Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere
occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure--but the state ought
not to be considered nothing better than a partnership agreement in a
trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low
concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be
dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other
reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to
the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is
a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in
every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership
cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not
only between those who are living, but between those who are living,
those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of
each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of
eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting
the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned
by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures
each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of
those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are
bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of
that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and
on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate
and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to
dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary
principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that
is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that
admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify
a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule;
because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical
disposition of things to which man must be obedient by consent of force:
but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the
object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the
rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this world of
reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence,
into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and
unavailing sorrow.