majority of the third estate, in conjunction with such a deputation from
the clergy as I have described, whilst it pursued the destruction of the
nobility, would inevitably become subservient to the worst designs of
individuals in that class. In the spoil and humiliation of their own
order these individuals would possess a sure fund for the pay of their
new followers. To squander away the objects which made the happiness of
their fellows would be to them no sacrifice at all. Turbulent,
discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with
personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. One of
the first symptoms they discover of a selfish and mischievous ambition
is a profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others.
To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong
to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public
affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed
towards a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that
portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who
compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but
traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.
There were, in the time of our civil troubles in England, (I do not know
whether you have any such in your Assembly in France,) several persons,
like the then Earl of Holland, who by themselves or their families had
brought an odium on the throne by the prodigal dispensation of its
bounties towards them, who afterwards joined in the rebellions arising
from the discontents of which they were themselves the cause: men who
helped to subvert that throne to which they owed, some of them, their
existence, others all that power which they employed to ruin their
benefactor. If any bounds are set to the rapacious demands of that sort
of people, or that others are permitted to partake in the objects they
would engross, revenge and envy soon fill up the craving void that is
left in their avarice. Confounded by the complication of distempered
passions, their reason is disturbed; their views become vast and
perplexed,--to others inexplicable, to themselves uncertain. They find,
on all sides, bounds to their unprincipled ambition in any fixed order
of things; but in the fog and haze of confusion all is enlarged, and
appears without any limit.
When men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dignity to an ambition without a
distinct object, and work with low instruments and for low ends, the
whole composition becomes low and base. Does not something like this now
appear in France? Does it not produce something ignoble and inglorious:
a kind of meanness in all the prevalent policy; a tendency in all that
is done to lower along with individuals all the dignity and importance
of the state? Other revolutions have been conducted by persons who,
whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth,
sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose
peace they troubled. They had long views. They aimed at the rule, not at
the destruction of their country. They were men of great civil and great
military talents, and if the terror, the ornament of their age. They
were not like Jew brokers contending with each other who could best
remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the
wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate
councils. The compliment made to one of the great bad men of the old
stamp (Cromwell) by his kinsman, a favorite poet of that time, shows
what it was he proposed, and what indeed to a great degree he
accomplished in the success of his ambition:--
"Still as _you_ rise, the _state_, exalted too,
Finds no distemper whilst 't is changed by _you_;
Changed like the world's great scene, when without noise
The rising sun night's _vulgar_ lights destroys."
These disturbers were not so much like men usurping power as asserting
their natural place in society. Their rising was to illuminate and
beautify the world. Their conquest over their competitors was by
outshining them. The hand, that, like a destroying angel, smote the
country, communicated to it the force and energy under which it
suffered. I do not say, (God forbid!) I do not say that the virtues of
such men were to be taken as a balance to their crimes; but they were
some corrective to their effects. Such was, as I said, our Cromwell.
Such were your whole race of Guises, Condés, and Colignys. Such the
Richelieus, who in more quiet times acted in the spirit of a civil war.
Such, as better men, and in a less dubious cause, were your Henry the
Fourth, and your Sully, though nursed in civil confusions, and not
wholly without some of their taint. It is a thing to be wondered at, to
see how very soon France, when she had a moment to respire, recovered
and emerged from the longest and most dreadful civil war that ever was
known in any nation. Why? Because, among all their massacres, they had
not slain the _mind_ in their country. A conscious dignity, a noble
pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation, was not extinguished. On
the contrary, it was kindled and inflamed. The organs also of the state,
however shattered, existed. All the prizes of honor and virtue, all the
rewards, all the distinctions, remained. But your present confusion,
like a palsy, has attacked the fountain of life itself. Every person in
your country, in a situation to be actuated by a principle of honor, is
disgraced and degraded, and can entertain no sensation of life, except
in a mortified and humiliated indignation. But this generation will
quickly pass away. The next generation of the nobility will resemble the
artificers and clowns, and money-jobbers, usurers, and Jews, who will be
always their fellows, sometimes their masters. Believe me, Sir, those
who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of
various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost.
The levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of
things: they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what
the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. The
associations of tailors and carpenters, of which the republic (of Paris,
for instance) is composed, cannot be equal to the situation into which,
by the worst of usurpations, an usurpation on the prerogatives of
Nature, you attempt to force them.
The Chancellor of France, at the opening of the States, said, in a tone
of oratorial flourish, that all occupations were honorable. If he meant
only that no honest employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone
beyond the truth. But in asserting that anything is honorable, we imply
some distinction in its favor. The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a
working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honor to any person,--to
say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such
descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but
the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or
collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating
prejudice, but you are at war with Nature.[86]
I do not, my dear Sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical, captious
spirit, or of that uncandid dullness, as to require, for every general
observation or sentiment, an explicit detail of the correctives and
exceptions which reason will presume to be included in all the general
propositions which come from reasonable men. You do not imagine that I
wish to confine power, authority, and distinction to blood and names and
titles. No, Sir. There is no qualification for government but virtue and
wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wherever they are actually found, they
have, in whatever state, condition, profession, or trade, the passport
of Heaven to human place and honor. Woe to the country which would madly
and impiously reject the service of the talents and virtues, civil,
military, or religious, that are given to grace and to serve it; and
would condemn to obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory
around a state! Woe to that country, too, that, passing into the
opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, contracted view of
things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to
command! Everything ought to be open,--but not indifferently to every
man. No rotation, no appointment by lot, no mode of election operating
in the spirit of sortition or rotation, can be generally good in a
government conversant in extensive objects; because they have no
tendency, direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the duty,
or to accommodate the one to the other. I do not hesitate to say that
the road to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to be
made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the
rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort of
probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it
be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is
never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.
Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state, that does not
represent its ability, as well as its property. But as ability is a
vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and
timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be,
out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. It must be
represented, too, in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly
protected. The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the
combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be
_unequal_. The great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt
rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a
natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations. The
same quantity of property which is by the natural course of things
divided among many has not the same operation. Its defensive power is
weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less
than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to
obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the
few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the
distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making this
calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this
distribution.
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the
most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that
which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our
weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon
avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which
attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it,) are the
natural securities for this transmission. With us the House of Peers is
formed upon this principle. It is wholly composed of hereditary
property and hereditary distinction, and made, therefore, the third of
the legislature, and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property
in all its subdivisions. The House of Commons, too, though not
necessarily, yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater
part. Let those large proprietors be what they will, (and they have
their chance of being amongst the best,) they are, at the very worst,
the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth. For though hereditary
wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by
creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are
too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming,
short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated
preëminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to
birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.
It is said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred
thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of
arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post
for its second: to men who _may_ reason calmly it is ridiculous The will
of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will
be the difference when they make an evil choice. A government of five
hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for
twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by eight-and-forty
millions; nor is it the better for being guided by a dozen of persons of
quality who have betrayed their trust in order to obtain that power. At
present, you seem in everything to have strayed out of the high road of
Nature. The property of France does not govern it. Of course property
is destroyed, and rational liberty has no existence. All you have got
for the present is a paper circulation, and a stock-jobbing
constitution: and as to the future, do you seriously think that the
territory of France, upon the republican system of eighty-three
independent municipalities, (to say nothing of the parts that compose
them,) can ever be governed as one body, or can ever be set in motion by
the impulse of one mind? When the National Assembly has completed its
work, it will have accomplished its ruin. These commonwealths will not
long bear a state of subjection to the republic of Paris. They will not
bear that this one body should monopolize the captivity of the king, and
the dominion over the assembly calling itself national. Each will keep
its own portion of the spoil of the Church to itself; and it will not
suffer either that spoil, or the more just fruits of their industry, or
the natural produce of their soil, to be sent to swell the insolence or
pamper the luxury of the mechanics of Paris. In this they will see none
of the equality, under the pretence of which they have been tempted to
throw off their allegiance to their sovereign, as well as the ancient
constitution of their country. There can be no capital city in such a
constitution as they have lately made. They have forgot, that, when they
framed democratic governments, they had virtually dismembered their
country. The person whom they persevere in calling king has not power
left to him by the hundredth part sufficient to hold together this
collection of republics. The republic of Paris will endeavor, indeed, to
complete the debauchery of the army, and illegally to perpetuate the
Assembly, without resort to its constituents, as the means of
continuing its despotism. It will make efforts, by becoming the heart
of a boundless paper circulation, to draw everything to itself: but in
vain. All this policy in the end will appear as feeble as it is now
violent.
* * * * *
If this be your actual situation, compared to the situation to which you
were called, as it were by the voice of God and man, I cannot find it in
my heart to congratulate you on the choice you have made, or the success
which has attended your endeavors. I can as little recommend to any
other nation a conduct grounded on such principles and productive of
such effects. That I must leave to those who can see further into your
affairs than I am able to do, and who best know how far your actions are
favorable to their designs. The gentlemen of the Revolution Society, who
were so early in their congratulations, appear to be strongly of opinion
that there is some scheme of politics relative to this country, in which
your proceedings may in some way be useful. For your Dr. Price, who
seems to have speculated himself into no small degree of fervor upon
this subject, addresses his auditors in the following very remarkable
words:--"I cannot conclude without recalling _particularly_ to your
recollection a consideration which I have _more than once alluded to_,
and which probably your thoughts have _been all along anticipating_; a
consideration with which _my mind is impressed more than can express_: I
mean the consideration of the _favorableness of the present times to all
exertions in the cause of liberty_."
It is plain that the mind of this _political_ preacher was at the time
big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable that the
thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than I do, did all
along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of
consequences to which it led.
Before I read that sermon, I really thought I had lived in a free
country; and it was an error I cherished, because it gave me a greater
liking to the country I lived in. I was, indeed, aware that a jealous,
ever-waking vigilance, to guard the treasure of our liberty, not only
from invasion, but from decay and corruption, was our best wisdom and
our first duty. However, I considered that treasure rather as a
possession to be secured than as a prize to be contended for. I did not
discern how the present time came to be so very favorable to all
_exertions_ in the cause of freedom. The present time differs from any
other only by the circumstance of what is doing in France. If the
example of that nation is to have an influence on this, I can easily
conceive why some of their proceedings which have an unpleasant aspect,
and are not quite reconcilable to humanity, generosity, good faith, and
justice, are palliated with so much milky good-nature towards the
actors, and borne with so much heroic fortitude towards the sufferers.
It is certainly not prudent to discredit the authority of an example we
mean to follow. But allowing this, we are led to a very natural
question:--What is that cause of liberty, and what are those exertions
in its favor, to which the example of France is so singularly
auspicious? Is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all the laws, all
the tribunals, and all the ancient corporations of the kingdom? Is every
landmark of the country to be done away in favor of a geometrical and
arithmetical constitution? Is the House of Lords to be voted useless?
Is Episcopacy to be abolished? Are the Church lands to be sold to Jews
and jobbers, or given to bribe new-invented municipal republics into a
participation in sacrilege? Are all the taxes to be voted grievances,
and the revenue reduced to a patriotic contribution or patriotic
presents? Are silver shoe-buckles to be substituted in the place of the
land-tax and the malt-tax, for the support of the naval strength of this
kingdom? Are all orders, ranks, and distinctions to be confounded, that
out of universal anarchy, joined to national bankruptcy, three or four
thousand democracies should be formed into eighty-three, and that they
may all, by some sort of unknown attractive power, be organized into
one? For this great end is the army to be seduced from its discipline
and its fidelity, first by every kind of debauchery, and then by the
terrible precedent of a donative in the increase of pay? Are the curates
to be seduced from their bishops by holding out to them the delusive
hope of a dole out of the spoils of their own order? Are the citizens of
London to be drawn from their allegiance by feeding them at the expense
of their fellow-subjects? Is a compulsory paper currency to be
substituted in the place of the legal coin of this kingdom? Is what
remains of the plundered stock of public revenue to be employed in the
wild project of maintaining two armies to watch over and to fight with
each other? If these are the ends and means of the Revolution Society, I
admit they are well assorted; and France may furnish them for both with
precedents in point.
I see that your example is held out to shame us. I know that we are
supposed a dull, sluggish race, rendered passive by finding our
situation tolerable, and prevented by a mediocrity of freedom from ever
attaining to its full perfection. Your leaders in France began by
affecting to admire, almost to adore, the British Constitution; but as
they advanced, they came to look upon it with a sovereign contempt. The
friends of your National Assembly amongst us have full as mean an
opinion of what was formerly thought the glory of their country. The
Revolution Society has discovered that the English nation is not free.
They are convinced that the inequality in our representation is a
"defect in our Constitution _so gross and palpable_ as to make it
excellent chiefly in _form_ and _theory_";[87]--that a representation in
the legislature of a kingdom is not only the basis of all constitutional
liberty in it, but of "_all legitimate government_; that without it a
_government_ is nothing but an _usurpation_";--that, "when the
representation is _partial_, the kingdom possesses liberty only
_partially_; and if extremely partial, it gives only a _semblance_; and
if not only extremely partial, but corruptly chosen, it becomes a
_nuisance_." Dr. Price considers this inadequacy of representation as
our _fundamental grievance_; and though, as to the corruption of this
semblance of representation, he hopes it is not yet arrived to its full
perfection of depravity, he fears that "nothing will be done towards
gaining for us this _essential blessing_, until some _great abuse of
power_ again provokes our resentment, or some _great calamity_ again
alarms our fears, or perhaps till the acquisition of a _pure and equal
representation by other countries,_ whilst we are _mocked_ with the
_shadow_, kindles our shame." To this he subjoins a note in these
words:--"A representation chosen chiefly by the Treasury, and a _few_
thousands of the _dregs_ of the people, who are generally paid for their
votes."
You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when
they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community
with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to
make them the depositories of all power. It would require a long
discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in the
generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate
representation." I shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned
Constitution under which we have long prospered, that our representation
has been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for which a
representation of the people can be desired or devised. I defy the
enemies of our Constitution to show the contrary. To detail the
particulars in which it is found so well to promote its ends would
demand a treatise on our practical Constitution. I state here the
doctrine of the revolutionists, only that you and others may see what an
opinion these gentlemen entertain of the Constitution of their country,
and why they seem to think that some great abuse of power, or some great
calamity, as giving a chance for the blessing of a Constitution
according to their ideas, would be much palliated to their feelings; you
see _why they_ are so much enamored of your fair and equal
representation, which being once obtained, the same effects might
follow. You see they consider our House of Commons as only "a
semblance," "a form," "a theory," "a shadow," "a mockery," perhaps "a
nuisance."
These gentlemen value themselves on being systematic, and not without
reason. They must therefore look on this gross and palpable defect of
representation, this fundamental grievance, (so they call it,) as a
thing not only vicious in itself, but as rendering our whole government
absolutely _illegitimate_, and not at all better than a downright
_usurpation_. Another revolution, to get rid of this illegitimate and
usurped government, would of course be perfectly justifiable, if not
absolutely necessary. Indeed, their principle, if you observe it with
any attention, goes much further than to an alteration in the election
of the House of Commons; for, if popular representation, or choice, is
necessary to the _legitimacy_ of all government, the House of Lords is,
at one stroke, bastardized and corrupted in blood. That House is no
representative of the people at all, even in "semblance" or "in form."
The case of the crown is altogether as bad. In vain the crown may
endeavor to screen itself against these gentlemen by the authority of
the establishment made on the Revolution. The Revolution, which is
resorted to for a title, on their system, wants a title itself. The
Revolution is built, according to their theory, upon a basis not more
solid than our present formalities, as it was made by a House of Lords
not representing any one but themselves, and by a House of Commons
exactly such as the present, that is, as they term it, by a mere "shadow
and mockery" of representation.