London, June 6, 1793.
Sir,
As you opened the debate in the House of Commons, May 25th, on the
proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation
(without naming any) calls wicked and seditious: and as you applied
those opprobious epithets to the works entitled "RIGHTS OF MAN," I think
it unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to
you.
I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are
found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject
of government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation
of moral principles than in those which I have published. They come,
Sir, from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and
under different systems of government, and who, being intimate in
the construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is
possible that you, from the want of those opportunities, can be:--And
besides this, they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.
I will farther say, that when that moment arrives in which the best
consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past
actions, more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then
with happiness remember, among other things, I have written the RIGHTS
OF MAN.---As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men,
and place-expectants,--those who possess, or those who are gaping for
office,--may say of them, it will not alter their character, either with
the world or with me.
1 Henry D. (afterwards Viscount Melville), appointed
Secretary for the Home Department, 1791. In 1805 he was
impeached by the Commons for "gross malversation" while
Treasurer of the Navy; he was acquitted by the Lords
(1806), but not by public sentiment or by history.--
_Editor_.
Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which
your motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr.
Adam.
This Gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that _I have
done_, and which, he says, if I _had_ done, he should not have accused
me.
Mr. Adam, in his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) says,
"That he had well considered the subject of Constitutional Publications,
and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of
science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system
different from the form of our constitution (meaning that of England)
were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn
Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Eutopia, and Hume
for his Idea of a perfect Commonwealth. But (continued Mr. Adam) the
publication of Mr. Paine was very different; for it reviled what
was most sacred in the constitution, destroyed every principle of
subordination, and _established nothing in their room_."
I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the Second Part of _Rights
of Man_, and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly
shall prefer the latter.--If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in
my reasoning upon systems of government, in the Second Part of _Rights
of Man_, I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only,
but already in full and established practice, and systematically
and practically free from all the vices and defects of the English
government, and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and
that also with an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English
system of government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice, when
he next goes to the House, to get up and confess he had been mistaken in
saying, that I had _established nothing, and that I had destroyed every
principle of subordination_. Having thus opened the case, I now come to
the point.
In the Second Part of the Rights of Man, I have distinguished government
into two classes or systems: the one the hereditary system, the other
the representative system.
In the First Part of _Rights of Man_, I have endeavoured to shew, and
I challenge any man to refute it, that there does not exist a right
to establish hereditary government; or, in other words, hereditary
governors; because hereditary government always means a government
yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live
afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for
themselves, as the people had who lived before them.
In the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, I have not repeated those
arguments, because they are irrefutable; but have confined myself to
shew the defects of what is called hereditary government, or hereditary
succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into
the hands of men totally unworthy of it, from want of principle, or
unfitted for it from want of capacity.--James the IId. is recorded as
an instance of the first of these cases; and instances are to be found
almost all over Europe to prove the truth of the latter.
To shew the absurdity of the Hereditary System still more strongly, I
will now put the following case:--Take any fifty men promiscuously, and
it will be very extraordinary, if, out of that number, one man should be
found, whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have
principles, and others might have talents) would render him a person
truly fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of National Trust.
If then such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found
in more than one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a
thousand years to the eldest son of any one family, admitting each, on
an average, to hold the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something
in the Constitution which he calls _most sacred_; but I hope he does not
mean hereditary succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of
every order of nature, and of common sense.
When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise
virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defence
of knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they
reasoned at all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an
individual can render to mankind, than to endeavour to break the chains
of political superstition. Those chains are now dissolving fast,
and proclamations and persecutions will serve but to hasten that
dissolution.
Having thus spoken of the Hereditary System as a bad System, and subject
to every possible defect, I now come to the Representative System, and
this Mr. Adam will find stated in the Second Part of Rights of Man, not
only as the best, but as the only _Theory_ of Government under which the
liberties of the people can be permanently secure.
But it is needless now to talk of mere theory, since there is already a
government in full practice, established upon that theory; or in other
words, upon the Rights of Man, and has been so for almost twenty years.
Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there
never did, and never could exist a Government established upon those
Rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt
has not yet arrived at the degree of a school-boy in this species of
knowledge; his practice has been confined to the means of _extorting
revenue_, and his boast has been--_how much!_ Whereas the boast of the
system of government that I am speaking of, is not how much, but how
little.
The system of government purely representative, unmixed with any thing
of hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects
of that system of government with the system of government in England,
both during, and since the close of the war.
So powerful is the Representative system, first, by combining and
consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the
extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified
into the government, or dismissing them if they prove to be otherwise,
that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all
the schemes and projects of the hereditary government of England against
her. As the establishment of the Revolution and Independence of America
is a proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.
I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems _since_ the
close of the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.
America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years
of war, which England had not. England sustained only the expence of the
war; whereas America sustained not only the expence, but the destruction
of property committed by _both_ armies. Not a house was built
during that period, and many thousands were destroyed. The farms and
plantations along the coast of the country, for more than a thousand
miles, were laid waste. Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were
either taken, or had rotted within her own harbours. The credit of
her funds had fallen upwards of ninety per cent., that is, an original
hundred pounds would not sell for ten pounds. In fine, she was
apparently put back an hundred years when the war closed, which was not
the case with England.
But such was the event, that the same representative system of
government, though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer,
enabled her also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing
condition, and a more happy and harmonized society, under that system of
government, than any country in the world can boast under any other. Her
towns are rebuilt, much better than before; her farms and plantations
are in higher improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the
world, and her funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to
upwards of one hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues talk
of the things that have happened in his boyish administration, without
knowing what greater things have happened elsewhere, and under other
systems of government.
I now come to state the expence of the two systems, as they now stand
in each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that
government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and
trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre.
The whole amount of the nett(sic) taxes in England (exclusive of the
expence of collection, of drawbacks, of seizures and condemnation, of
fines and penalties, of fees of office, of litigations and informers,
which are some of the blessed means of enforcing them) is seventeen
millions. Of this sum, about nine millions go for the payment of the
interest of the national debt, and the remainder, being about eight
millions, is for the current annual expences. This much for one side of
the case. I now come to the other.
The expence of the several departments of the general Representative
Government of the United States of America, extending over a space
of country nearly ten times larger than England, is two hundred and
ninety-four thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight dollars, which, at
4s. 6d. per dollar, is 66,305L. 11s. sterling, and is thus apportioned;
[Illustration: table046]
On account of the incursions of the Indians on the back settlements,
Congress is at this time obliged to keep six thousand militia in pay, in
addition to a regiment of foot, and a battalion of artillery, which it
always keeps; and this increases the expence of the War Department to
390,000 dollars, which is 87,795L. sterling, but when peace shall be
concluded with the Indians, the greatest part of this expence will
cease, and the total amount of the expence of government, including that
of the army, will not amount to 100,000L. sterling, which, as has been
already stated, is but an eightieth part of the expences of the English
government.
I request Mr. Adam and Mr. Dundas, and all those who are talking of
Constitutions, and blessings, and Kings, and Lords, and the Lord
knows what, to look at this statement. Here is a form and system of
government, that is better organized and better administered than any
government in the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand
pounds per annum, and yet every Member of Congress receives, as a
compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound
seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred
pounds a year.
This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations
to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political
superstition to support it; it was by encouraging discussion and
rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the
principles of government became understood in America, and the people
are now enjoying the present blessings under it. You hear of no riots,
tumults, and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause
to produce them. Those things are never the effect of Freedom, but of
restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation.
In America, there is not that class of poor and wretched people that
are so numerously dispersed all over England, who are to be told by a
proclamation, that they are happy; and this is in a great measure to
be accounted for, not by the difference of proclamations, but by the
difference of governments and the difference of taxes between that
country and this. What the labouring people of that country earn, they
apply to their own use, and to the education of their children, and
do not pay it away in taxes as fast as they earn it, to support Court
extravagance, and a long enormous list of place-men and pensioners;
and besides this, they have learned the manly doctrine of reverencing
themselves, and consequently of respecting each other; and they laugh
at those imaginary beings called Kings and Lords, and all the fraudulent
trumpery of Court.
When place-men and pensioners, or those who expect to be such, are
lavish in praise of a government, it is not a sign of its being a good
one. The pension list alone in England (see sir John Sinclair's History
of the Revenue, p. 6, of the Appendix) is one hundred and seven thousand
four hundred and four pounds, _which is more than the expences of the
whole Government of America amount to_. And I am now more convinced than
before, that the offer that was made to me of a thousand pounds for the
copy-right of the second part of the Rights of Man, together with the
remaining copyright of the first part, was to have effected, by a quick
suppression, what is now attempted to be done by a prosecution. The
connection which the person, who made the offer, has with the King's
printing-office, may furnish part of the means of inquiring into this
affair, when the ministry shall please to bring their prosecution to
issue.(1) But to return to my subject.--
I have said in the second part of the _Rights of Man_, and I repeat
it here, that the service of any man, whether called King, President,
Senator, Legislator, or any thing else, cannot be worth more to any
country, in the regular routine of office, than ten thousand pounds per
annum. We have a better man in America, and more of a gentleman, than
any King I ever knew of, who does not occasion half that ex-pence; for,
though the salary is fixed at L5625 he does not accept it, and it is
only the incidental expences that are paid out of it.(2) The name by
which a man is called is of itself but an empty thing. It is worth and
character alone which can render him valuable, for without these, Kings,
and Lords, and Presidents, are but jingling names.
But without troubling myself about Constitutions of Government, I have
shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, that an alliance may be
formed between England, France, and America, and that the expences of
government in England may be put back to one million and a half, viz.:
Civil expence of Government...... 500,000L.
Army............................. 500,000
Navy............................. 500,000
----------
1,500,000L.
And even this sum is fifteen times greater than the expences of
government are in America; and it is also greater than the whole peace
establishment of England amounted to about an hundred years ago. So much
has the weight and oppression of taxes increased since the Revolution,
and especially since the year 1714.
1 At Paine's trial, Chapman, the printer, in answer to fa
question of the Solicitor General, said: "I made him three
separate offers in the different stages of the work; the
first, I believe, was a hundred guineas, the second five
hundred, and the last was a thousand."--_Editor_.
2 Error. See also ante, and in vol. ii., p. 435.
Washington had retracted his original announcement, and
received his salary regularly.--_Editor_.
To shew that the sum of 500,000L. is sufficient to defray all civil
expences of government, I have, in that work, annexed the following
estimate for any country of the same extent as England.--
In the first place, three hundred Representatives, fairly elected, are
sufficient for all the purposes to which Legislation can apply, and
preferable to a larger number.
If, then, an allowance, at the rate of 500L. per annum be made to every
Representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expence, if the whole
number attended six months each year, would be.......75,000L.
The Official Departments could not possibly exceed the following number,
with the salaries annexed, viz.:
[ILLUSTRATION: Table]
Three offices at
10,000L.
each
30,000
Ten ditto at
5,000
u
50,000
Twenty ditto at
2,000
u
40,000
Forty ditto at
1,000
it
40,000
Two hundred ditto at
500
u
100,000
Three hundred ditto at 200
u
60,000
Five hundred ditto at
100
u
50,000
Seven hundred ditto at 75
it
52,500