It is a remark liable
to as few exceptions as any generality can be, that
they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumAnd.
to as few exceptions as any generality can be, that
they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumAnd.
Edmund Burke
WhenI
the supreme authority of the people is in question,
before we attempt to extend or to confine it, we
ought to fix in our minds, with some degree of distinctness, an idea of what it is we mean, when we
say, the PEOPLE.
In a state of rude Nature there is no such thing as
a people. A number of men in themselves have no
collective capacity. The idea of a people is the idea
of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made,
like all other legal fictions, by common agreement.
What the particular nature of that agreement was
is collected from the form into which the particular
? ? ? ? 170 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
society has been cast. Any other is not their covenant. When men, therefore, break up the original compact or agreement which gives its corporate form
and capacity to a state, they are no longer a people, -
they have no longer a corporate existence - they have
no longer a legal coactive force to bind within, nor
a claim to be recognized abroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more.
With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little
know how many a weary step is to be taken before
they can form themselves into a mass which has a
true politic personality.
We hear much, from men who have not acquired
their hardiness of assertion from the profundity of
their thinking, about the omnipotence of a majority,
in such a dissolution of an ancient society as hath taken place in France. But amongst men so disbanded there can be no such thing as majority or minority,
or power in any one person to bind another. The
power of acting by a majority, which the gentlemen
theorists seem to assume so readily, after they have
violated the contract out of which it has arisen, (if at
all it existed,) must be grounded on two assumptions: first, that of an incorporation produced by unanimity; and secondly, an unanimous agreement
that the act of a mere majority (say of one) shall pass
with them and with others as the act of the whole.
We are so little affected by things which are habitual, that we consider this idea of the decision of a majority as if it were a law of our original nature.
But such constructive whole, residing in a part only,
is one of the most violent fictions of positive law that
ever has been or can be made on the principles of
artificial incorporation. Out of civil society Nature
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 171
knows nothing of it; nor are. men, even when arranged according to civil order, otherwise than by
very long training, brought at all to submit to it.
The mind is brought far more easily to acquiesce in
the proceedings of one man, or a few, who act under
a general procuration for the state, than in the vote
of a victorious majority in councils in which every
man has his share in the deliberation. For there the
beaten party are exasperated and soured by the previous contention, and mortified by the conclusive defeat. This mode of decision, where wills may be so nearly equal, where, according to circumstances, the
smaller number may be the stronger force, and where
apparent reason may be all upon one side, and on the
other little else than impetuous appetite, - all this
must be the result of a very particular and special
convention, confirmed afterwards by long habits of
obedience, by a sort of discipline in society, and by a
strong hand, vested with stationary, permanent power to enforce this sort of constructive general will.
What organ it is that shall declare the corporate
mind is so much a matter of positive arrangement,
that several states, for the validity of several of their
acts, have required a proportion of voices much
greater than that of a mere majority. These proportions are so entirely governed by convention that
in some cases the minority decides. The laws in
many countries to condemn require more than a mere
majority; less than an equal number to acquit. In
our judicial trials we require unanimity either to condemn or to absolve. In some incorporations one man
speaks for the whole; in others, a few. Until the
other day, in the Constitution of Poland unanimity
was required to give validity to any act of their great
? ? ? ? 172 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
national council or diet. This approaches much more
nearly to rude Nature than the institutions of any
other country. Such, indeed, every commonwealth
must be, without a positive law to recognize in a certain number the will of the entire body.
If men dissolve their ancient incorporation in order to regenerate their community, in that state of things each man has a right, if he pleases, to remain
all individual. Any number of individuals, who can
agree upon it, have an undoubted right to form themselves into a state apart and wholly independent. If any of these is forced into the fellowship of another,
this is conquest and not compact. On every principle which supposes society to be in virtue of a free covenant, this compulsive incorporation must be null
and void.
As a people can have no right to a corporate capacity without universal consent, so neither have they a right to hold' exclusively any lands in the name and
title of a corporation. On the scheme of the present
rulers in our neighboring country, regenerated as
they are, they have no more right to the territory
called France than I have. I have a right to pitch
my tent in any unoccupied place I can find for it;
and I may apply to my own maintenance any part
of their unoccupied soil. I may purchase the house
or vineyard of any individual proprietor who refuses
his consent (and most proprietors have, as far as they
dared, refused it) to the new incorporation. I stand
in his independent place. Who are these insolent
men, calling themselves the French nation, that would
monopolize this fair domain of Nature? Is it because
they speak a certain jargon? Is it Trei mode of chattelilg, to me unintelligible, that forms their title to
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 1]73
my land? Who are they who claim by prescription
and descent from certain gangs of banditti called
Franks, and Burgundians, and Visigoths, of whom I
may have never heard, and ninety-nine out of an hundred of themselves certainly never have heard, whilst
at the very time they tell me that prescription and
long possession form no title to property? Who are
they that presume to assert that the land which I
purchased of the individual, a natural person, and not
a fiction of state, belongs to them, who in the very
capacity in which they make their claim can exist
only as an imaginary being, and in virtue of the very
prescription which they reject and disown? This
mode of arguing might be pushed into all the detail,
so as to leave no sort of doubt, that, on their principles, and on the sort of footing on which they have
thought proper to place themselves, the crowd of
men, on the other side of the Channel, who have the
impudence to call themselves a people, can never be
the lawful, exclusive possessors of the soil. By what
they call reasoning without prejudice, they leave not
one stone upon another in the fabric of human society. They subvert all the authority which they hold,
as well as all that which they have destroyed.
As in the abstract it is perfectly clear, that, out
of a state of civil society, majority and minority are
relations which can have no existence, and that, in
civil society, its own specific conventions in each corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so as to make their act the signification of the general will, - to come to particulars, it is equally
clear that neither in France nor in England has the
original or any subsequent compact of the state, expressed or implied, constituted a majority of men, told
? ? ? ? 174 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
by the head, to be the acting people of their several
communities. And I see as little of policy or utility
as there is of right, in laying down a principle that
a majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is
to be law. What policy can there be found in arrangements made in defiance of every political principle? To enable men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the ends for
which they are incorporated into that capacity, we
must suppose them (by means immediate or consequential) to be in that state of habitual social discipline in which the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten
and protect, the weaker, the less knowing, and the
less provided with the goods of fortune. When the
multitude are not under this discipline, they can
scarcely be said to be in civil society. Give once
a certain constitution of things which produces a
variety of conditions and circumstances in a state,
and there is in Nature and reason a principle which,
for their own benefit, postpones, not the interest, but
the judgment, of those who are numero plures, to those
who are virtute et honore majores. Numbers in a state
(supposing, which is not the case in France, that a
state does exist) are always of consideration, - but
they are not the whole consideration. It is in things
more serious than a play, that it may be truly said,
Satis est equitem mihi plaudere.
A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential
integrant part of any large body rightly constituted.
It is forlmed out of a class of legitimate presumptions,
whicll, taken as generalities, must be admitted for
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 175
actual truths. To be bred in a place of estimation;
to see nothing low and sordid from one's infancy; to
be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to
the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look
early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated
ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the
wide-spread and infinitely diversified combinations of
men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to
read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw
the court and attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to be habituated in armies to command and to obey; to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honor and duty; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight,
and circumspection, in a state of things in which no
fault is committed with impunity and the slightest
mistakes draw on the most ruinous consequences;
to be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from
a sense that you are considered as an instructor of
your fellow-citizens in their highest concerns, and
that you act as a reconciler between God and man;
to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors
to mankind; to be a professor of high science, or
of liberal and ingenuous art; to be amongst rich
traders, who from their success are presumed to have
sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the
virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity,
and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice: these are the circumstances of men
that form what I should call a natural aristocracy,
without which there is no nation.
The state of civil society which necessarily generates this aristocracy is a state of Nature, --and much
? ? ? ? 176 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
more truly so than a savage and incoherent mode of
life. For man is by nature reasonable; and he is
never perfectly in his natural state, but when he is
placed where reason may be best cultivated and most
predominates. Art is man's nature. We are as much,
at least, in a state of Nature in formed manhood as
in immature and helpless infancy. Men, qualified ill
the manner I have just described, form in Nature, as
she operates in the common modification of society,
the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the
soul to the body, without which the man does not
exist. To give, therefore, no more importance, in
the social order, to such descriptions of men than
that of so many units is a horrible usurpation.
When great multitudes act together, under that
discipline of Nature, I recognize the PEOPLE. I
acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and
ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus
of national harmony ought to have a mighty and
decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony,-when you break up this beautiful order, this
array of truth and Nature, as well as of habit and prejudice, - when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains, so as to form them into
an adverse army, -- I no longer know that venerable object called the people in such a disbanded race
of deserters and vagabonds. For a while they may
be terrible, indeed, -but in such a manner as wild
beasts are terrible. The mind owes to them no sort
of submission. They are, as they have always been
reputed, rebels. They may lawfully be fought with,
and brought under, whenever an advantage offers.
Those who attempt by outrage and violence to de
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 177
prive men of any advantage which they hold under
the laws, and to destroy the natural order of life, proclaim war against them.
We have read in history of that furious insurrection of the common people in France called the Jacquerie: for this is not the first time that the people
have been enlightened into treason, murder, and rapine. Its object was to extirpate the gentry. The
Captal de Buch, a famous soldier of those days, dis.
honored the name of a gentleman and of a man by
taking, for their cruelties, a cruel vengeance on these
deluded wretches: it was, however, his right and his
duty to make war upon them, and afterwards, in
moderation, to bring them to punishment for their
rebellion; though in the sense of the French Revolution, and of some of our clubs, they were the people, - and were truly so, if you will call by that appellation any majority of men told by the head. At a time not very remote from the same period
(for these humors never have'affected one of the
nations without some influence on the other) happened several risings of the lower commons in England. These insurgents were certainly the majority
of the inhabitants of the counties in which they resided; and Cade, Ket, and Straw, at the head of
their national guards, and fomented by certain traitors of high rank, did no more than exert, according
to the doctrines of ours and the Parisian societies,
the sovereign power inherent in the majority.
We call the time of those events a dark- age. Indeed, we are too indulgent to our own proficiency.
The Abb6 John Ball understood the rights of manl
as well as the Abbe Gr6goire. That reverend patriarch of sedition, and prototype of our modern preachVOL. IV. 12
? ? ? ? 178 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
ers, was of opinion, with the National Assembly, that
all the evils which have fallen upon men had been
caused by an ignorance of their " having been born
and continued equal as to their rights. " Had the
populace been able to repeat that profound maxim,
all would have gone perfectly well with them. No
tyranny, no vexation, no oppression, no care, no sorrow, could have existed in the world. This would
hlave cured them like a charm for the tooth-ache.
But the lowest wretches, in their most ignorant state,
were able at all times to talk such stuff; and yet at
all timnes have they suffered many evils and many
oppressions, both before and since the republication
by the National Assembly of this spell of healing potency and virtue. The enlightened Dr. Ball, when
he wished to rekindle the lights and fires of his audience on this point, chose for the text the following
couplet: -
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Of this sapien. t maxim, however, I do not give him
for the inventor. It seems to have been handed
down by tradition, and had certainly become proverbial; but whether then composed or only applied,
thus much must be admitted, that in learning, sense,
energy, and comprehensiveness, it is fully equal to
all the modern dissertations oil the equality of mankind: and it has one advantage over them, -that it
is in rhyme. *
* It is no small loss to the world, that the whole of this enlightened and philosophic sermon, preached to two hundred thousand national guards assembled at Blackheath (a number probably equal to the sublime and majestic Federation of the 14th of July, 1790, in the
Champ de Mars) is n-t preserved. A short abstract is, however, to
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 179
There is no doubt but that this great teacher of the
rights of man decorated his discourse on this valuable
text with lemmas, theorems, scholia, corollaries, and
all the apparatus of science, which was furnished in
be found in Walsingham. I have added it here for the edification of
the modern Whigs, who may possibly except this precious little fragment from their general contempt of ancient learning.
"Ut sua doctrin' plures inficeret, ad le Blackheth (ubi ducenta millia hominum communium fuere simul congregata) hujuscemodi sermonem est exorsus.
"Whan Adam dalfe and Eve span,
Who was than a gentleman?
Continuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur per verba proverbii,
quod pro themate sumpserat, introducere et probare, ab initio omnes
pares creatos a naturd, servitutem per injustam oppressionern nequam
hominum introductam contra Dei voluntatem, quia si Deo placuisset
servos cre'asse, utique in principio mundi constituisset, quis servus,
quisve dominus futurus fuisset. Considerarent igitur jam tempus a
Deo datum eis, in quo (deposito servitutis jugo diutius) possent, si
vellent, libertate diu concupitf gaudere. Quapropter monuit ut essent viri cordati, et amore boni patrisfamilias excolentis agrum suum,
et extirpantis ac resecantis noxia gramina quae fruges solent opprimere, et ipsi in prsesenti facere festinarent. Primb majores regni dolinos occidendo. Deinde juridicos, justiciarios, et juratores patrice perilendo.
Postremb quoscunque scirent in posterurn commnunitati nocivos tollerent
de terra sua, sic demum et pacem sibimet parerent et securitatent in futurum. Si sublatis majoribus esset inter eos oequa libertas, eadem nobilitas,
par dignitas, similisque potestas. "
Here is displayed at once the whole of the grand arcanuma pretended to be found out by the National Assembly, for securing future happiness, peace, and tranquillity. There seems, however, to be some
doubt whether this venerable protomartyr of philosophy was inclined
to carry his own declaration of the rights of men more rigidly into
practice than the National Assembly themselves. He was, like them,
only preaching licentiousness to the populace to obtain power for himself, if we may believe what is subjoined by the historian. ,' Cumque hwec et plura alia deliramenta " (think of this old fool's calling all the wise maxims of the French Academy deliramenta! ) "prredicasset, commune vulgus eum tant
? ? ? ? 180 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
as great plenty and perfection out of the dogmatic
and polemic magazines, the old horse-armory of the
Schoolmen, among whom the Rev. Dr. Ball was bred,
as they can be supplied from the new arsenal at Hack(,rent ern archiepiscopum futurum, et regni cancellarium. " Whether
ho would have taken these situations under these names, or would
have chanled the whole nomenclature of the State and Church, to
be understood in the sense of the Revolution, is not so certain. It is
)robable that he would have changed the names and kept the substance of power.
We find, too, that they had in those days their society for constitutional inlformation, of which the Reverend John Ball was a conspicuous
member, sometimes under his own name, sometimes under the feigned
name of John Schep. Besides him it consisted (as Knyghton tells
us) of persons who went by the real or fictitious names of Jack Mylner, Tom Baker, Jack Straw, Jack Trewman, Jack Carter, and probably of many more. Some of the choicest flowers of the publications charitably written and circulated by them gratis are upon record in
Walsingham and Knyghton: and I am inclined to prefer the pithy
and sententious brevity of these bulletins of ancient rebellion before
the loose and confused prolixity of the modern advertisements of constitutional information. They contain more good morality and less
bad politics, they had much more foundation in real oppression, and
they have the recommendation of being much better adapted to the
capacities of those for whose instruction they were intended. Whatever laudable pains the teachers of the present day appear to take, I
cannot compliment them so far as to allow that they have succeeded
in writing down to the level of their pupils, the members of the sovereign,
with half the ability of Jack Carter and the Reverend John Ball.
That my readers may judge for themselves, I shall give them one or
two specimens.
The first is an address from the Reverend John Ball, under his
aonm de guerre of John Schep. I know not against what particular
", guyle in borough" the writer means to caution the people; it may
have been only a general cry against, rotten boroughs," which it was
thought convenient, then as now, to make the first pretext, and place
at the head of the list of grievances.
JOHN SCHEP.
" Iohn Schep sometime seint Mary priest of Yorke, and now of Col
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 181
ney. It was, no doubt, disposed with all the adjutancy of definition and division, in which (I speak it
with submission) the old marshals were as able as the
modern martinets. Neither can we deny that the
chester, greeteth well Iohn Namelesse, and Iohn the Miller, and Iohn
Carter, and biddeth then that they beware of guyle in borough, and stand
together in Gods name, and biddeth Piers Ploweman goe to his
werke, and chastise well Hob the robber, [probably the king,] and take
with you Iohn Trewman, and all his fellows, and no moe.
" Iohn the Miller hath yground smal, small, small:
The kings sonne of heauen shal pay for all.
Beware or ye be woe,
Know your frende fro your foe,
IHaue ynough, and say hoe:
And do wel and better, & flee sinne,
And seeke peace and holde you therin,
& so biddeth Iohn Trewman & all his fellowes. "
The reader has perceived, from the last lines of this curious statepaper, how well the National Assembly has copied its union of the
profession of universal peace with the practice of murder and confusion, and the blast of the trumpet of sedition in all nations. He will
in the following constitutional paper observe how well, in their enigmatical style, like the Assembly and their abettors, the old philosopliers proscribe all hereditary distinction, and bestow it only on virtue and wisdom, according to their estimation of both. Yet these people are supposed never to have heard of "the rights of man" I
JACK MYLNER.
"' Jakke Mylner asket help to turne his mylne aright.
"'He hath grounden smal smal,
The Kings sone of heven he schal pay for alle.
Loke thy mylne go a rygt, with the foure sayles, and the post stande
in steadfastnesse.
" With rygt and with mygt,
With skyl and with wylle,
Lat mygt helpe rygt,
And skyl go before wille,
And rygt before mygt:
Than goth oure mvlne aryght.
And if mygt go before ryght,
? ? ? ? 182 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
philosophic auditory, when they had once obtained
this knowledge, could never return to their former
ignorance, or after so instructive a lecture be in the
same state of mind as if they had never heard it. *
But these poor people, who were not to be envied for
their knowledge, but pitied for their delusion, were
not reasoned, (that was impossible,) but beaten, out of
their lights. With their teacher they were delivered
over to the lawyers, who wrote in their blood the
statutes of the land, as harshly, and in the same sort
of ink, as they and their teachers had written the
rights of man.
Our doctors of the day are not so fond of quoting
the opinions of this ancient sage as they are of imitating his conduct: first, because it might appear that they are not as great inventors as they would
be thought; and next, because, unfortunately for his
fame, he was not successful.
It is a remark liable
to as few exceptions as any generality can be, that
they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumAnd. wylle before skylle;
Than is oure mylne mys a dygt. "
JACK CARTER understood perfectly the doctrine of looking to the
end, with an indifference to the means, and the probability of much
good arising from great evil.
- Jakke Carter pryes yowe alle that ye make a gode ende of that
ye hane begunnen, and doth wele and ay bettur and bettur: for at
the even men heryth the day. For if the ende be wele, than is alle
Awele. Lat Peres the Plowman my brother duelle at home and dygt
us corne, and I will go with yowe and helpe that y may to dygte
youre mete and youre drynke, that ye none fayle: lokke that Hobbe
robbyoure be wele chastysed for lesyng of youre grace: for ye have
gret nede to take God with yowe in alle youre dedes. For nowe is
tyme to be war. "
* See the wise remark on this subject in the Defence of Rights
of Man, circulated by the societies.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 183
phant guilt have never been known to succor or even
to pity human weakness or offence, when they become
subject to human vicissitude, and meet with punishment instead of obtaining power. Abating for their
want of sensibility to the sufferings of their associates, they are not so much in the wrong; for madness and wickedness are things foul and deformed in themselves, and stand in need of all the coverings
and trappings of fortune to recommend them to the
multitude. Nothing can be more loathsome in their
naked nature.
Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern,
unsuccessful or prosperous, are things of passage.
They furnish no argument for supposing a multitude
told by the head to be the people. Such a multitude
can have no sort of title to alter the seat of power in
the society, in which it ever ought to be the obedient,
and not the ruling or presiding part. What power
may belong to the whole mass, in which mass the
natural aristocracy, or what by convention is appointed to represent and strengthen it, acts in its proper
place, with its proper weight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question. But in that
case, and with' that concurrence, I should have much
doubt whether any rash or de~perate changes in the
state, such as we have seen in France, could ever be
effected.
I have said that in all political questions the consequences of any assumed rights are of great, moment in deciding upon their validity. In this point
of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right
in the mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding and altering their government at
pleasure.
? ? ? ? 184 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
The sum total of every people is composed of its
units. Every individual must have a right to originate what afterwards is to become the act of the ma.
jority. Whatever he may lawfully originate lie may
lawfully endeavor to accomplish. He has a right,
therefore, in his own particular, to break the ties and
engagements which bind him to the country in which
he lives; and he has a right to make as many converts to his opinions, and to obtain as many associates in his designs, as he can procure: for how can you know the dispositions of the majority to destroy
their government, but by tampering with some part
of the body? You must begin by a secret conspiracy, that you may end with a national confederation.
The mere pleasure of the beginner must be the sole
guide; since the mere pleasure of others must be the
sole ultimate sanction, as well as the sole actuating
principle in every part of the progress. Thus, arbitrary will (the last corruption of ruling power) step
by step poisons the heart of every citizen. If the
undertaker fails, he has the misfortune of a rebel,
but not the guilt. By such doctrines, all love to our
country, all pious veneration and attachment to its
laws and customs, are obliterated from our minds;
and nothing can result from this opinion, when
grown into a principle, and animated by discontent,
ambition, or enthusiasm, but a series of conspiracies
and seditions, sometimes ruinous to their authors,
always noxious to the state. No sense of duty can
prevent any man from being a leader or a follower
in such enterprises. Nothing restrains the tempter;
nothing guards the tempted. Nor is the new state,
fabricated by such arts, safer than the old. What
can prevent the mere will of any person, who hopes
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 185
to unite the wills of others to his own, from an attempt wholly to overturn it? It wants nothing but
a disposition to trouble the established orders to give
a title-to the enterprise.
When you combine this principle of the right to
change a fixed and tolerable constitution of things at
pleasure with the theory and practice of the French
Assembly, the political, civil, and moral irregularity
are, if possible, aggravated. The Assembly have
found another road, and a far more commodious,
to the destruction of an old- government, and the
legitimate formation of a new one, than through the
previous will of the majority of what they call the
people. Get, say they, the possession of power by
any means you can into your hands; and then a subsequent consent (what they call an address of adhesion) makes your authority as much the act of the people as if they had conferred upon you originally
that kind and degree of power which without their
permission you had seized upon. This is to give a
direct sanction to fraud, hypocrisy, perjury, and the
breach of the most sacred trusts that can exist between man and man. What can sound with such
horrid discordance in the moral ear as this position,
- that a delegate with limited powers may break his
sworn engagements to his constituent, assume an
authority, never committed to him, to alter all things
at his pleasure, and then, if he can persuade a large
number of men to flatter him in the power he has
usurped, that he is absolved in his own conscience,
and ought to stand acquitted in the eyes of mankind?
On this scheme, the maker of the experiment must
begin with a determined perjury. That point is certain. He must take his chance for the expiatory
? ? ? ? 186 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
addresses. This is to make the success of villany the
standard of innocence.
Without drawing on, therefore, very shocking consequences, neither by previous consent, nor by subsequent ratification of a mere reckoned majority, can any set of men attempt to dissolve the state at their
pleasure. To apply this to our present subject. When
the several orders, in their several bailliages, had met
in the year 1789, (such of them, I mean, as had met
peaceably and constitutionally,) to choose and to instruct their representatives, so organized and so acting, (because they were organized and were acting according to the conventions which made them a people,) they were the people of France. They had a
legal and a natural capacity to be considered as that
people. But observe, whilst they were in this state,
that is, whilst they were a people, in no one of
their instructions did they charge or even hint at
any of those things which have drawn upon the
usurping Assembly and their adherents the detestation of the rational and thinking part of mankind.
I will venture to affirm, without the least apprehension of being contradicted by any person who
knows the then state of France, that, if any one of
the changes were proposed, which form the fundamental parts of their Revolution, and compose its
most distinguishing acts, it would not have had one
vote in twenty thousand in any order. Their instructions purported the direct contrary to all those
famous proceedings which are defended as the acts
of the people. Had such proceedings been expected,
the great probability is, that the people would then
have risen, as to a man, to prevent them. The
whole organization of the Assembly was altered, the
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 187
whole frame of the kingdom was changed, before
these things could be done. It is long to tell, by
what evil arts of the conspirators, and by what extreme weakness and want of steadiness in the lawful government, this equal usurpation on the rights of
the prince and people. having first cheated, and then
offered violence to both, has been able to triumph,
and to employ with success the forged signature of
an imprisoned sovereign, and the spurious voice of
dictated addresses, to a subsequent ratification of
things that had never received any previous sanction, general or particular, expressed or implied, from the nation, (in whatever sense that word is taken,)
or from any part of it.
After the weighty and respectable part of the people had been murdered, or driven by the menaces of murder from their houses, or were dispersed in exile
into every country in Europe, -- after the soldiery had
been debauched from their officers, --after property
had lost its weight and consideration, along with its
security, - after voluntary clubs and associations of
factious and unprincipled men were substituted in
the place of all the legal corporations of the kingdom
arbitrarily dissolved, - after freedom had been banished from those popular meetings* whose sole ree ommendation is freedom, - after it had come to that
pass that no dissent dared to appear in any of them,
but at the certain price of life, -- after even dissent
had been anticipated, and assassination became as
quick as suspicion, --such pretended ratification by
addresses could be no act of what any lover of the
people would choose to call by their name. It is that
voice which every successful usurpation, as well as
* The primary assemblies.
? ? ? ? 188 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
this before us, may easily procure, even without making (as these tyrants have made) donatives from the
spoil of one part of the citizens to corrupt the other.
The. prretended rights of man, which have made this
havoc, cannot be the rights of the people. For to be
a people, and to have these rights, are things incompatible. The one supposes the presence, the other the
absence, of a state of civil society. The very foundation of the French commonwealth is false and selfdestructive; nor can its principles be adopted in any country, without the certainty of bringing it to the
very same condition in which France is found. Attempts are made to introduce them into every nation
in Europe. This nation, as possessing the greatest
influence, they wish most to corrupt, as by that
means they are assured the contagion must become
general. I hope, therefore, I shall be excused, if I
endeavor to show, as shortly as the matter will admit, the danger of giving to them, either avowedly or
tacitly, the smallest countenance.
There are times and circumstances in which not
to speak out is at least to _cnniye. Many think it
enough for them, that the principles propagated by
these clubs and societies, enemies to their country
and its Constitution, are not owned by the modern
Whigs in Parliament, who are so warm in condemnation of Mr. Burke and his book, and of course of all
the principles of the ancient, constitutional Whigs
of this kingdom. Certainly they are not owned.
But are they condemned with the same zeal as Mr.
Burke and his book are condemned? Are they condemned at all? Are they rejected or discountenanced in any way whatsoever? Is any man who
would fairly examine into the demeanor and prin
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 189
ciples of those societies, and that too very moderately, and in the way rather of admonition than of
punishment, is such a man even decently treated?
Is he not reproached as if in condemning such principles he had belied the conduct of his whole life,
suggesting that his life had been governed by principles similar to those which he now reprobates?
The French system is in the mean time, by many
active agents out of doors, Rapturously praised; the
British Constitution is coldly tolerated. But these
Constitutions are different both in the foundation and
in the whole superstructure; and it is plain that you
cannot build up the one but on the ruins of the
other. After all, if the French be a superior system of liberty, why should we not adopt it? To what
end are our praises? Is excellence held out to us
only that we should not copy after it? And what
is there in the manners of the people, or in the climate of France, which renders that species of republic fitted for them, and unsuitable to us? A strong and marked difference between the two nations ought
to be shown, before we can admit a constant, affected
panegyric, a standing, annual commemoration, to be
without any tendency to an example.
But the leaders of party will not go the length of
the doctrines taught by the seditious clubs. I am
sure they do not mean to do so. God forbid! Perhaps even those who are directly carrying on the
work of this pernicious foreign faction do not all
of them intend to produce all the mischiefs which
must inevitably follow from their having any success in their proceedings. As to leaders in parties,
nothing is more common than to see them blindly
led. The _world. , is. governed by go-betweens. These
? ? ? ? 190 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
go-betwecns influence the persons with whom they
carry on the intercourse, by stating their own sense
to each of them as the sense of the other; and thus
they reciprocally master both sides. It is first buzzed
about the ears of leaders, "-that their friends without
doors are very eager for some measure, or very warm
about some opinion, --that you must not be too rigid
with them. They are useful persons, and zealous in
the cause. They may be a little wrong, but the
spirit of liberty must not be damped; and by the
influence you obtain from some degree of concurrence with them at present, you may be enabled to set them right hereafter. "
Thus the leaders are at first drawn to a connivance
with sentiments and proceedings often totally differe. ! it from their serious and deliberate notions. But their acquiescence answers every purpose.
With no better than such powers, the go-betweens
assume a new representative character. What at
best was but an acquiescence is magnified into an
authority, and thence into a desire on the part of the
leaders; and it is carried down as such to the subordinate members of parties. By this artifice they in their turn are led into measures which at first, perhaps, few of them wished at all, or at least did not desire vehemently or systematically.
There is in all parties, between the principal leaders in Parliament and the lowest followers out of doors, a middle sort of men, a sort of equestrian
order, who, by the spirit of that middle situation,
are the fittest for preventing things from running
to excess. But indecision, though a vice of a totally
different character, is the natural accomplice of violence. The irresolution and timidity of those who
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 191
compose this middle order often prevents the effect
of their controlling situation. The fear of differing
with the authority of leaders on the one hand, and
of contradicting the desires of the multitude on the
other, induces them to give a careless and passive assent to measures in which they never were consulted; and thus things proceed, by a sort of activity of inertness, until whole bodies, leaders, middle-men, anid followers, are all hurried, with every appearance
and with many of the effects of unanimity, into
schemes of politics, in the substance of which no
two of them were ever fully agreed, and the origin
and authors of which, in this circular mode of communication, none of them find it possible to trace.
In my experience, I have seen much of this in affairs
which, though trifling in comparison to the presenIt,
were yet of some importance to parties; and I have
known them suffer by it. The sober part give their
sanction, at first through inattention and levity; at
last they give it through necessity. A violent spirit
is raised, which the presiding minds after a time
find it impracticable to stop at their pleasure, to control, to regulate, or even to direct.
This shows, in my opinion, how very quick and
awakened all men ought to be, who are looked up to
by the public, and who deserve that confidence, to prevent a surprise on their opinions, when dogmas are spread and projects pursued by which the foundations of society may be affected. Before they listen
even to moderate alterations in the government of
their country, they ought to take care that principles
are not propagated for that purpose which are too
big for their object. Doctrines limited in their present application, and wide in their general principles,
? ? ? ? 192 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
are never meant to be confined to what they at first
pretend. If I were to form a prognostic of the effect
of the present machinations on the people from their
sense of any grievance they suffer under this Conllstitution, my mind would be at ease. But there is a
wide difference between the multitude, when they
act against their government from a sense of grievance or from zeal for some opinions. When men
are thoroughly possessed with that zeal, it is difficult
to calculate its force. It is certain that its power is
by no means in exact proportion to its reasonableness. It must always have been discoverable by persons of reflection, but it is jlow obvious to the world,
that a theory concerning government may become as
much a cause of fanaticism as a dogma in religion.
There is a boundary to men's passions, when they
act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination. Remove a grievance, and,
when men act from feeling, you go a great way towards quieting a commotion. But the good or bad
conduct of a government, the protection men have
enjoyed or the oppression they have suffered under
it, are of no sort of moment, when a faction, proceeding upon speculative grounds, is thoroughly heated
against its form. When a man is from system furious against monarchy or episcopacy, the good conduct of the monarch or the bishop has no other effect than further to irritate the adversary. He is provoked at it as furnishing a plea for preserving the
thing which he wishes to destroy. His mind will be
heated as much by the sight of a sceptre, a mace, or
a verge, as if he had been daily bruised and wounded
by these symbols of authority. Mere spectacles, mere
names, will become suffic:ent causes to stimulate the
people to war and tumult.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 193
Some gentlemen are not terrified by the facility
with which government has been overturned in
France. "The people of France," they say, "had
nothing to lose in the destruction of a bad Constitution; but, though not the best possible, we have still a
good stake in ours, which will hinder us from desperate risks. " Is this any security at all against those
who seem to persuade themselves, and who labor to
persuade others, that our Constitution is an usurpation in its origin, unwise in its contrivance, mischievous in its effects, contrary to the rights of main, and in all its parts a perfect nuisance? What motive has:
ally rational man, who thinks in that manner, to spill
his blood, or even to risk a shilling of his fortune, or
to waste a moment of his leisure, to preserve it? If
he has any duty relative to it, his duty is to destroy
it. A Constitution on sufferance is a Constitution
condemned. Sentence is already passed upon it.
The execution is only delayed. On the principles of
these gentlemen, it neither has nor ought to have
any security. So far as regards them, it is left
naked, without friends, partisans, assertors, or protectors.
Let us examine into the value of this security upon
the principles of those who are more sober, - of those
who think, indeed, the French Constitution better, or
at least as good as the British, without going to all
the lengths of the warmer politicians in reprobating
their own. Their security amounts in reality to nothing more than this, -- that the difference betweein
their republican system and the British limited monarchy is not worth a civil war. This opinion, I admit, will prevent people not very enterprising in their nature from an active undertaking against the BritVOL. IV. 13
? ? ? ? 1. 94 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
ish Constitution. But it is the poorest defensive
principle that ever was infused into the mind of man
against the attempts of those who will enterprise. It
will tend totally to remove from their minds that very
terror of a civil war which is held out as our sole security. They who think so well of the French Constitution certainly will not be the persons to carry on a war to prevent their obtaining a great benefit, or at
worst a fair exchange. They will not go to battle in
favor of a cause in which their defeat might be more
advantageous to the public than their victory. They
must at least tacitly abet those who endeavor to make
converts to a sound opinion; they must discountenance those who would oppose its propagation. In
proportion as by these means the enterprising party
is strengthened, the dread of a struggle is lessened.
See what an encouragement this is to the enemies of
the Constitution! A few assassinations and a very
great destruction of property we know they consider
as no real obstacles in the way of a grand political
change. And they will hope, that here, if antimonarchical opinions gain ground as they have done in
France, they may, as in France, accomplish a revolution without a war.
the supreme authority of the people is in question,
before we attempt to extend or to confine it, we
ought to fix in our minds, with some degree of distinctness, an idea of what it is we mean, when we
say, the PEOPLE.
In a state of rude Nature there is no such thing as
a people. A number of men in themselves have no
collective capacity. The idea of a people is the idea
of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made,
like all other legal fictions, by common agreement.
What the particular nature of that agreement was
is collected from the form into which the particular
? ? ? ? 170 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
society has been cast. Any other is not their covenant. When men, therefore, break up the original compact or agreement which gives its corporate form
and capacity to a state, they are no longer a people, -
they have no longer a corporate existence - they have
no longer a legal coactive force to bind within, nor
a claim to be recognized abroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more.
With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little
know how many a weary step is to be taken before
they can form themselves into a mass which has a
true politic personality.
We hear much, from men who have not acquired
their hardiness of assertion from the profundity of
their thinking, about the omnipotence of a majority,
in such a dissolution of an ancient society as hath taken place in France. But amongst men so disbanded there can be no such thing as majority or minority,
or power in any one person to bind another. The
power of acting by a majority, which the gentlemen
theorists seem to assume so readily, after they have
violated the contract out of which it has arisen, (if at
all it existed,) must be grounded on two assumptions: first, that of an incorporation produced by unanimity; and secondly, an unanimous agreement
that the act of a mere majority (say of one) shall pass
with them and with others as the act of the whole.
We are so little affected by things which are habitual, that we consider this idea of the decision of a majority as if it were a law of our original nature.
But such constructive whole, residing in a part only,
is one of the most violent fictions of positive law that
ever has been or can be made on the principles of
artificial incorporation. Out of civil society Nature
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 171
knows nothing of it; nor are. men, even when arranged according to civil order, otherwise than by
very long training, brought at all to submit to it.
The mind is brought far more easily to acquiesce in
the proceedings of one man, or a few, who act under
a general procuration for the state, than in the vote
of a victorious majority in councils in which every
man has his share in the deliberation. For there the
beaten party are exasperated and soured by the previous contention, and mortified by the conclusive defeat. This mode of decision, where wills may be so nearly equal, where, according to circumstances, the
smaller number may be the stronger force, and where
apparent reason may be all upon one side, and on the
other little else than impetuous appetite, - all this
must be the result of a very particular and special
convention, confirmed afterwards by long habits of
obedience, by a sort of discipline in society, and by a
strong hand, vested with stationary, permanent power to enforce this sort of constructive general will.
What organ it is that shall declare the corporate
mind is so much a matter of positive arrangement,
that several states, for the validity of several of their
acts, have required a proportion of voices much
greater than that of a mere majority. These proportions are so entirely governed by convention that
in some cases the minority decides. The laws in
many countries to condemn require more than a mere
majority; less than an equal number to acquit. In
our judicial trials we require unanimity either to condemn or to absolve. In some incorporations one man
speaks for the whole; in others, a few. Until the
other day, in the Constitution of Poland unanimity
was required to give validity to any act of their great
? ? ? ? 172 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
national council or diet. This approaches much more
nearly to rude Nature than the institutions of any
other country. Such, indeed, every commonwealth
must be, without a positive law to recognize in a certain number the will of the entire body.
If men dissolve their ancient incorporation in order to regenerate their community, in that state of things each man has a right, if he pleases, to remain
all individual. Any number of individuals, who can
agree upon it, have an undoubted right to form themselves into a state apart and wholly independent. If any of these is forced into the fellowship of another,
this is conquest and not compact. On every principle which supposes society to be in virtue of a free covenant, this compulsive incorporation must be null
and void.
As a people can have no right to a corporate capacity without universal consent, so neither have they a right to hold' exclusively any lands in the name and
title of a corporation. On the scheme of the present
rulers in our neighboring country, regenerated as
they are, they have no more right to the territory
called France than I have. I have a right to pitch
my tent in any unoccupied place I can find for it;
and I may apply to my own maintenance any part
of their unoccupied soil. I may purchase the house
or vineyard of any individual proprietor who refuses
his consent (and most proprietors have, as far as they
dared, refused it) to the new incorporation. I stand
in his independent place. Who are these insolent
men, calling themselves the French nation, that would
monopolize this fair domain of Nature? Is it because
they speak a certain jargon? Is it Trei mode of chattelilg, to me unintelligible, that forms their title to
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 1]73
my land? Who are they who claim by prescription
and descent from certain gangs of banditti called
Franks, and Burgundians, and Visigoths, of whom I
may have never heard, and ninety-nine out of an hundred of themselves certainly never have heard, whilst
at the very time they tell me that prescription and
long possession form no title to property? Who are
they that presume to assert that the land which I
purchased of the individual, a natural person, and not
a fiction of state, belongs to them, who in the very
capacity in which they make their claim can exist
only as an imaginary being, and in virtue of the very
prescription which they reject and disown? This
mode of arguing might be pushed into all the detail,
so as to leave no sort of doubt, that, on their principles, and on the sort of footing on which they have
thought proper to place themselves, the crowd of
men, on the other side of the Channel, who have the
impudence to call themselves a people, can never be
the lawful, exclusive possessors of the soil. By what
they call reasoning without prejudice, they leave not
one stone upon another in the fabric of human society. They subvert all the authority which they hold,
as well as all that which they have destroyed.
As in the abstract it is perfectly clear, that, out
of a state of civil society, majority and minority are
relations which can have no existence, and that, in
civil society, its own specific conventions in each corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so as to make their act the signification of the general will, - to come to particulars, it is equally
clear that neither in France nor in England has the
original or any subsequent compact of the state, expressed or implied, constituted a majority of men, told
? ? ? ? 174 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
by the head, to be the acting people of their several
communities. And I see as little of policy or utility
as there is of right, in laying down a principle that
a majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is
to be law. What policy can there be found in arrangements made in defiance of every political principle? To enable men to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer the ends for
which they are incorporated into that capacity, we
must suppose them (by means immediate or consequential) to be in that state of habitual social discipline in which the wiser, the more expert, and the more opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten
and protect, the weaker, the less knowing, and the
less provided with the goods of fortune. When the
multitude are not under this discipline, they can
scarcely be said to be in civil society. Give once
a certain constitution of things which produces a
variety of conditions and circumstances in a state,
and there is in Nature and reason a principle which,
for their own benefit, postpones, not the interest, but
the judgment, of those who are numero plures, to those
who are virtute et honore majores. Numbers in a state
(supposing, which is not the case in France, that a
state does exist) are always of consideration, - but
they are not the whole consideration. It is in things
more serious than a play, that it may be truly said,
Satis est equitem mihi plaudere.
A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential
integrant part of any large body rightly constituted.
It is forlmed out of a class of legitimate presumptions,
whicll, taken as generalities, must be admitted for
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 175
actual truths. To be bred in a place of estimation;
to see nothing low and sordid from one's infancy; to
be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to
the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look
early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated
ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the
wide-spread and infinitely diversified combinations of
men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to
read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw
the court and attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to be habituated in armies to command and to obey; to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honor and duty; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight,
and circumspection, in a state of things in which no
fault is committed with impunity and the slightest
mistakes draw on the most ruinous consequences;
to be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from
a sense that you are considered as an instructor of
your fellow-citizens in their highest concerns, and
that you act as a reconciler between God and man;
to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors
to mankind; to be a professor of high science, or
of liberal and ingenuous art; to be amongst rich
traders, who from their success are presumed to have
sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the
virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity,
and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice: these are the circumstances of men
that form what I should call a natural aristocracy,
without which there is no nation.
The state of civil society which necessarily generates this aristocracy is a state of Nature, --and much
? ? ? ? 176 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
more truly so than a savage and incoherent mode of
life. For man is by nature reasonable; and he is
never perfectly in his natural state, but when he is
placed where reason may be best cultivated and most
predominates. Art is man's nature. We are as much,
at least, in a state of Nature in formed manhood as
in immature and helpless infancy. Men, qualified ill
the manner I have just described, form in Nature, as
she operates in the common modification of society,
the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the
soul to the body, without which the man does not
exist. To give, therefore, no more importance, in
the social order, to such descriptions of men than
that of so many units is a horrible usurpation.
When great multitudes act together, under that
discipline of Nature, I recognize the PEOPLE. I
acknowledge something that perhaps equals, and
ought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things the voice of this grand chorus
of national harmony ought to have a mighty and
decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony,-when you break up this beautiful order, this
array of truth and Nature, as well as of habit and prejudice, - when you separate the common sort of men from their proper chieftains, so as to form them into
an adverse army, -- I no longer know that venerable object called the people in such a disbanded race
of deserters and vagabonds. For a while they may
be terrible, indeed, -but in such a manner as wild
beasts are terrible. The mind owes to them no sort
of submission. They are, as they have always been
reputed, rebels. They may lawfully be fought with,
and brought under, whenever an advantage offers.
Those who attempt by outrage and violence to de
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 177
prive men of any advantage which they hold under
the laws, and to destroy the natural order of life, proclaim war against them.
We have read in history of that furious insurrection of the common people in France called the Jacquerie: for this is not the first time that the people
have been enlightened into treason, murder, and rapine. Its object was to extirpate the gentry. The
Captal de Buch, a famous soldier of those days, dis.
honored the name of a gentleman and of a man by
taking, for their cruelties, a cruel vengeance on these
deluded wretches: it was, however, his right and his
duty to make war upon them, and afterwards, in
moderation, to bring them to punishment for their
rebellion; though in the sense of the French Revolution, and of some of our clubs, they were the people, - and were truly so, if you will call by that appellation any majority of men told by the head. At a time not very remote from the same period
(for these humors never have'affected one of the
nations without some influence on the other) happened several risings of the lower commons in England. These insurgents were certainly the majority
of the inhabitants of the counties in which they resided; and Cade, Ket, and Straw, at the head of
their national guards, and fomented by certain traitors of high rank, did no more than exert, according
to the doctrines of ours and the Parisian societies,
the sovereign power inherent in the majority.
We call the time of those events a dark- age. Indeed, we are too indulgent to our own proficiency.
The Abb6 John Ball understood the rights of manl
as well as the Abbe Gr6goire. That reverend patriarch of sedition, and prototype of our modern preachVOL. IV. 12
? ? ? ? 178 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
ers, was of opinion, with the National Assembly, that
all the evils which have fallen upon men had been
caused by an ignorance of their " having been born
and continued equal as to their rights. " Had the
populace been able to repeat that profound maxim,
all would have gone perfectly well with them. No
tyranny, no vexation, no oppression, no care, no sorrow, could have existed in the world. This would
hlave cured them like a charm for the tooth-ache.
But the lowest wretches, in their most ignorant state,
were able at all times to talk such stuff; and yet at
all timnes have they suffered many evils and many
oppressions, both before and since the republication
by the National Assembly of this spell of healing potency and virtue. The enlightened Dr. Ball, when
he wished to rekindle the lights and fires of his audience on this point, chose for the text the following
couplet: -
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Of this sapien. t maxim, however, I do not give him
for the inventor. It seems to have been handed
down by tradition, and had certainly become proverbial; but whether then composed or only applied,
thus much must be admitted, that in learning, sense,
energy, and comprehensiveness, it is fully equal to
all the modern dissertations oil the equality of mankind: and it has one advantage over them, -that it
is in rhyme. *
* It is no small loss to the world, that the whole of this enlightened and philosophic sermon, preached to two hundred thousand national guards assembled at Blackheath (a number probably equal to the sublime and majestic Federation of the 14th of July, 1790, in the
Champ de Mars) is n-t preserved. A short abstract is, however, to
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 179
There is no doubt but that this great teacher of the
rights of man decorated his discourse on this valuable
text with lemmas, theorems, scholia, corollaries, and
all the apparatus of science, which was furnished in
be found in Walsingham. I have added it here for the edification of
the modern Whigs, who may possibly except this precious little fragment from their general contempt of ancient learning.
"Ut sua doctrin' plures inficeret, ad le Blackheth (ubi ducenta millia hominum communium fuere simul congregata) hujuscemodi sermonem est exorsus.
"Whan Adam dalfe and Eve span,
Who was than a gentleman?
Continuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur per verba proverbii,
quod pro themate sumpserat, introducere et probare, ab initio omnes
pares creatos a naturd, servitutem per injustam oppressionern nequam
hominum introductam contra Dei voluntatem, quia si Deo placuisset
servos cre'asse, utique in principio mundi constituisset, quis servus,
quisve dominus futurus fuisset. Considerarent igitur jam tempus a
Deo datum eis, in quo (deposito servitutis jugo diutius) possent, si
vellent, libertate diu concupitf gaudere. Quapropter monuit ut essent viri cordati, et amore boni patrisfamilias excolentis agrum suum,
et extirpantis ac resecantis noxia gramina quae fruges solent opprimere, et ipsi in prsesenti facere festinarent. Primb majores regni dolinos occidendo. Deinde juridicos, justiciarios, et juratores patrice perilendo.
Postremb quoscunque scirent in posterurn commnunitati nocivos tollerent
de terra sua, sic demum et pacem sibimet parerent et securitatent in futurum. Si sublatis majoribus esset inter eos oequa libertas, eadem nobilitas,
par dignitas, similisque potestas. "
Here is displayed at once the whole of the grand arcanuma pretended to be found out by the National Assembly, for securing future happiness, peace, and tranquillity. There seems, however, to be some
doubt whether this venerable protomartyr of philosophy was inclined
to carry his own declaration of the rights of men more rigidly into
practice than the National Assembly themselves. He was, like them,
only preaching licentiousness to the populace to obtain power for himself, if we may believe what is subjoined by the historian. ,' Cumque hwec et plura alia deliramenta " (think of this old fool's calling all the wise maxims of the French Academy deliramenta! ) "prredicasset, commune vulgus eum tant
? ? ? ? 180 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
as great plenty and perfection out of the dogmatic
and polemic magazines, the old horse-armory of the
Schoolmen, among whom the Rev. Dr. Ball was bred,
as they can be supplied from the new arsenal at Hack(,rent ern archiepiscopum futurum, et regni cancellarium. " Whether
ho would have taken these situations under these names, or would
have chanled the whole nomenclature of the State and Church, to
be understood in the sense of the Revolution, is not so certain. It is
)robable that he would have changed the names and kept the substance of power.
We find, too, that they had in those days their society for constitutional inlformation, of which the Reverend John Ball was a conspicuous
member, sometimes under his own name, sometimes under the feigned
name of John Schep. Besides him it consisted (as Knyghton tells
us) of persons who went by the real or fictitious names of Jack Mylner, Tom Baker, Jack Straw, Jack Trewman, Jack Carter, and probably of many more. Some of the choicest flowers of the publications charitably written and circulated by them gratis are upon record in
Walsingham and Knyghton: and I am inclined to prefer the pithy
and sententious brevity of these bulletins of ancient rebellion before
the loose and confused prolixity of the modern advertisements of constitutional information. They contain more good morality and less
bad politics, they had much more foundation in real oppression, and
they have the recommendation of being much better adapted to the
capacities of those for whose instruction they were intended. Whatever laudable pains the teachers of the present day appear to take, I
cannot compliment them so far as to allow that they have succeeded
in writing down to the level of their pupils, the members of the sovereign,
with half the ability of Jack Carter and the Reverend John Ball.
That my readers may judge for themselves, I shall give them one or
two specimens.
The first is an address from the Reverend John Ball, under his
aonm de guerre of John Schep. I know not against what particular
", guyle in borough" the writer means to caution the people; it may
have been only a general cry against, rotten boroughs," which it was
thought convenient, then as now, to make the first pretext, and place
at the head of the list of grievances.
JOHN SCHEP.
" Iohn Schep sometime seint Mary priest of Yorke, and now of Col
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 181
ney. It was, no doubt, disposed with all the adjutancy of definition and division, in which (I speak it
with submission) the old marshals were as able as the
modern martinets. Neither can we deny that the
chester, greeteth well Iohn Namelesse, and Iohn the Miller, and Iohn
Carter, and biddeth then that they beware of guyle in borough, and stand
together in Gods name, and biddeth Piers Ploweman goe to his
werke, and chastise well Hob the robber, [probably the king,] and take
with you Iohn Trewman, and all his fellows, and no moe.
" Iohn the Miller hath yground smal, small, small:
The kings sonne of heauen shal pay for all.
Beware or ye be woe,
Know your frende fro your foe,
IHaue ynough, and say hoe:
And do wel and better, & flee sinne,
And seeke peace and holde you therin,
& so biddeth Iohn Trewman & all his fellowes. "
The reader has perceived, from the last lines of this curious statepaper, how well the National Assembly has copied its union of the
profession of universal peace with the practice of murder and confusion, and the blast of the trumpet of sedition in all nations. He will
in the following constitutional paper observe how well, in their enigmatical style, like the Assembly and their abettors, the old philosopliers proscribe all hereditary distinction, and bestow it only on virtue and wisdom, according to their estimation of both. Yet these people are supposed never to have heard of "the rights of man" I
JACK MYLNER.
"' Jakke Mylner asket help to turne his mylne aright.
"'He hath grounden smal smal,
The Kings sone of heven he schal pay for alle.
Loke thy mylne go a rygt, with the foure sayles, and the post stande
in steadfastnesse.
" With rygt and with mygt,
With skyl and with wylle,
Lat mygt helpe rygt,
And skyl go before wille,
And rygt before mygt:
Than goth oure mvlne aryght.
And if mygt go before ryght,
? ? ? ? 182 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
philosophic auditory, when they had once obtained
this knowledge, could never return to their former
ignorance, or after so instructive a lecture be in the
same state of mind as if they had never heard it. *
But these poor people, who were not to be envied for
their knowledge, but pitied for their delusion, were
not reasoned, (that was impossible,) but beaten, out of
their lights. With their teacher they were delivered
over to the lawyers, who wrote in their blood the
statutes of the land, as harshly, and in the same sort
of ink, as they and their teachers had written the
rights of man.
Our doctors of the day are not so fond of quoting
the opinions of this ancient sage as they are of imitating his conduct: first, because it might appear that they are not as great inventors as they would
be thought; and next, because, unfortunately for his
fame, he was not successful.
It is a remark liable
to as few exceptions as any generality can be, that
they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumAnd. wylle before skylle;
Than is oure mylne mys a dygt. "
JACK CARTER understood perfectly the doctrine of looking to the
end, with an indifference to the means, and the probability of much
good arising from great evil.
- Jakke Carter pryes yowe alle that ye make a gode ende of that
ye hane begunnen, and doth wele and ay bettur and bettur: for at
the even men heryth the day. For if the ende be wele, than is alle
Awele. Lat Peres the Plowman my brother duelle at home and dygt
us corne, and I will go with yowe and helpe that y may to dygte
youre mete and youre drynke, that ye none fayle: lokke that Hobbe
robbyoure be wele chastysed for lesyng of youre grace: for ye have
gret nede to take God with yowe in alle youre dedes. For nowe is
tyme to be war. "
* See the wise remark on this subject in the Defence of Rights
of Man, circulated by the societies.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 183
phant guilt have never been known to succor or even
to pity human weakness or offence, when they become
subject to human vicissitude, and meet with punishment instead of obtaining power. Abating for their
want of sensibility to the sufferings of their associates, they are not so much in the wrong; for madness and wickedness are things foul and deformed in themselves, and stand in need of all the coverings
and trappings of fortune to recommend them to the
multitude. Nothing can be more loathsome in their
naked nature.
Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern,
unsuccessful or prosperous, are things of passage.
They furnish no argument for supposing a multitude
told by the head to be the people. Such a multitude
can have no sort of title to alter the seat of power in
the society, in which it ever ought to be the obedient,
and not the ruling or presiding part. What power
may belong to the whole mass, in which mass the
natural aristocracy, or what by convention is appointed to represent and strengthen it, acts in its proper
place, with its proper weight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question. But in that
case, and with' that concurrence, I should have much
doubt whether any rash or de~perate changes in the
state, such as we have seen in France, could ever be
effected.
I have said that in all political questions the consequences of any assumed rights are of great, moment in deciding upon their validity. In this point
of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right
in the mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding and altering their government at
pleasure.
? ? ? ? 184 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
The sum total of every people is composed of its
units. Every individual must have a right to originate what afterwards is to become the act of the ma.
jority. Whatever he may lawfully originate lie may
lawfully endeavor to accomplish. He has a right,
therefore, in his own particular, to break the ties and
engagements which bind him to the country in which
he lives; and he has a right to make as many converts to his opinions, and to obtain as many associates in his designs, as he can procure: for how can you know the dispositions of the majority to destroy
their government, but by tampering with some part
of the body? You must begin by a secret conspiracy, that you may end with a national confederation.
The mere pleasure of the beginner must be the sole
guide; since the mere pleasure of others must be the
sole ultimate sanction, as well as the sole actuating
principle in every part of the progress. Thus, arbitrary will (the last corruption of ruling power) step
by step poisons the heart of every citizen. If the
undertaker fails, he has the misfortune of a rebel,
but not the guilt. By such doctrines, all love to our
country, all pious veneration and attachment to its
laws and customs, are obliterated from our minds;
and nothing can result from this opinion, when
grown into a principle, and animated by discontent,
ambition, or enthusiasm, but a series of conspiracies
and seditions, sometimes ruinous to their authors,
always noxious to the state. No sense of duty can
prevent any man from being a leader or a follower
in such enterprises. Nothing restrains the tempter;
nothing guards the tempted. Nor is the new state,
fabricated by such arts, safer than the old. What
can prevent the mere will of any person, who hopes
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 185
to unite the wills of others to his own, from an attempt wholly to overturn it? It wants nothing but
a disposition to trouble the established orders to give
a title-to the enterprise.
When you combine this principle of the right to
change a fixed and tolerable constitution of things at
pleasure with the theory and practice of the French
Assembly, the political, civil, and moral irregularity
are, if possible, aggravated. The Assembly have
found another road, and a far more commodious,
to the destruction of an old- government, and the
legitimate formation of a new one, than through the
previous will of the majority of what they call the
people. Get, say they, the possession of power by
any means you can into your hands; and then a subsequent consent (what they call an address of adhesion) makes your authority as much the act of the people as if they had conferred upon you originally
that kind and degree of power which without their
permission you had seized upon. This is to give a
direct sanction to fraud, hypocrisy, perjury, and the
breach of the most sacred trusts that can exist between man and man. What can sound with such
horrid discordance in the moral ear as this position,
- that a delegate with limited powers may break his
sworn engagements to his constituent, assume an
authority, never committed to him, to alter all things
at his pleasure, and then, if he can persuade a large
number of men to flatter him in the power he has
usurped, that he is absolved in his own conscience,
and ought to stand acquitted in the eyes of mankind?
On this scheme, the maker of the experiment must
begin with a determined perjury. That point is certain. He must take his chance for the expiatory
? ? ? ? 186 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
addresses. This is to make the success of villany the
standard of innocence.
Without drawing on, therefore, very shocking consequences, neither by previous consent, nor by subsequent ratification of a mere reckoned majority, can any set of men attempt to dissolve the state at their
pleasure. To apply this to our present subject. When
the several orders, in their several bailliages, had met
in the year 1789, (such of them, I mean, as had met
peaceably and constitutionally,) to choose and to instruct their representatives, so organized and so acting, (because they were organized and were acting according to the conventions which made them a people,) they were the people of France. They had a
legal and a natural capacity to be considered as that
people. But observe, whilst they were in this state,
that is, whilst they were a people, in no one of
their instructions did they charge or even hint at
any of those things which have drawn upon the
usurping Assembly and their adherents the detestation of the rational and thinking part of mankind.
I will venture to affirm, without the least apprehension of being contradicted by any person who
knows the then state of France, that, if any one of
the changes were proposed, which form the fundamental parts of their Revolution, and compose its
most distinguishing acts, it would not have had one
vote in twenty thousand in any order. Their instructions purported the direct contrary to all those
famous proceedings which are defended as the acts
of the people. Had such proceedings been expected,
the great probability is, that the people would then
have risen, as to a man, to prevent them. The
whole organization of the Assembly was altered, the
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 187
whole frame of the kingdom was changed, before
these things could be done. It is long to tell, by
what evil arts of the conspirators, and by what extreme weakness and want of steadiness in the lawful government, this equal usurpation on the rights of
the prince and people. having first cheated, and then
offered violence to both, has been able to triumph,
and to employ with success the forged signature of
an imprisoned sovereign, and the spurious voice of
dictated addresses, to a subsequent ratification of
things that had never received any previous sanction, general or particular, expressed or implied, from the nation, (in whatever sense that word is taken,)
or from any part of it.
After the weighty and respectable part of the people had been murdered, or driven by the menaces of murder from their houses, or were dispersed in exile
into every country in Europe, -- after the soldiery had
been debauched from their officers, --after property
had lost its weight and consideration, along with its
security, - after voluntary clubs and associations of
factious and unprincipled men were substituted in
the place of all the legal corporations of the kingdom
arbitrarily dissolved, - after freedom had been banished from those popular meetings* whose sole ree ommendation is freedom, - after it had come to that
pass that no dissent dared to appear in any of them,
but at the certain price of life, -- after even dissent
had been anticipated, and assassination became as
quick as suspicion, --such pretended ratification by
addresses could be no act of what any lover of the
people would choose to call by their name. It is that
voice which every successful usurpation, as well as
* The primary assemblies.
? ? ? ? 188 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
this before us, may easily procure, even without making (as these tyrants have made) donatives from the
spoil of one part of the citizens to corrupt the other.
The. prretended rights of man, which have made this
havoc, cannot be the rights of the people. For to be
a people, and to have these rights, are things incompatible. The one supposes the presence, the other the
absence, of a state of civil society. The very foundation of the French commonwealth is false and selfdestructive; nor can its principles be adopted in any country, without the certainty of bringing it to the
very same condition in which France is found. Attempts are made to introduce them into every nation
in Europe. This nation, as possessing the greatest
influence, they wish most to corrupt, as by that
means they are assured the contagion must become
general. I hope, therefore, I shall be excused, if I
endeavor to show, as shortly as the matter will admit, the danger of giving to them, either avowedly or
tacitly, the smallest countenance.
There are times and circumstances in which not
to speak out is at least to _cnniye. Many think it
enough for them, that the principles propagated by
these clubs and societies, enemies to their country
and its Constitution, are not owned by the modern
Whigs in Parliament, who are so warm in condemnation of Mr. Burke and his book, and of course of all
the principles of the ancient, constitutional Whigs
of this kingdom. Certainly they are not owned.
But are they condemned with the same zeal as Mr.
Burke and his book are condemned? Are they condemned at all? Are they rejected or discountenanced in any way whatsoever? Is any man who
would fairly examine into the demeanor and prin
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 189
ciples of those societies, and that too very moderately, and in the way rather of admonition than of
punishment, is such a man even decently treated?
Is he not reproached as if in condemning such principles he had belied the conduct of his whole life,
suggesting that his life had been governed by principles similar to those which he now reprobates?
The French system is in the mean time, by many
active agents out of doors, Rapturously praised; the
British Constitution is coldly tolerated. But these
Constitutions are different both in the foundation and
in the whole superstructure; and it is plain that you
cannot build up the one but on the ruins of the
other. After all, if the French be a superior system of liberty, why should we not adopt it? To what
end are our praises? Is excellence held out to us
only that we should not copy after it? And what
is there in the manners of the people, or in the climate of France, which renders that species of republic fitted for them, and unsuitable to us? A strong and marked difference between the two nations ought
to be shown, before we can admit a constant, affected
panegyric, a standing, annual commemoration, to be
without any tendency to an example.
But the leaders of party will not go the length of
the doctrines taught by the seditious clubs. I am
sure they do not mean to do so. God forbid! Perhaps even those who are directly carrying on the
work of this pernicious foreign faction do not all
of them intend to produce all the mischiefs which
must inevitably follow from their having any success in their proceedings. As to leaders in parties,
nothing is more common than to see them blindly
led. The _world. , is. governed by go-betweens. These
? ? ? ? 190 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
go-betwecns influence the persons with whom they
carry on the intercourse, by stating their own sense
to each of them as the sense of the other; and thus
they reciprocally master both sides. It is first buzzed
about the ears of leaders, "-that their friends without
doors are very eager for some measure, or very warm
about some opinion, --that you must not be too rigid
with them. They are useful persons, and zealous in
the cause. They may be a little wrong, but the
spirit of liberty must not be damped; and by the
influence you obtain from some degree of concurrence with them at present, you may be enabled to set them right hereafter. "
Thus the leaders are at first drawn to a connivance
with sentiments and proceedings often totally differe. ! it from their serious and deliberate notions. But their acquiescence answers every purpose.
With no better than such powers, the go-betweens
assume a new representative character. What at
best was but an acquiescence is magnified into an
authority, and thence into a desire on the part of the
leaders; and it is carried down as such to the subordinate members of parties. By this artifice they in their turn are led into measures which at first, perhaps, few of them wished at all, or at least did not desire vehemently or systematically.
There is in all parties, between the principal leaders in Parliament and the lowest followers out of doors, a middle sort of men, a sort of equestrian
order, who, by the spirit of that middle situation,
are the fittest for preventing things from running
to excess. But indecision, though a vice of a totally
different character, is the natural accomplice of violence. The irresolution and timidity of those who
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 191
compose this middle order often prevents the effect
of their controlling situation. The fear of differing
with the authority of leaders on the one hand, and
of contradicting the desires of the multitude on the
other, induces them to give a careless and passive assent to measures in which they never were consulted; and thus things proceed, by a sort of activity of inertness, until whole bodies, leaders, middle-men, anid followers, are all hurried, with every appearance
and with many of the effects of unanimity, into
schemes of politics, in the substance of which no
two of them were ever fully agreed, and the origin
and authors of which, in this circular mode of communication, none of them find it possible to trace.
In my experience, I have seen much of this in affairs
which, though trifling in comparison to the presenIt,
were yet of some importance to parties; and I have
known them suffer by it. The sober part give their
sanction, at first through inattention and levity; at
last they give it through necessity. A violent spirit
is raised, which the presiding minds after a time
find it impracticable to stop at their pleasure, to control, to regulate, or even to direct.
This shows, in my opinion, how very quick and
awakened all men ought to be, who are looked up to
by the public, and who deserve that confidence, to prevent a surprise on their opinions, when dogmas are spread and projects pursued by which the foundations of society may be affected. Before they listen
even to moderate alterations in the government of
their country, they ought to take care that principles
are not propagated for that purpose which are too
big for their object. Doctrines limited in their present application, and wide in their general principles,
? ? ? ? 192 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
are never meant to be confined to what they at first
pretend. If I were to form a prognostic of the effect
of the present machinations on the people from their
sense of any grievance they suffer under this Conllstitution, my mind would be at ease. But there is a
wide difference between the multitude, when they
act against their government from a sense of grievance or from zeal for some opinions. When men
are thoroughly possessed with that zeal, it is difficult
to calculate its force. It is certain that its power is
by no means in exact proportion to its reasonableness. It must always have been discoverable by persons of reflection, but it is jlow obvious to the world,
that a theory concerning government may become as
much a cause of fanaticism as a dogma in religion.
There is a boundary to men's passions, when they
act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination. Remove a grievance, and,
when men act from feeling, you go a great way towards quieting a commotion. But the good or bad
conduct of a government, the protection men have
enjoyed or the oppression they have suffered under
it, are of no sort of moment, when a faction, proceeding upon speculative grounds, is thoroughly heated
against its form. When a man is from system furious against monarchy or episcopacy, the good conduct of the monarch or the bishop has no other effect than further to irritate the adversary. He is provoked at it as furnishing a plea for preserving the
thing which he wishes to destroy. His mind will be
heated as much by the sight of a sceptre, a mace, or
a verge, as if he had been daily bruised and wounded
by these symbols of authority. Mere spectacles, mere
names, will become suffic:ent causes to stimulate the
people to war and tumult.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 193
Some gentlemen are not terrified by the facility
with which government has been overturned in
France. "The people of France," they say, "had
nothing to lose in the destruction of a bad Constitution; but, though not the best possible, we have still a
good stake in ours, which will hinder us from desperate risks. " Is this any security at all against those
who seem to persuade themselves, and who labor to
persuade others, that our Constitution is an usurpation in its origin, unwise in its contrivance, mischievous in its effects, contrary to the rights of main, and in all its parts a perfect nuisance? What motive has:
ally rational man, who thinks in that manner, to spill
his blood, or even to risk a shilling of his fortune, or
to waste a moment of his leisure, to preserve it? If
he has any duty relative to it, his duty is to destroy
it. A Constitution on sufferance is a Constitution
condemned. Sentence is already passed upon it.
The execution is only delayed. On the principles of
these gentlemen, it neither has nor ought to have
any security. So far as regards them, it is left
naked, without friends, partisans, assertors, or protectors.
Let us examine into the value of this security upon
the principles of those who are more sober, - of those
who think, indeed, the French Constitution better, or
at least as good as the British, without going to all
the lengths of the warmer politicians in reprobating
their own. Their security amounts in reality to nothing more than this, -- that the difference betweein
their republican system and the British limited monarchy is not worth a civil war. This opinion, I admit, will prevent people not very enterprising in their nature from an active undertaking against the BritVOL. IV. 13
? ? ? ? 1. 94 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
ish Constitution. But it is the poorest defensive
principle that ever was infused into the mind of man
against the attempts of those who will enterprise. It
will tend totally to remove from their minds that very
terror of a civil war which is held out as our sole security. They who think so well of the French Constitution certainly will not be the persons to carry on a war to prevent their obtaining a great benefit, or at
worst a fair exchange. They will not go to battle in
favor of a cause in which their defeat might be more
advantageous to the public than their victory. They
must at least tacitly abet those who endeavor to make
converts to a sound opinion; they must discountenance those who would oppose its propagation. In
proportion as by these means the enterprising party
is strengthened, the dread of a struggle is lessened.
See what an encouragement this is to the enemies of
the Constitution! A few assassinations and a very
great destruction of property we know they consider
as no real obstacles in the way of a grand political
change. And they will hope, that here, if antimonarchical opinions gain ground as they have done in
France, they may, as in France, accomplish a revolution without a war.
