character and disposition of the enemy into whose hands we may chance to
fall. The genius of this faction is easily discerned, by observing with
what a very different eye they have viewed the late foreign revolutions.
Two have passed before them: that of France, and that of Poland. The
state of Poland was such, that there could scarcely exist two opinions,
but that a reformation of its Constitution, even at some expense of
blood, might be seen without much disapprobation. No confusion could be
feared in such an enterprise; because the establishment to be reformed
was itself a state of confusion. A king without authority; nobles
without union or subordination; a people without arts, industry,
commerce, or liberty; no order within, no defence without; no effective
public force, but a foreign force, which entered, a naked country at
will, and disposed of everything at pleasure. Here was a state of things
which seemed to invite, and might perhaps justify, bold enterprise and
desperate experiment. But in what manner was this chaos brought into
order? The means were as striking to the imagination as satisfactory to
the reason and soothing to the moral sentiments. In contemplating that
change, humanity has everything to rejoice and to glory in,--nothing to
be ashamed of, nothing to suffer. So far as it has gone, it probably is
the most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on
mankind. We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed; a throne
strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on
their liberties; all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from
elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we
have seen a reigning king, from an heroic love to his country, exerting
himself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue,
in favor of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men labor for
the aggrandizement of their own. Ten millions of men in a way of being
freed gradually, and therefore safely to themselves and the state, not
from civil or political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter the
mind, but from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities,
before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to
that improved and connecting situation of social life. One of the most
proud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in
the world arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous
citizens. Not one man incurred loss or suffered degradation. All, from
the king to the day-laborer, were improved in their condition.
Everything was kept in its place and order; but in that place and order
everything was bettered. To add to this happy wonder, this unheard-of
conjunction of wisdom and fortune, not one drop of blood was spilled; no
treachery; no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword;
no studied insults on religion, morals, or manners; no spoil; no
confiscation; no citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: the
whole was effected with a policy, a discretion, an unanimity and
secrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion; but such
wonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favor of
the true and genuine rights and interests of men. Happy people, if they
know to proceed as they have begun! Happy prince, worthy to begin with
splendor or to close with glory a race of patriots and of kings, and to
leave
A name, which every wind to heaven would bear,
Which men to speak, and angels joy to hear!
To finish all,--this great good, as in the instant it is, contains in it
the seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in a
regular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards the
stable excellence of a British Constitution.
Here was a matter for congratulation and for festive remembrance through
ages. Here moralists and divines might indeed relax in their temperance,
to exhilarate their humanity. But mark the character of our faction.
All their enthusiasm is kept for the French Revolution. They cannot
pretend that France had stood so much in need of a change as Poland.
They cannot pretend that Poland has not obtained a better system of
liberty or of government than it enjoyed before. They cannot assert that
the Polish Revolution cost more dearly than that of France to the
interests and feelings of multitudes of men. But the cold and
subordinate light in which they look upon the one, and the pains they
take to preach up the other of these Revolutions, leave us no choice in
fixing on their motives. Both Revolutions profess liberty as their
object; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to
order, the other from order to anarchy. The first secures its liberty by
establishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion
of its monarchy. In the one, their means are unstained by crimes, and
their settlement favors morality; in the other, vice and confusion are
in the very essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment. The
circumstances in which these two events differ must cause the difference
we make in their comparative estimation. These turn the scale with the
societies in favor of France. _Ferrum est quod amant_. The frauds, the
violences, the sacrileges, the havoc and ruin of families, the
dispersion and exile of the pride and flower of a great country, the
disorder, the confusion, the anarchy, the violation of property, the
cruel murders, the inhuman confiscations, and in the end the insolent
domination of bloody, ferocious, and senseless clubs,--these are the
things which they love and admire. What men admire and love they would
surely act. Let us see what is done in France; and then let us
undervalue any the slightest danger of falling into the hands of such a
merciless and savage faction!
"But the leaders of the factious societies are too wild to succeed in
this their undertaking." I hope so. But supposing them wild and absurd,
is there no danger but from wise and reflecting men? Perhaps the
greatest mischiefs that have happened in the world have happened from
persons as wild as those we think the wildest. In truth, they are the
fittest beginners of all great changes. Why encourage men in a
mischievous proceeding, because their absurdity may disappoint their
malice?--"But noticing them may give them consequence." Certainly. But
they are noticed; and they are noticed, not with reproof, but with that
kind of countenance which is given by an _apparent_ concurrence (not a
_real_ one, I am convinced) of a great party in the praises of the
object which they hold out to imitation.
But I hear a language still more extraordinary, and indeed of such a
nature as must suppose or leave us at their mercy. It is this:--"You
know their promptitude in writing, and their diligence in caballing; to
write, speak, or act against them will only stimulate them to new
efforts." This way of considering the principle of their conduct pays
but a poor compliment to these gentlemen. They pretend that their
doctrines are infinitely beneficial to mankind; but it seems they would
keep them to themselves, if they were not greatly provoked. They are
benevolent from spite. Their oracles are like those of Proteus, (whom
some people think they resemble in many particulars,) who never would
give his responses, unless you used him as ill as possible. These cats,
it seems, would not give out their electrical light without having
their backs well rubbed. But this is not to do them perfect justice.
They are sufficiently communicative. Had they been quiet, the propriety
of any agitation of topics on the origin and primary rights of
government, in opposition to their private sentiments, might possibly be
doubted. But, as it is notorious that they were proceeding as fast and
as far as time and circumstances would admit, both in their discussions
and cabals,--as it is not to be denied that they had opened a
correspondence with a foreign faction the most wicked the world ever
saw, and established anniversaries to commemorate the most monstrous,
cruel, and perfidious of all the proceedings of that faction,--the
question is, whether their conduct was to be regarded in silence, lest
our interference should render them outrageous. Then let them deal as
they please with the Constitution. Let the lady be passive, lest the
ravisher should be driven to force. Resistance will only increase his
desires. Yes, truly, if the resistance be feigned and feeble. But they
who are wedded to the Constitution will not act the part of wittols.
They will drive such seducers from the house on the first appearance of
their love-letters and offered assignations. But if the author of the
Reflections, though a vigilant, was not a discreet guardian of the
Constitution, let them who have the same regard to it show themselves as
vigilant and more skilful in repelling the attacks of seduction or
violence. Their freedom from jealousy is equivocal, and may arise as
well from indifference to the object as from confidence in her virtue.
On their principle, it is the resistance, and not the assault, which
produces the danger. I admit, indeed, that, if we estimated the danger
by the value of the writings, it would be little worthy of our
attention: contemptible these writings are in every sense. But they are
not the cause, they are the disgusting symptoms of a frightful
distemper. They are not otherwise of consequence than as they show the
evil habit of the bodies from whence they come. In that light the
meanest of them is a serious thing. If, however, I should underrate
them, and if the truth is, that they are not the result, but the cause,
of the disorders I speak of, surely those who circulate operative
poisons, and give to whatever force they have by their nature the
further operation of their authority and adoption, are to be censured,
watched, and, if possible, repressed.
At what distance the direct danger from such factions may be it is not
easy to fix. An adaptation of circumstances to designs and principles is
necessary. But these cannot be wanting for any long time, in the
ordinary course of sublunary affairs. Great discontents frequently arise
in the best constituted governments from causes which no human wisdom
can foresee and no human power can prevent. They occur at uncertain
periods, but at periods which are not commonly far asunder. Governments
of all kinds are administered only by men; and great mistakes, tending
to inflame these discontents, may concur. The indecision of those who
happen to rule at the critical time, their supine neglect, or their
precipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the public
misfortunes. In such a state of things, the principles, now only sown,
will shoot out and vegetate in full luxuriance. In such circumstances
the minds of the people become sore and ulcerated. They are put out of
humor with all public men and all public parties; they are fatigued
with their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they are
made easily to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe)
that all oppositions are factious, and all courtiers base and servile.
From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frame
of government, which they presume gives nourishment to the vices, real
or supposed, of those who administer in it. Mistaking malignity for
sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good
administration of affairs, and come to think that all reformation
depends, not on a change of actors, but upon an alteration in the
machinery. Then will be felt the full effect of encouraging doctrines
which tend to make the citizens despise their Constitution. Then will be
felt the plenitude of the mischief of teaching the people to believe
that all ancient institutions are the results of ignorance, and that all
prescriptive government is in its nature usurpation. Then will be felt,
in all its energy, the danger of encouraging a spirit of litigation in
persons of that immature and imperfect state of knowledge which serves
to render them susceptible of doubts, but incapable of their solution.
Then will be felt, in all its aggravation, the pernicious consequence of
destroying all docility in the minds of those who are not formed for
finding their own way in the labyrinths of political theory, and are
made to reject the clew and to disdain the guide. Then will be felt, and
too late will be acknowledged, the ruin which follows the disjoining of
religion from the state, the separation of morality from policy, and the
giving conscience no concern and no coactive or coercive force in the
most material of all the social ties, the principle of our obligations
to government.
I know, too, that, besides this vain, contradictory, and
self-destructive security which some men derive from the habitual
attachment of the people to this Constitution, whilst they suffer it
with a sort of sportive acquiescence to be brought into contempt before
their faces, they have other grounds for removing all apprehension from
their minds. They are of opinion that there are too many men of great
hereditary estates and influence in the kingdom to suffer the
establishment of the levelling system which has taken place in France.
This is very true, if, in order to guide the power which now attends
their property, these men possess the wisdom which is involved in early
fear. But if, through a supine security, to which such fortunes are
peculiarly liable, they neglect the use of their influence in the season
of their power, on the first derangement of society the nerves of their
strength will be cut. Their estates, instead of being the means of their
security, will become the very causes of their danger. Instead of
bestowing influence, they will excite rapacity. They will be looked to
as a prey.
Such will be the impotent condition of those men of great hereditary
estates, who indeed dislike the designs that are carried on, but whose
dislike is rather that of spectators than of parties that may be
concerned in the catastrophe of the piece. But riches do not in all
cases secure even an inert and passive resistance. There are always in
that description men whose fortunes, when their minds are once vitiated
by passion or by evil principle, are by no means a security from their
actually taking their part against the public tranquillity. We see to
what low and despicable passions of all kinds many men in that class
are ready to sacrifice the patrimonial estates which might be
perpetuated in their families with splendor, and with the fame of
hereditary benefactors to mankind, from generation to generation. Do we
not see how lightly people treat their fortunes, when under the
influence of the passion of gaming? The game of ambition or resentment
will be played by many of the rich and great as desperately, and with as
much blindness to the consequences, as any other game. Was he a man of
no rank or fortune who first set on foot the disturbances which have
ruined France? Passion blinded him to the consequences, so far as they
concerned himself; and as to the consequences with regard to others,
they were no part of his consideration,--nor ever will be with those who
bear any resemblance to that virtuous patriot and lover of the rights of
man.
There is also a time of insecurity, when interests of all sorts become
objects of speculation. Then it is that their very attachment to wealth
and importance will induce several persons of opulence to list
themselves and even to take a lead with the party which they think most
likely to prevail, in order to obtain to themselves consideration in
some new order or disorder of things. They may be led to act in this
manner, that they may secure some portion of their own property, and
perhaps to become partakers of the spoil of their own order. Those who
speculate on change always make a great number among people of rank and
fortune, as well as amongst the low and the indigent.
What security against all this?--All human securities are liable to
uncertainty. But if anything bids fair for the prevention of so great a
calamity, it must consist in the use of the ordinary means of just
influence in society, whilst those means continue unimpaired. The public
judgment ought to receive a proper direction. All weighty men may have
their share in so good a work. As yet, notwithstanding the strutting and
lying independence of a braggart philosophy, Nature maintains her
rights, and great names have great prevalence. Two such men as Mr. Pitt
and Mr. Fox, adding to their authority in a point in which they concur
even by their disunion in everything else, might frown these wicked
opinions out of the kingdom. But if the influence of either of them, or
the influence of men like them, should, against their serious
intentions, be otherwise perverted, they may countenance opinions which
(as I have said before, and could wish over and over again to press)
they may in vain attempt to control. In their theory, these doctrines
admit no limit, no qualification whatsoever. No man can say how far he
will go, who joins with those who are avowedly going to the utmost
extremities. What security is there for stopping short at all in these
wild conceits? Why, neither more nor less than this,--that the moral
sentiments of some few amongst them do put some check on their savage
theories. But let us take care. The moral sentiments, so nearly
connected with early prejudice as to be almost one and the same thing,
will assuredly not live long under a discipline which has for its basis
the destruction of all prejudices, and the making the mind proof against
all dread of consequences flowing from the pretended truths that are
taught by their philosophy.
In this school the moral sentiments must grow weaker and weaker every
day. The more cautious of these teachers, in laying down their maxims,
draw as much of the conclusion as suits, not with their premises, but
with their policy. They trust the rest to the sagacity of their pupils.
Others, and these are the most vaunted for their spirit, not only lay
down the same premises, but boldly draw the conclusions, to the
destruction of our whole Constitution in Church and State. But are these
conclusions truly drawn? Yes, most certainly. Their principles are wild
and wicked; but let justice be done even to frenzy and villany. These
teachers are perfectly systematic. No man who assumes their grounds can
tolerate the British Constitution in Church or State. These teachers
profess to scorn all mediocrity,--to engage for perfection,--to proceed
by the simplest and shortest course. They build their politics, not on
convenience, but on truth; and they profess to conduct men to certain
happiness by the assertion of their undoubted rights. With them there is
no compromise. All other governments are usurpations, which justify and
even demand resistance.
Their principles always go to the extreme. They who go with the
principles of the ancient Whigs, which are those contained in Mr.
Burke's book, never can go too far. They may, indeed, stop short of some
hazardous and ambiguous excellence, which they will be taught to
postpone to any reasonable degree of good they may actually possess. The
opinions maintained in that book never can lead to an extreme, because
their foundation is laid in an opposition to extremes. The foundation of
government is there laid, not in imaginary rights of men, (which at best
is a confusion of judicial with civil principles,) but in political
convenience, and in human nature,--either as that nature is universal,
or as it is modified by local habits and social aptitudes. The
foundation of government (those who have read that book will recollect)
is laid in a provision for our wants and in a conformity to our duties:
it is to purvey for the one, it is to enforce the other. These doctrines
do of themselves gravitate to a middle point, or to some point near a
middle. They suppose, indeed, a certain portion of liberty to be
essential to all good government; but they infer that this liberty is to
be blended into the government, to harmonize with its forms and its
rules, and to be made subordinate to its end. Those who are not with
that book are with its opposite; for there is no medium besides the
medium itself. That medium is not such because it is found there, but it
is found there because it is conformable to truth and Nature. In this we
do not follow the author, but we and the author travel together upon the
same safe and middle path.
The theory contained in his book is not to furnish principles for making
a new Constitution, but for illustrating the principles of a
Constitution already made. It is a theory drawn from the _fact_ of our
government. They who oppose it are bound to show that his theory
militates with that fact; otherwise, their quarrel is not with his book,
but with the Constitution of their country. The whole scheme of our
mixed Constitution is to prevent any one of its principles from being
carried as far as, taken by itself, and theoretically, it would go.
Allow that to be the true policy of the British system, then most of the
faults with which that system stands charged will appear to be, not
imperfections into which it has inadvertently fallen, but excellencies
which it has studiously sought. To avoid the perfections of extreme,
all its several parts are so constituted as not alone to answer their
own several ends, but also each to limit and control the others;
insomuch that, take which of the principles you please, you will find
its operation checked and stopped at a certain point. The whole movement
stands still rather than that any part should proceed beyond its
boundary. From thence it results that in the British Constitution there
is a perpetual treaty and compromise going on, sometimes openly,
sometimes with less observation. To him who contemplates the British
Constitution, as to him who contemplates the subordinate material world,
it will always be a matter of his most curious investigation to discover
the secret of this mutual limitation.
_Finita_ potestas denique _cuique_
Quanam sit ratione, atque alte terminus hærens?
They who have acted, as in France they have done, upon a scheme wholly
different, and who aim at the abstract and unlimited perfection of power
in the popular part, can be of no service to us in any of our political
arrangements. They who in their headlong career have overpassed the goal
can furnish no example to those who aim to go no further. The temerity
of such speculators is no more an example than the timidity of others.
The one sort scorns the right; the other fears it; both miss it. But
those who by violence go beyond the barrier are without question the
most mischievous; because, to go beyond it, they overturn and destroy
it. To say they have spirit is to say nothing in their praise. The
untempered spirit of madness, blindness, immorality, and impiety
deserves no commendation. He that sets his house on fire because his
fingers are frost-bitten can never be a fit instructor in the method of
providing our habitations with a cheerful and salutary warmth. We want
no foreign examples to rekindle in us the flame of liberty. The example
of our own ancestors is abundantly sufficient to maintain the spirit of
freedom in its full vigor, and to qualify it in all its exertions. The
example of a wise, moral, well-natured, and well-tempered spirit of
freedom is that alone which can be useful to us, or in the least degree
reputable or safe. Our fabric is so constituted, one part of it bears so
much on the other, the parts are so made for one another, and for
nothing else, that to introduce any foreign matter into it is to destroy
it.
What has been said of the Roman Empire is at least as true of the
British Constitution:--"_Octingentorum annorum fortuna disciplinaque
compages hæc coaluit; quæ convelli sine convellentium exitio non
potest_." This British Constitution has not been struck out at an heat
by a set of presumptuous men, like the Assembly of pettifoggers run mad
in Paris.
"'Tis not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay."
It is the result of the thoughts of many minds in many ages. It is no
simple, no superficial thing, nor to be estimated by superficial
understandings. An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with
his clock, is, however, sufficiently confident to think he can safely
take to pieces and put together, at his pleasure, a moral machine of
another guise, importance, and complexity, composed of far other wheels
and springs and balances and counteracting and coöperating powers. Men
little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they
do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse
for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of
acting ill. The British Constitution may have its advantages pointed out
to wise and reflecting minds, but it is of too high an order of
excellence to be adapted to those which are common. It takes in too many
views, it makes too many combinations, to be so much as comprehended by
shallow and superficial understandings. Profound thinkers will know it
in its reason and spirit. The less inquiring will recognize it in their
feelings and their experience. They will thank God they have a standard,
which, in the most essential point of this great concern, will put them
on a par with the most wise and knowing.