the 12th and 13th of King William. The terms of
this act bind "us, and our _heirs_, and our _posterity_, to them, their
_heirs_, and their _posterity_," being Protestants, to the end of time,
in the same words as the Declaration of Right had bound us to the heirs
of King William and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary
crown and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except the
constitutional policy of forming an establishment to secure that kind of
succession which is to preclude a choice of the people forever, could
the legislature have fastidiously rejected the fair and abundant choice
which our own country presented to them, and searched in strange lands
for a foreign princess, from whose womb the line of our future rulers
were to derive their title to govern millions of men through a series of
ages?
The Princess Sophia was named in the act of settlement of the 12th and
13th of King William, for a _stock_ and root of _inheritance_ to our
kings, and not for her merits as a temporary administratrix of a power
which she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise. She was
adopted for one reason, and for one only,--because, says the act, "the
most excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of
Hanover, is _daughter_ of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late
Queen of Bohemia, _daughter_ of our late _sovereign lord_ King James the
First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be the next in
_succession_ in the Protestant line," &c., &c.; "and the crown shall
continue to the _heirs_ of her body, being Protestants." This limitation
was made by Parliament, that through the Princess Sophia an inheritable
line not only was to be continued in future, but (what they thought very
material) that through her it was to be connected with the old stock of
inheritance in King James the First; in order that the monarchy might
preserve an unbroken unity through all ages, and might be preserved
(with safety to our religion) in the old approved mode by descent, in
which, if our liberties had been once endangered, they had often,
through all storms and struggles of prerogative and privilege, been
preserved. They did well. No experience has taught us that in any other
course or method than that of an _hereditary crown_ our liberties can be
regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our _hereditary right_. An
irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an
irregular, convulsive disease. But the course of succession is the
healthy habit of the British Constitution. Was it that the legislature
wanted, at the act for the limitation of the crown in the Hanoverian
line, drawn through the female descendants of James the First, a due
sense of the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly more,
foreigners in succession to the British throne? No!--they had a due
sense of the evils which might happen from such foreign rule, and more
than a due sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot be given of
the full conviction of the British nation that the principles of the
Revolution did not authorize them to elect kings at their pleasure, and
without any attention to the ancient fundamental principles of our
government, than their continuing to adopt a plan of hereditary
Protestant succession in the old line, with all the dangers and all the
inconveniences of its being a foreign line full before their eyes, and
operating with the utmost force upon their minds.