that is about it. They thus give greater These are the arguments of states and kingstrength to the position which they are de- doms. Leave the rest to the schools, for sirous to maintain, and perhaps obtain there only they may be discussed with safety. credit for a discriminating mind; but the But if, intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you distinction is often without a difference; government, by urging subtle deductions, and sophisticate and poison the very source of the practice is neither philosophical nor consequences odious to those you govern, by statesmanlike. the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme Sovereignty, you will teach them by that means to call that Sovereignty itself into question.' Again, The first of the eminent writers whom this contest excited was Samuel Johnson.He showed the inconsistency of the simultaneous demand of the rights of man, and the rights of Englishmen; and he treated with deserved contempt, Lord Chatham's "Refined policy ever has been the padistinction between taxation and general rent of confusion, and ever will be so as legislation. But he enunciated no theory long as the world endures. Plain good of Government, and indeed treated the intention, which is as easily discovered at transaction, of which he did not perceive at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the first view, as fraud is surely detected the importance, or foresee the result, with the government of mankind.”† more of technical correctness than philosophical wisdom. ciliation. It was rather before this time that Dr. Edmund Burke took a memorable part Joseph Priestly, more adventurous than in the discussion. Nothing, perhaps, is Burke, wrote "upon the first principles of more worthy to be observed in his well- Government." But in truth he admitted known speeches, than his almost con- circumstances largely into his system. He temptuous rejection of theory. Profound supposes, and apparently desires it to be taand philosophical thinker as he was, he ken as a supposition, and not a fact, that forebore to dogmatize upon the origin of political societies were formed by mutual government. He avoided the "great compact; but he follows Locke (whom he Serbonian bog" in which Hooker and does not name) no further than this; he does Locke had floundered. His rule of practice not require a continual renewal of the comwas found in precedent, and in the proba- pact, and evidently considers the govern bility of success in the desired object of con- ment that is, though it may consist of King, Lords, and Commons, imperfectly represented as a prima facie legitimate govern"I am not going," he said, "into the dis-ment. Though he repudiates passive obetinctions of rights, nor attempting to mark dience, and allows the people, a term which their boundaries; I do not enter into these he does not attempt to define, to supersede metaphysical distinctions; I hate the very the government in cases of manifest opsound of them. Leave the Americans as they anciently stood; and these conditions, born pression or abuse, he puts extreme cases of our unhappy contest, will die along with only ;§ and it does not appear to us that he it. They and we, and their and our ances- recognizes the right of the people to intertors, have been happy under that system. Let the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind America by Laws of Trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burthen them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning: Let this be your reason for not taxing. *Speech on American Taxation, 19th April, 1774, Works, ii. 432.-It is clear, however, that Burke was prepared to maintain the right, for he suggested (p. 437), that if the Colonies would not voluntarily contribute to the general expenses, the supreme legislature might ultimately interfere. + On Conciliation with America, Mar. 22, 1775, iii. 31. In this speech he did so far connect taxation with representation as to urge, in p. 86, the example of Wales and other parts of the island conciliated by the privilege of sending representatives to parliament; and he proposed to resolve that the mode of taxing by Colonial Assemblies had been found more agreeable than taxing by Parliament. "There are some, and those not inconsiderable in numbers, nor contemptible for knowledge, who except the power of taxation from the general dominion of parliament, and hold, that whatever degrees of obedience may be exacted, or whatever authority may be exercised in other acts of government, there is still reference to be An Essay on the First Principles of Governpaid to money, and that legislation passes its ment, and on the Nature of political, civil, and limits when it violates the purse. Of this sug-religious Liberty, &c. London, 1771. Priestly gestion, which by a head not fully impregnated was born in 1733, and died in 1804. with politics, is not easily comprehended, it is § See p. 43. We see little or nothing in alleged as an unanswerable reason, that the Co- Priestly's remarks on government, or civil liberlonies send no representatives to the House of ty, (excluding always the question of religious Commons." Taxation no Tyrannye, 1775, establishments,) in which a liberal Tory might Works. xii. 194. not concur. fere, otherwise than in constitutional form, | professed Whig, (but certainly one of the upon a mere difference of opinion. old school,) and he plainly admitted the Dr. Price* professed to found his doc- right of resistance by force of arms to the trines upon those of Locke and Priestley, governors, or, as he styles them, trustees of but he fell far short of the one, and he went the state, "if they should so far forget the as much beyond the other. Civil liberty, nature of their office, as to act directly conhe thought, in its most perfect degree, could trary thereunto in the general tenor of not exist except in a state so small as to al- their administration, and if neither humble low of personal suffrage (not in election but petition nor decent remonstrance can bring in decision), and of the eligibility of every them to a sense of their duty." (p. 3.) man to a public office.† Representation This Whig writer was the first who exhe allowed to be an inadequate substitute, posed in a systematic treatise the true nabut insisted upon the necessity of frequent ture of Locke's principles, and their conseelections, and a continued control over the quences.* He showed clearly that, acrepresentative. (p. 10.) Provided there cording to Locke, every man has a right to were this full representation of the people reject the acts of government, (however it at large, he allowed of a hereditary King, may be constituted,) or to separate himself and a hereditary Chamber, as part of the from it, if he shall think fit. (p. 27.) He legislature. The English Constitution he shows that according to the doctrine of naappears to think defective only in the ina- tural right, women are not to be excluded, dequacy of the representation. But he (p. 33); and he asks, [p. 46,] in reference was far from considering the unrepresented to one of Locke's contrivances for evading portion of the English community as his own theory, how did a man become posslaves, in the sense in which he regarded sessed of the right to annex to land or as such the American colonists.-(p. 43.) other property, descending to his children, He admitted clearly, though perhaps not in the condition of adhering to the govern. words, of virtual representation, and of the ment? rights of a constitution which worked practically well. As for the original contract he does not even name it. This is foul rebellion against Locke; while in putting in the same category taxation and internal legislation he trampled upon the nice discrimination of Chatham. He denies also the right of the majority to bind the minority; and easily refutes Priestley, who had come to the aid of his master with a proviso, that every member of the community had previously agreed to be bound by the vote of the majority. In short, he shows that the system of Locke But the growing freedom of the age now is really and truly the same as that of the produced men who ventured to attack" honest and undissembling Rousseau," Locke in front. Of these the principal was and does require the actual consent of eveJosiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, a wri- ry individual to every act of the Commuter who is probably not at all known on the nity. Continent, and not now read in England, There is a great deal in Tucker worth but who is nevertheless one of great practi- reading by those who wish to go further cal wisdom, who sometimes gave excellent into the subject; but we are not sure but advice. He published in 17816 "a Trea- that, as Locke, after triumphantly expotise concerning Civil Government;" the sing the nonsense of Filmer, floundered first part of which was devoted to a refutation of "Mr. Locke and his followers." Tucker was by no means the advocate of passive obedience; he was indeed, as almost every Englishman of the time was, a when he set up his own theory, so Tucker, after setting forth the absurdities of Locke, may have also got into some confusion when he treated of the "true basis of civil government.” Let us then turn to another opponent of Locke's, a writer who is more brief, more clear, and more popularly known, Archdeacon Paley, whose Moral Philoso 66 It is due to Sir William Temple to mention, that in his Essay on the Origin and Nature of Government, (i. 9,) he exposes this doctrine of original contracts, which he found in "the great writers concerning politics and laws. It seems calculated," he says, "for the account given by some of the old poets of the origin of man, when they came out of the ground by great numbers at a time, in perfect stature and strength." phy" is, we believe, "a text-book" at Cambridge, and must be well known among the philosophers of Germany. 19 And he, too, asks the question, which it is quite impossible to answer, "how did these first inhabitants acquire the right of disposing of their lands, with conditions annexed?" The "dangerous censequences which Paley imputes to the doctrine of compact, are two-fold. It renders it impossible (for that may surely be deemed impossible which requires the unanimous assent of millions) lawfully to make improvements in the constitution; but, secondly, and this is the more probable danger, it puts the government at all times in jeopardy, and gives countenance to unreasonable resistance. "The terms and articles of the social This writer compliments Locke with the epithet venerable, but is entirely opposed to his opinions. To the compact he objects, 1st, That it is founded upon a supposition false in fact; and 2dly, That it leads to dangerous consequences. The first of these positions is now, we apprehend, generally admitted to be true; that the compact, as Paley observes, is sometimes proposed as a fiction. It was carrying a legal fiction rather far, when it was used to depose a King and change a dynasty. But though Paley thought that in his time the compact being nowhere extant or excompact was still invoked as a real transac-pressed, the rights and offices of the admition, we believe that at this day no man of nistrator of an empire being so many and ordinary education would venture so to various, the imaginary and controverted treat it. line of his prerogative being so liable to be Paley quotes from Locke the agreement overstepped in one part or other of it; the by which the duty of obeying the govern- amounts to a forfeiture of the governposition that every such transgression ment is carried down from "the first mem-ment, and consequently authorizes the bers of the state, who were bound by ex- people to withdraw their obedience, and press stipulation," to the succeeding inha- provide for themselves by a new settlebitants, who are understood to promise alle- ment, would endanger the stability of evegiance to the constitution they find esta- ry political fabric in the world, and has in blished, by accepting its protection, claim- fact always supplied the disaffected with a ing its privileges, and acquiescing in its topic of seditious declamation." laws; more especially by the purchase or inheritance of lands, to the possession of which allegiance to the state is annexed, as the very service and condition of the tenure.‡ He concludes with a very just and practical remark: "If occasions have arisen in which this plea has been resorted to with justice and success, they have been occasions in which a revolution was defensible upon other and plainer principles. The plea itself is at all times captious and unsafe." "Smoothly," writes Paley, "as this train of argument proceeds, little of it will endure examination. The native subjects of modern states are not conscious of any stipulations with their sovereigns, of ever On the English revolution, as founded upexercising an election whether they will on the breach of the original contract, we be bound or not by the acts of the legis- would recur to Dean Tucker, who has ably lature, or any alternative being proposed shown, (ch. 3, p. 89,) how little comforma. to their choice, of a promise either requir-ble the proceedings of 1688 were to the prined or given; nor do they apprehend that the validity or authority of the law de- ciple of Locke. pends at all upon their recognition or consent. In all stipulations, whether they be expressed or implied, private or public, formal or constructive, the parties stipulating must both possess the liberty of assent and refusal, and also be conscious of this liberty, which cannot, with truth, be affirmed of the subjects of civil government, as government is now, or ever was, actual ly administered. This is a defect which no arguments can excuse or supply; all presumptions of consent without this consciousness, or in opposition to it, are vain and erroneous." A few "What then was that great national vote which established the revolution? scores of noblemen, and a few hundreds of gentlemen, together with some of the aldermen and common council of London, met at Westminster, but without any commission from the body of the people authorising them to meet, and requested (thereby empowering,) the Prince and Princess of Orange, to assume the royal prerogative, and to summon a new parliament. They summoned one according. ly, which was called the convention parliament. This assembly put the crown on their heads, the power of which they had exercised First published in 1785. He was born in before; the crown, I say, not only of England, 1743, and died in 1805. B. 6, c. 3, p. 130 of Ed. 1790. but also of Ireland, and of all the English dominions throughout every part of the globe, This is from Locke, b. ii. c. 8, (p. 410 of and this too, not only without asking the con1801.) Isent, but even acquainting the people of these other countries with their intention. Now if As we are not writing a history of the this transaction can be said to be carried on French revolution, we shall not relate how agrecably to Mr. Locke's plan, or if it can be these "ambiguous words, dispersed among justified by his principles, I own myself the the common people," were soon construed, worst judge of reason and argument, and of a plain matter of fact, that ever scribbled on paor what tyranny and oppression this maniper. Nay, I appeal to all the world, whether festo of freedom produced, or what respect the whole business of this famous revolution, was paid to the right of property so recently from whence nevertheless we have derived and philosophically sanctioned. so many national blessings, ought not to be In England, the French revolution emlooked upon as a vile usurpation, and be boldened those who, during the American chargeable with the guilt of robbing the good contest, had preserved some moderation. people of England, of Ireland, and of all the colonies, of their unalienable rights, if Mr. Our revolution of 1683 was now said to have Locke's principles of government are the on- proceeded upon the same principles which ly true and just ones. But I ask further, was produced the Revolution in France; and the the convention itself unanimous in its deci- doctrines of Locke,and more, if possible, than sions? No, very far from it. On the con- the doctrines of Locke were now claimed as trary it is a well known fact, that the mem- part of the British Constitution. The serbers of it, (I mean a majority of the members,) mon in which this was done by Dr, Price,* would never have voted the crown to the and the congratulations offered to the French Prince of Orange, had it not been for his threatening message, that he would leave Assembly by a society commemorative of them to the resentment of King James, unless our Revolution, were among the chief inthey complied with such a demand. So that ducements to the still celebrated Reflexions even a majority of this very convention would of Mr. Burke. have acted otherwise than they did, had they The reflexions were too little systematic remained unawed, and uninfluenced. And to afford us much quotation on the theory of thus, reader, it is demonstrated to thee, that Government; indeed it was the just decision this famous convention, and in them the whole nation, was self-governed, and self-directed, of this great writer, not now taken up, but according to the Lockian principle, in estab-equally to be found in his former publications lishing this glorious revolution.* already noticed, that government could not be reduced to theory and system.† He The demonstration is complete, without took the Constitution of his country as he the aid of King William's message; yet it found it, content to live under it, so long as may, perhaps, be strengthened by consider- it should answer practically the purposes of a ing how very unlike the convention parlia. Constitution. It is only because our subject ment was to the complete representation of compels us to deal in theories, that we make all the people, (even of England.) which is no larger use of Burke. required by the theory of Locke! Burke was answered by a Theorist indeed, but still one who was prepared violently to We should have expected to see in a his- reduce his theories to practice, rather than tory of political theories, some reference to affect to believe that they had their sanction the declaration of the rights of man, which in the English form of government. Paine's accompanied the French revolution. This Rights of Man rejected all but written concelebrated document (An. Reg. 1789, p. 232) stitutions, agreed upon by a whole nation; embodied the principles of Locke, excluding, denied accordingly that the English had any however, whether as reality or fiction, the government at all, and contended for the original contract, and iis necessary conse- universal Sovereignty of "the nation" for quences; it asserted the right of universal the time being; in what way the accession suffrage, but recognised the principle of re- of new men to the community, with all their presentation; and, apparently, of the deci- rights about them, by birth, or coming to sion by majorities. Much of it is harmless, years of discretion, was to affect the identity and even consistent with the English consti- of the Sovereign Nation, so as to annul the tution and practice; it enumerates property inherited Constitution, Mr. Paine has not deamong the rights of man; it contemplated termined. For one admission in particular, a law for punishing the licentiousness of the Paine's work is remarkable; the revolt of press; and the assertion of general equality, and condemnation of useless distinctions, are so vague as to be reconcilable with a monarchy and a peerage. * See some very pertinent remarks on Locke, and the Revolution, in the third chapter of the History of the Revolution by George Moore, one of Sir James Mackintosh's correspondents. Nov. 1789. Although it does not immediately The the French, he tells us, was not against men, | edly true. The principle of such a reprebut principles. sentation, so based upon the equal rights of There is assuredly one great difference man, is assuredly violated, if either a king, between Locke and Paine. Locke had or a second chamber constituted upon any wrought himself up to the notion of an ori- different principle, has the power of negativ. ginal contract, by which a whole nation had ing the decisions of the House of Representa. bound itself, upon certain terms, to an here- tives. It is only by the fiction of an original ditary King; Paine rejected Kings, and all contract, whereby the sovereign people have hereditary rights. Upon his own principles, not only delegated their power to a majority Locke should have condemned them too; of select representatives, but have consented for how is an hereditary right to be matter that those representatives shall be controlled of consent by the successive inhabitants of a by other bodies or individuals, that this princountry? We therefore do no: except this, ciple of the sovereignty of the people (which when we say, that there is not one of the ex- is not more that of Rousseau than of Locke,) travagances of Paine, or other modern the- can be reconciled with a limited Monarchy, orists, which cause to Professor Heeren, so or a mixed Government of any sort. As it much of apprehension for the monarchical is certain that this contract, and delegation principle, which may not be traced in the to representatives and majorities, never was work of Locke, whom he imagines to be the made, still less continually renewed, there champion of the English Constitution, and can be no lawful government, according to the instructor of English politicians. Locke and his followers, unless all decisions are made by the whole people, male and fe male, without one dissentient voice. This sovereignty of the people, is not only incompatible with Monarchy, but is in itself utterly incapable of being reduced to practice. Most erroneously then is it said by our author-"The doctrines of Locke had, for the most part, been already applied in England, and only had the effect of supplying other countries with philosophical reasons for that attachment to the British Constitution Heeren therefore, writing at a time when which had become almost universal through- the constitutions of almost every state in Euout Europe previously to the late (French) rope had been brought into question, and revolution."(p. 178.) It is probable enough the expectation of free constitutions had that English travellers, when asked where the principles of their Constitution were to be found, would refer to the works of Locke; -without having either read the works of Locke, or studied the English Constitution. No man who had compared the two, could hold, that either in its ordinary operation, or in the great exception of 1688, the principles of Locke were followed. Between Locke and Rousseau, Heeren draws a broad line of distinction; in Rousseau's dictum that the sovereignty of the people is neither to be delegated nor transferred; and he considers Rousseau's maxim as the cause of all the late revolutions in Europe. We think the professor wrong. It has already been shown, that the maxim of the Genevese philosopher could only be applied to his own little republic; the Sovereignty which the French people asserted, was the transferable and deputable Sovereign. ty of Locke. But the political notion in which Heeren sees the greatest danger, is Rousseau's belief that the Sovereignty of the people may be associated with Monarchy. If it is Heeren's meaning, that where a chamber is constituted upon the principle of complete and general representation as a matter of right, it is incompatible with the exercise of a veto, or of any substantial power on the part of a king, the position is undoubt. been held out especially to the several states of Germany, was justified in observing "We have no longer to consider mere speculation and theory; the question that concerns us is one of fearful practical importance."-p. 182. The introduction of a new principle into a government is undoubtedly a difficult and dangerous task. And we can estimate this danger, with experience more recent than Heeren's work. His apprehension is, that Europe would be filled" either with monarchical republics, orwith republics under the name of monarchies. He gives no general preference either to a republic or to a monarchy,— "It is possible to live happily or unhappily under either, according to the turn which events may take. But we may be sure that a nation (with individuals we have nothing to do) can never be happy in a pseudo-monarchy or a pseudo-republic, because such a form of government is contradictory to itself. The history of Poland, as it was, affords at once a warning, and an example.* We wish therefore for actual monarchies, or actual republics." Observing then that the European political system has been for centuries monarchical, and that all the principal states The elective Throne, and the liberum veto, of the old Polish Constitution, are peculiarities which allow us to reject Poland. |