up the duty of passive obedience in the most extensive manner he had
thought fit, and would have stopped there, your Lordships would not have
had the trouble in relation to him that you now have; but it is plain
that he preached up his absolute and unconditional obedience, not _to
continue the peace and tranquillity of this nation, but to set the
subjects at strife, and to raise a war in the bowels of this nation_:
and it is for _this_ that he is now prosecuted; though he would fain
have it believed that the prosecution was for preaching the peaceable
doctrine of absolute obedience."
* * * * *
_Sir Joseph Jekyl_.
[Sidenote: Whole frame of government restored unhurt, on the
Revolution.]
"The whole tenor of the administration then in being was agreed to by
all to be a _total departure from the Constitution_. The nation was at
that time united in that opinion, all but the criminal part of it. And
as the nation joined in the judgment of their disease, so they did in
the remedy. _They saw there was no remedy left but the last;_ and when
that remedy took place, _the whole frame of the government was restored
entire and unhurt_.[17] This showed the excellent temper the nation was
in at that time, that, after such provocations from an abuse of the
regal power, and such a convulsion, _no one part of the Constitution was
altered, or suffered the least damage; but, on the contrary, the whole
received new life and vigor_."
* * * * *
The Tory counsel for Dr. Sacheverell having insinuated that a great and
essential alteration in the Constitution had been wrought by the
Revolution, Sir Joseph Jekyl is so strong on this point, that he takes
fire even at the insinuation of his being of such an opinion.
* * * * *
_Sir Joseph Jekyl._
[Sidenote: No innovation at the Revolution.]
"If the Doctor instructed his counsel to insinuate that there was _any
innovation in the Constitution wrought by the Revolution, it is an
addition to his crime. The Revolution did not introduce any innovation;
it was a restoration of the ancient fundamental Constitution of the
kingdom_, and giving it its proper force and energy."
* * * * *
The Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre, distinguishes expressly the case
of the Revolution, and its principles, from a proceeding at pleasure, on
the part of the people, to change their ancient Constitution, and to
frame a new government for themselves. He distinguishes it with the same
care from the principles of regicide and republicanism, and the sorts of
resistance condemned by the doctrines of the Church of England, and
which ought to be condemned by the doctrines of all churches professing
Christianity.
* * * * *
_Mr. Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre._
[Sidenote: Revolution no precedent for voluntary cancelling allegiance.]
[Sidenote: Revolution not like the case of Charles the First.]
"The resistance at the Revolution, which was founded in _unavoidable
necessity_, could be no defence to a man that was attacked _for
asserting that the people might cancel their allegiance at pleasure, or
dethrone and murder their sovereign by a judiciary sentence_. For it can
never be inferred, from the lawfulness of resistance at a time when _a
total subversion of the government both in Church and State was
intended_, that a people may take up arms and _call their sovereign to
account at pleasure_; and therefore, since _the Revolution could be of
no service in giving the least color for asserting any such wicked
principle_, the Doctor could never intend to put it into the mouths of
those new preachers and new politicians for a defence,--unless it be his
opinion that the resistance at the Revolution can bear any parallel with
_the execrable murder of the royal martyr, so justly detested by the
whole nation_."
[Sidenote: Sacheverell's doctrine intended to bring an odium on the
Revolution.]
[Sidenote: True defence of the Revolution an absolute necessity.]
"'Tis plain that the Doctor is not impeached for preaching a general
doctrine, and enforcing the general duty of obedience, but for preaching
against an _excepted case after he has stated the exception_. He is not
impeached for preaching the general doctrine of obedience, and the utter
illegality of resistance upon any pretence whatsoever, but because,
having first laid down the general doctrine as true, without any
exception, _he states the excepted case_, the Revolution, in express
terms, as an objection, and then assumes the consideration of that
excepted case, denies there was any resistance in the Revolution, and
asserts that to impute resistance to the Revolution would cast black and
odious colors upon it. This, my Lords, is not preaching the doctrine of
non-resistance in the _general_ terms used by the Homilies and the
fathers of the Church, where cases of necessity may be _understood to be
excepted by a tacit implication, as the counsel have allowed_,--but is
preaching directly against the resistance at the Revolution, which, in
the course of this debate, has been all along admitted to _be necessary
and just_, and can have no other meaning than to bring a dishonor upon
the Revolution, and an odium upon those great and illustrious persons,
_those friends to the monarchy and the Church, that assisted in bringing
it about_. For had the Doctor intended anything else, he would have
treated the case of the Revolution in a different manner, and have
given _it the true and fair answer_: he would have said that the
resistance at the Revolution was _of absolute necessity, and the only
means left to revive the Constitution, and must be therefore taken as an
excepted case_, and could never come within the reach or intention of
the general doctrine of the Church."
"Your Lordships take notice on what grounds the Doctor continues to
assert the same position in his answer. But is it not most evident that
the general exhortations to be met with in the Homilies of the Church of
England, and such like declarations in the statutes of the kingdom, are
meant only as rules for the civil obedience of the subject to the legal
administration of the supreme power in _ordinary cases_? And it is
equally absurd to construe any words in a positive law to authorize the
destruction of the whole, as to expect that King, Lords, and Commons
should, in express terms of law, declare _such an ultimate resort as the
right of resistance, at a time when the case supposes that the force of
all law is ceased_."[18]
[Sidenote: Commons abhor whatever shakes the submission of posterity to
the settlement of the crown.]
"The Commons must always resent, with the utmost detestation and
abhorrence, every position that may shake the authority of that act of
Parliament whereby the crown is settled upon her Majesty, _and whereby
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do, in the name of all the
people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their
heirs and posterities, to her Majesty_, which this general principle of
absolute non-resistance must certainly shake.
"For, if the resistance at the Revolution was illegal, the Revolution
settled in usurpation, and this act can have no greater force and
authority than an act passed under a usurper.
"And the Commons take leave to observe, that the authority of this
Parliamentary settlement is a matter of the greatest consequence to
maintain, in a case where the hereditary right to the crown is
contested."
"It appears by the several instances mentioned in the act declaring the
rights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of the
crown, that at the time of the Revolution there was _a total subversion
of the constitution of government both in Church and State, which is a
case that the laws of England could never suppose, provide for, or have
in view._"
* * * * *
Sir Joseph Jekyl, so often quoted, considered the preservation of the
monarchy, and of the rights and prerogatives of the crown, as essential
objects with all sound Whigs, and that they were bound not only to
maintain them, when injured or invaded, but to exert themselves as much
for their reëstablishment, if they should happen to be overthrown by
popular fury, as any of their own more immediate and popular rights and
privileges, if the latter should be at any time subverted by the crown.
For this reason he puts the cases of the _Revolution_, and the
_Restoration_ exactly upon the same footing. He plainly marks, that it
was the object of all honest men not to sacrifice one part of the
Constitution to another, and much more, not to sacrifice any of them to
visionary theories of the rights of man, but to preserve our whole
inheritance in the Constitution, in all its members and all its
relations, entire and unimpaired, from generation to generation. In this
Mr. Burke exactly agrees with him.
* * * * *
_Sir Joseph Jekyl._
[Sidenote: What are the rights of the people.]
[Sidenote: Restoration and Revolution.]
[Sidenote: People have an equal interest in the legal rights of the
crown and of their own.]
"Nothing is plainer than that the people have a right to the laws and
the Constitution. This right the nation hath asserted, and recovered out
of the hands of those who had dispossessed them of it at several times.
There are of this _two famous instances_ in the knowledge of the present
age: I mean that of the _Restoration_, and that of the _Revolution_: in
both these great events were the _regal power_ and the _rights of the
people_ recovered. And it is _hard to say in which the people have the
greatest interest; for the Commons are sensible that there it not one
legal power belonging to the crown, but they have an interest in it; and
I doubt not but they will always be as careful to support the rights of
the crown as their own privileges_."
* * * * *
The other Whig managers regarded (as he did) the overturning of the
monarchy by a republican faction with the very same horror and
detestation with which they regarded the destruction of the privileges
of the people by an arbitrary monarch.
* * * * *
_Mr. Lechmere_,
[Sidenote: Constitution recovered at the Restoration and Revolution.]
Speaking of our Constitution, states it as "a Constitution which happily
recovered itself, at the Restoration, from the confusions and disorders
which _the horrid and detestable proceedings of faction and usurpation
had thrown it into_, and which after many convulsions and struggles was
providentially saved at the late happy Revolution, and by the many good
laws passed since that time stands now upon a firmer foundation,
together with the most comfortable prospect of _security to all
posterity_ by the settlement of the crown in the Protestant line."
* * * * *
I mean now to show that the Whigs (if Sir Joseph Jekyl was one, and if
he spoke in conformity to the sense of the Whig House of Commons, and
the Whig ministry who employed him) did carefully guard against any
presumption that might arise from the repeal of the non-resistance oath
of Charles the Second, as if at the Revolution the ancient principles of
our government were at all changed, or that republican doctrines were
countenanced, or any sanction given to seditious proceedings upon
general undefined ideas of misconduct, or for changing the form of
government, or for resistance upon any other ground than the _necessity_
so often mentioned for the purpose of self-preservation. It will show
still more clearly the equal care of the then Whigs to prevent either
the regal power from being swallowed up on pretence of popular rights,
or the popular rights from being destroyed on pretence of regal
prerogatives.
* * * * *
_Sir Joseph Jekyl_.
[Sidenote: Mischief of broaching antimonarchical principles.]
[Sidenote: Two cases of resistance: one to preserve the crown, the other
the rights of the subject.]
"Further, I desire it may be considered, these legislators" (the
legislators who framed the non-resistance oath of Charles the Second)
"were guarding against the consequences of those _pernicious and
antimonarchical principles which had been broached a little before in
this nation_, and those large declarations in favor of _non-resistance_
were made to encounter or obviate the _mischief_ of those
principles,--as appears by the preamble to the fullest of those acts,
which is the _Militia Act_, in the 13th and 14th of King Charles the
Second. The words of that act are these: _And during the late usurped
governments, many evil and rebellious principles have been instilled
into the minds of the people of this kingdom, which may break forth,
unless prevented, to the disturbance of the peace and quiet thereof: Be
it therefore enacted_, &c. Here your Lordships may see the reason that
inclined those legislators to express themselves in such a manner
against resistance. _They had seen the regal rights swallowed up under
the pretence of popular ones_: and it is no imputation on them, that
they did not then foresee a _quite different case_, as was that of the
Revolution, where, under the pretence of regal authority, a total
subversion of the rights of the subject was advanced, and in a manner
effected. And this may serve to show that it was not the design of those
legislators to condemn resistance, in a case _of absolute necessity, for
preserving the Constitution_, when they were guarding against principles
which had so lately destroyed it."
[Sidenote: Non-resistance oath not repealed because (with the
restriction of necessity) it was false, but to prevent false
interpretations.]
"As to the truth of the doctrine in this declaration which was repealed,
_I'll admit it to be as true as the Doctor's counsel assert it,--that
is, with an exception of cases of necessity_: and it was not repealed
because it was false, _understanding it with that restriction_; but it
was repealed because it might be interpreted in _an unconfined sense,
and exclusive of that restriction_, and, being so understood, would
reflect on the justice of the Revolution: and this the legislature had
at heart, and were very jealous of, and by this repeal of that
declaration gave a Parliamentary or legislative admonition against
asserting this doctrine of non-resistance _in an unlimited sense_."
[Sidenote: General doctrine of non-resistance godly and wholesome; not
bound to state _explicitly_ the exceptions.]
"Though the general doctrine of non-resistance, the doctrine of the
Church of England, as stated in her Homilies, or elsewhere delivered, by
which the general duty of subjects to the higher powers is taught, be
owned to be, as unquestionably it is, _a godly and wholesome
doctrine_,--though this general doctrine has been constantly inculcated
by the reverend fathers of the Church, dead and living, and preached by
them as a preservative against the Popish doctrine of deposing princes,
and as the ordinary rule of obedience,--and though the same doctrine has
been preached, maintained, and avowed by our most orthodox and able
divines from the time of the Reformation,--and how _innocent a man_
soever Dr. Sacheverell had been, if, _with an honest and well-meant_
zeal, he had preached the same doctrine in the same general terms in
which he found it delivered by the Apostles of Christ, as taught by the
Homilies and the reverend fathers of our Church, and, in imitation of
those great examples, had only pressed the general duty of obedience,
and the illegality of resistance, without taking notice of any
exception," &c.
* * * * *
Another of the managers for the House of Commons, Sir John Holland, was
not less careful in guarding against a confusion of the principles of
the Revolution with any loose, general doctrines of a right in the
individual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on any
prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any
fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new
government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and
to unsettle the ancient Constitution of this kingdom.
* * * * *
_Sir John Holland_.
[Sidenote: Submission to the sovereign a conscientious duty, except in
cases of necessity.]
"The Commons would not be understood as if they were pleading for a
licentious resistance, as if _subjects_ were left to _their_ good-will
and pleasure when they are to _obey_ and when to _resist_. No, my Lords,
they know they are _obliged by all the ties of social creatures and
Christians, for wrath and conscience' sake, to submit to their
sovereign_. The Commons do not abet _humorsome, factious arms_: they
aver them to be _rebellions_. But yet they maintain that that resistance
at the Revolution, which was so _necessary, was lawful and just from
that necessity_."
[Sidenote: Right of resistance how to be understood.]
"These general rules of obedience may, upon a _real necessity,_ admit a
lawful _exception_; and such a _necessary exception_ we assert the
Revolution to be.
"'Tis with this view of _necessity_, only _absolute necessity_ of
preserving our laws, liberties, and religion,--'tis with _this
limitation_, that we desire to be understood, when any of us speak of
resistance in general. The _necessity_ of the resistance at the
Revolution was at that time obvious to every man."
* * * * *
I shall conclude these extracts with a reference to the Prince of
Orange's Declaration, in which he gives the nation the fullest assurance
that in his enterprise he was far from the intention of introducing any
change whatever in the fundamental law and Constitution of the state. He
considered the object of his enterprise not to be a precedent for
further revolutions, but that it was the great end of his expedition to
make such revolutions, so far as human power and wisdom could provide,
unnecessary.
* * * * *
_Extracts from the Prince of Orange's Declaration_.
"_All magistrates, who have been_ unjustly turned out, shall _forthwith
resume their former_ employments; as well as all the boroughs of England
shall return again to _their ancient prescriptions and charters_, and,
more particularly, that _the ancient_ charter of the great and famous
city of London shall again be in force; and that the writs for the
members of Parliament shall be addressed to the _proper officers,
according to law and custom_."
"And for the doing of all other things which the two Houses of
Parliament shall find necessary for the peace, honor, and safety of the
nation, so that there may _be no more danger of the nation's falling, at
any time hereafter, under arbitrary government_."
* * * * *
_Extract from the Prince of Oranges Additional Declaration_.
[Sidenote: Principal nobility and gentry well affected to the Church and
crown, security against the design of innovation.]
"We are confident that no persons can have _such hard thoughts of us_ as
to imagine that we have any other design in this undertaking than to
procure a settlement of the _religion and of the liberties and
properties of the subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be
no danger of the nation's relapsing into the like miseries at any time
hereafter_. And as the forces that we have brought along with us are
utterly disproportioned to that wicked design of conquering the nation,
if we were capable of intending it, _so the great numbers of the
principal nobility and gentry, that are men of eminent quality and
estates, and persons of known integrity and zeal, both for the religion
and government of England, many of them, also being distinguished by
their constant fidelity to the crown_, who do both accompany us in this
expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it, will cover us from all
such malicious insinuations."
* * * * *
In the spirit, and, upon one occasion, in the words,[19] of this
Declaration, the statutes passed in that reign made such provisions for
preventing these dangers, that scarcely anything short of combination of
King, Lords, and Commons, for the destruction of the liberties of the
nation, can in any probability make us liable to similar perils. In that
dreadful, and, I hope, not to be looked-for case, any opinion of a right
to make revolutions, grounded on this precedent, would be but a poor
resource. Dreadful, indeed, would be our situation!
* * * * *
These are the doctrines held by _the Whigs of the Revolution_, delivered
with as much solemnity, and as authentically at least, as any political
dogmas were ever promulgated from the beginning of the world. If there
be any difference between their tenets and those of Mr. Burke, it is,
that the old Whigs oppose themselves still more strongly than he does
against the doctrines which are now propagated with so much industry by
those who would be thought their successors.
It will be said, perhaps, that the old Whigs, in order to guard
themselves against popular odium, pretended to assert tenets contrary
to those which they secretly held. This, if true, would prove, what Mr.
Burke has uniformly asserted, that the extravagant doctrines which he
meant to expose were disagreeable to the body of the people,--who,
though they perfectly abhor a despotic government, certainly approached
more nearly to the love of mitigated monarchy than to anything which
bears the appearance even of the best republic. But if these old Whigs
deceived the people, their conduct was unaccountable indeed. They
exposed their power, as every one conversant in history knows, to the
greatest peril, for the propagation of opinions which, on this
hypothesis, they did not hold. It is a new kind of martyrdom. This
supposition does as little credit to their integrity as their wisdom: it
makes them at once hypocrites and fools. I think of those great men very
differently. I hold them to have been, what the world thought them, men
of deep understanding, open sincerity, and clear honor. However, be that
matter as it may, what these old Whigs pretended to be Mr. Burke is.
This is enough for him.
I do, indeed, admit, that, though Mr. Burke has proved that his opinions
were those of the old Whig party, solemnly declared by one House, in
effect and substance by both Houses of Parliament, this testimony
standing by itself will form no proper defence for his opinions, if he
and the old Whigs were both of them in the wrong. But it is his present
concern, not to vindicate these old Whigs, but to show his agreement
with them. He appeals to them as judges: he does not vindicate them as
culprits. It is current that these old politicians knew little of the
rights of men,--that they lost their way by groping about in the dark,
and fumbling among rotten parchments and musty records. Great lights,
they say, are lately obtained in the world; and Mr. Burke, instead of
shrouding himself in exploded ignorance, ought to have taken advantage
of the blaze of illumination which has been spread about him. It may be
so. The enthusiasts of this time, it seems, like their predecessors in
another faction of fanaticism, deal in lights. Hudibras pleasantly says
of them, they
"Have _lights_, where better eyes are blind,--
As pigs are said to see the wind."