modern lights, but he has not yet had the good fortune to _see_ much of
them. He has read more than he can justify to anything but the spirit of
curiosity, of the works of these illuminators of the world. He has
learned nothing from the far greater number of them than a full
certainty of their shallowness, levity, pride, petulance, presumption,
and ignorance. Where the old authors whom he has read, and the old men
whom he has conversed with, have left him in the dark, he is in the dark
still. If others, however, have obtained any of this extraordinary
light, they will use it to guide them in their researches and their
conduct. I have only to wish that the nation may be as happy and as
prosperous under the influence of the new light as it has been in the
sober shade of the old obscurity. As to the rest, it will be difficult
for the author of the Reflections to conform to the principles of the
avowed leaders of the party, until they appear otherwise than
negatively. All we can gather from them is this,--that their principles
are diametrically opposite to his. This is all that we know from
authority. Their negative declaration obliges me to have recourse to
the books which contain positive doctrines. They are, indeed, to those
Mr. Burke holds diametrically opposite; and if it be true (as the
oracles of the party have said, I hope hastily) that their opinions
differ so widely, it should seem they are the most likely to form the
creed of the modern Whigs.
* * * * *
I have stated what were the avowed sentiments of the old Whigs, not in
the way of argument, but narratively. It is but fair to set before the
reader, in the same simple manner, the sentiments of the modern, to
which they spare neither pains nor expense to make proselytes. I choose
them from the books upon which most of that industry and expenditure in
circulation have been employed; I choose them, not from those who speak
with a politic obscurity, not from those who only controvert the
opinions of the old Whigs, without advancing any of their own, but from
those who speak plainly and affirmatively. The Whig reader may make his
choice between the two doctrines.
The doctrine, then, propagated by these societies, which gentlemen think
they ought to be very tender in discouraging, as nearly as possible in
their own words, is as follows: That in Great Britain we are not only
without a good Constitution, but that we have "no Constitution";--that,
"though it is much talked about, no such thing as a Constitution exists
or ever did exist, and consequently that _the people have a Constitution
yet to form_;--that since William the Conqueror the country has never
yet _regenerated itself_, and is therefore without a Constitution;--that
where it cannot be produced in a visible form there is none;--that a
Constitution is a thing antecedent to government; and that the
Constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of a
people constituting a government;--that _everything_ in the English
government is the reverse of what it ought to be, and what it is said to
be in England;--that the right of war and peace resides in a metaphor
shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling apiece;--that it signifies
not where the right resides, whether in the crown or in Parliament; war
is the common harvest of those who participate in the division and
expenditure of public money;--that the portion of liberty enjoyed in
England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by
despotism."
So far as to the general state of the British Constitution.--As to our
House of Lords, the chief virtual representative of our aristocracy, the
great ground and pillar of security to the landed interest, and that
main link by which it is connected with the law and the crown, these
worthy societies are pleased to tell us, that, "whether we view
aristocracy before, or behind, or sideways, or any way else,
domestically or publicly, it is still a _monster_;--that aristocracy in
France 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, it seems, that
profound legislator, M. de La Fayette, describes the House of
Peers);--"that it is kept up by family tyranny and injustice;--that
there is an unnatural unfitness in aristocracy to be legislators for a
nation;--that 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;--that the idea of an hereditary legislator is as absurd as an
hereditary mathematician;--that a body holding themselves unaccountable
to anybody ought to be trusted by nobody;--that it is continuing the
uncivilized principles of governments founded in conquest, and the base
idea of man having a property in man, and governing him by a personal
right;--that aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human
species," &c., &c.
As to our law of primogeniture, which with few and inconsiderable
exceptions is the standing law of all our landed inheritance, and which
without question has a tendency, and I think a most happy tendency, to
preserve a character of consequence, weight, and prevalent influence
over others in the whole body of the landed interest, they call loudly
for its destruction. They do this for political reasons that are very
manifest. They have the confidence to say, "that it is a law against
every 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 but _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 to the House of Commons, they treat it far worse than the House of
Lords or the crown have been ever treated. Perhaps they thought they had
a greater right to take this amicable freedom with those of their own
family. For many years it has been the perpetual theme of their
invectives. "Mockery, insult, usurpation," are amongst the best names
they bestow upon it. They damn it in the mass, by declaring "that it
does not arise out of the inherent rights of the people, as the National
Assembly does in France, and whose name designates its original."
Of the charters and corporations, to whose rights a few years ago these
gentlemen were so tremblingly alive, they say, "that, when the people of
England come to reflect upon them, they will, like France, annihilate
those badges of oppression, those traces of a conquered nation."
As to our monarchy, they had formerly been more tender of that branch of
the Constitution, and for a good reason. The laws had guarded against
all seditious attacks upon it with a greater degree of strictness and
severity. The tone of these gentlemen is totally altered since the
French Revolution. They now declaim as vehemently against the monarchy
as on former occasions they treacherously flattered and soothed it.
"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 or 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 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."
Warmly recommending to us the example of Prance, where they have
destroyed monarchy, they say,--
"Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of
misery, is abolished; and 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."
"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 services does it
perform, what is its business, and what are its merits? Doth 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 a 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."
"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."
"If I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and
down through all the occupations of life to the common laborer, 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."
"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 apiece: 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?"
The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highest
veneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of the
sober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors, but of
their wisdom and provident care of posterity. The modern Whigs have
quite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny that
Mr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of Parliament which
secured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him,
but the law.
"Mr Burke" (say they) "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 the
Second 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 delegation it had it not, and could not
have it, because none could give it) over the persons and freedom of
posterity forever, 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 the 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."
"As the estimation of all things is 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
labors, '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
forever_."
Mr. Burke having said that "the king holds his crown in contempt of the
choice of the Revolution Society, who individually or collectively have
not" (as most certainly they have not) "a vote for a king amongst them,"
they take occasion from thence to infer that the king who does not hold
his crown by election despises the people.
"'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,'" &c.
"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 the ear of another person, I am not so
well a judge of; but of its abominable principle I am at no loss to
judge."
These societies of modern Whigs push their insolence as far as it can
go. In order to prepare the minds of the people for treason and
rebellion, they represent the king as tainted with principles of
despotism, from the circumstance of his having dominions in Germany. In
direct defiance of the most notorious truth, they describe his
government there to be a despotism; whereas it is a free Constitution,
in which the states of the Electorate have their part in the government:
and this privilege has never been infringed by the king, or, that I have
heard of, by any of his predecessors. The Constitution of the Electoral
dominions has, indeed, a double control, both from the laws of the
Empire and from the privileges of the country. Whatever rights the king
enjoys as Elector have been always parentally exercised, and the
calumnies of these scandalous societies have not been authorized by a
single complaint of oppression.
"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 contempt_ of
their choice with which his Majesty has succeeded to that he wears,' it
is saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country, part
of whose daily labor 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_!"
"It is somewhat curious to observe, that, although the people of England
have 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."
"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?"[20]
* * * * *
These are the notions which, under the idea of Whig principles, several
persons, and among them persons of no mean mark, have associated
themselves to propagate. I will not attempt in the smallest degree to
refute them. This will probably be done (if such writings shall be
thought to deserve any other than the refutation of criminal justice) by
others, who may think with Mr. Burke. He has performed his part.
I do not wish to enter very much at large into the discussions which
diverge and ramify in all ways from this productive subject. But there
is one topic upon which I hope I shall be excused in going a little
beyond my design. The factions now so busy amongst us, in order to
divest men of all love for their country, and to remove from their minds
all duty with regard to the state, endeavor to propagate an opinion,
that the _people_, in forming their commonwealth, have by no means
parted with their power over it. This is an impregnable citadel, to
which these gentlemen retreat, whenever they are pushed by the battery
of laws and usages and positive conventions. Indeed, it is such, and of
so great force, that all they have done in defending their outworks is
so much time and labor thrown away. Discuss any of their schemes, their
answer is, It is the act of the _people_, and that is sufficient. Are
we to deny to a _majority_ of the people the right of altering even the
whole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure? They may
change it, say they, from a monarchy to a republic to-day, and to-morrow
back again from a republic to a monarchy; and so backward and forward as
often as they like. They are masters of the commonwealth, because in
substance they are themselves the commonwealth. The French Revolution,
say they, was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majority
of any other people, the people of England, for instance, wish to make
the same change, they have the same right.
Just the same, undoubtedly. That is, none at all. Neither the few nor
the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter
connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. The Constitution
of a country being once settled upon some compact, tacit or expressed,
there is no power existing of force to alter it, without the breach of
the covenant, or the consent of all the parties. Such is the nature of a
contract. And the votes of a majority of the people, whatever their
infamous flatterers may teach in order to corrupt their minds, cannot
alter the moral any more than they can alter the physical essence of
things. The people are not to be taught to think lightly of their
engagements to their governors; else they teach governors to think
lightly of their engagements towards them. In that kind of game, in the
end, the people are sure to be losers. To flatter them into a contempt
of faith, truth, and justice is to ruin them; for in these virtues
consists their whole safety. To flatter any man, or any part of mankind,
in any description, by asserting that in engagements he or they are
free, whilst any other human creature is bound, is ultimately to vest
the rule of morality in the pleasure of those who ought to be rigidly
submitted to it,--to subject the sovereign reason of the world to the
caprices of weak and giddy men.
But, as no one of us men can dispense with public or private faith, or
with any other tie of moral obligation, so neither can any number of us.
The number engaged in crimes, instead of turning them into laudable
acts, only augments the quantity and intensity of the guilt. I am well
aware that men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme
disrelish to be told of their duty. This is of course; because every
duty is a limitation of some power. Indeed, arbitrary power is so much
to the depraved taste of the vulgar, of the vulgar of every description,
that almost all the dissensions which lacerate the commonwealth are not
concerning the manner in which it is to be exercised, but concerning the
hands in which it is to be placed. Somewhere they are resolved to have
it. Whether they desire it to be vested in the many or the few depends
with most men upon the chance which they imagine they themselves may
have of partaking in the exercise of that arbitrary sway, in the one
mode or in the other.
It is not necessary to teach men to thirst after power. But it is very
expedient that by moral instruction they should be taught, and by their
civil constitutions they should be compelled, to put many restrictions
upon the immoderate exercise of it, and the inordinate desire. The best
method of obtaining these two great points forms the important, but at
the same time the difficult problem to the true statesman. He thinks of
the place in which political power is to be lodged with no other
attention than as it may render the more or the less practicable its
salutary restraint and its prudent direction. For this reason, no
legislator, at any period of the world, has willingly placed the seat of
active power in the hands of the multitude; because there it admits of
no control, no regulation, no steady direction whatsoever. The people
are the natural control on authority; but to exercise and to control
together is contradictory and impossible.
As the exorbitant exercise of power cannot, under popular sway, be
effectually restrained, the other great object of political arrangement,
the means of abating an excessive desire of it, is in such a state still
worse provided for. The democratic commonwealth is the foodful nurse of
ambition. Under the other forms it meets with many restraints. Whenever,
in states which have had a democratic basis, the legislators have
endeavored to put restraints upon ambition, their methods were as
violent as in the end they were ineffectual,--as violent, indeed, as any
the most jealous despotism could invent. The ostracism could not very
long save itself, and much less the state which it was meant to guard,
from the attempts of ambition,--one of the natural, inbred, incurable
distempers of a powerful democracy.