" You will observe that these rights and
this succession are declared in one body, and bound
indissolubly together.
this succession are declared in one body, and bound
indissolubly together.
Edmund Burke
every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
Abstract.
edly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 241
good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago,
have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government, (for she then had a government,) without
inquiry what the nature of that government was, or
how it was administered? Can I now congratulate
the same nation upon its freedom? Is it because
liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the
blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate
a madman who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell on his
restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty?
Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer
who has brok. 0 _rison upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again thescene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and: their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the.
Sorrowful Countenance.
When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a,
strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all
I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed
air, is plainly broker loose: but we ought to suspend
our judgment until the first effervescence is a little
subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see
something deeper than the agitation of a troubled:
and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before.
I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a bless --
ing, that they have really received one. Flattery
corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to
kings. - I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience'
of armies, with the collection of an effective and'
VOL. III. lb
? ? ? ? 242 REFLECTIONS ON THE
well-distributed revenue, with morality and religion,
with solidity and property, with peace and order,
with civil and social manners. All these (in their
way) are good things, too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not'likely
to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought
to see what it will please them to do, before we risk
congratulations, which may be soon turned into conmplaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men. But liberty, when
men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people,
before they declare themselves, will observe the use
which is made of power, --and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have little
or no experience, and in situations where those who
appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly
not be the real movers.
All these considerations, however, were below the
transcendental dignity of the Revolution Society.
Whilst I continued in the country, from whence I
had the honor of writing to you, I had but an imperfect idea of their transactions. On my coming
to town, I sent for an account of their proceedings,
which had been published by their authority, containing a sermon of Dr. Price, with the Duke de Rochefoucault's and the Archbishop of Aix's letter
and several other documents annexed. The whole
of that publication, with the manifest design of connecting the affairs of France with those of England, by drawing us into an imitation of the conduct
of the National Assembly, gave me a considerable
degree of uneasiness. The effect of that conduct
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 243
upon the power, credit, prosperity, and tranquillity of
France became every day more evident. The form
of constitution to be settled, for its future polity, became more clear. We are now in a condition to discern with tolerable exactness the, true nature of
the object held up to our imitation. If the prudence
of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. The beginnings of confusion with us in England are at present feeble enough; but with you we have seen
an infancy still more feeble growing by moments
into a strength to heap mountains upon mountains,
and to wage war with Heaven itself. Whenever our
neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for
the engines to play a little on our own. Better to
be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.
Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country, but by no means unconcerned for yours, I wish
to communicate more largely what was at first intended only for your private satisfaction. I shall
still keep your affairs in my eye, and continue to
address myself to you. Indulging myself in the freedom of epistolary intercourse, I beg leave to throw out my thoughts and express my feelings just as
they arise in my mind, with very little attention to
formal method. I set out with the proceedings of
the Revolution Society; but I shall not confine myself to them. Is it possible I should? It looks to
me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs
of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more
than Europe. All circumstances taken together, the
French Revolution is the most astonishing that has
? ? ? ? 244 REFLECTIONS ON THE
hitherto happened in the world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous, in the most
ridiculous modes, and apparently by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity,
and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all
sorts of follies. In viewing this monstrous tragicomic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily succeed and sometimes mix with each other in the
mind: alternate contempt and indignation, alternate
laughter and tears, alternate scorn and horror.
It cannot, however, be denied that to some this
strange scene appeared in quite another point of
view. Into them it inspired no other sentiments than
those of exultation and rapture. They saw nothing
in what has been done in France but a firm and
temperate exertion of freedom, -so consistent, on
the whole, with morals and with piety as to make it
deserving not only of the secular applause of dashing
Machiavelian politicians, but to render it a fit theme
for all the devout effusions of sacred eloquence.
On the forenoon of the fourth of November last,
Doctor Richard Price, a Non-Conforming minister of
eminence, preached at the Dissenting meeting-house
of the Old Jewry, to his club or society, a very extraordinary miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some good moral and religious sentiments, and not
ill expressed, mixed up with a sort of porridge of
various political opinions and reflections: but the
Revolution in France is the grand ingredient in the
caldron. I consider the address transmitted by the
Revolution Society to the National Assembly, through
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 245
Earl Stanhope, as originating in the principles of the
sermon, and as a corollary from them. It was moved
by the preacher of that discourse. It was passed by
those who came reeking from the effect of the sermon, without any censure or qualification, expressed
or implied. If, however, any of the gentlemen concerned shall wish to separate the sermon from the
resolution, they know how to acknowledge the one
and to disavow the other. They may do it: I cannot.
For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public declaration of a man much connected with literary caballers and intriguing philosophers, with political theologians and theological politicians, both at home and abroad. I know they set him up as
a sort of oracle; because, with the best intentions in
the world, he naturally philippizes, and chants his
prophetic song in exact unison with their designs.
That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not
been heard in this kingdom, in any of the pulpits
which are tolerated or encouraged in it, since the
year 1648, --when a predecessor of Dr. Price, the
Reverend Hugh Peters, made the vault of the king's
own chapel at St. James's ring with the honor and
privilege of the saints, who, with the " high praises
of God in their mouths, and a two-edgedi sword in
their hands, were to execute judgment on the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their
kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of
iron. " * Few harangues from the pulpit, except in
the days of your League in France, or in the days of
our Solemn League and Covenant in England, have
ever breathed less of the spirit of moderation thaa
*Ps. cxlix.
? ? ? ? 246 REFLECTIONS ON THE
this lecture in the Old Jewry. Supposing, however,
that something like moderation were visible in this
political sermon, yet politics and the pulpit are terms
that have little agreement. No sound ought to be
heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper
character to assume what does not belong to them
are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they
are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its
affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions
they excite. Surely the church is a place where one
day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and
animosities of mankind.
This pulpit style, revived after so long a discontinuance, had to me the air of novelty, and of a novelty
not wholly without danger. I do not charge this
danger equally to every part of the discourse. The
hint given to a noble and reverend lay-divine, who is
supposed high in office in one of our universities,*
and other lay-divines " of rank and literature," may be
proper and seasonable, though somewhat new. If the
noble Seekers should find nothing to satisfy their pious
fancies in the old staple of the national Church, or
in all the rich variety to be found in the well-assorted
warehouses of the Dissenting congregations, Dr. Price
advises them to improve upon Non-Conformity, and
to set up, each of them, a separate meeting-house
* Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr.
Richard Price, 3d edition, p. 17 and 18.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 247
upon his own particular principles. * It is somewhat
remarkable that this reverend divine should be so
earnest for setting up new churches, and so perfectly indifferent concerning the doctrine which may be
taught in them. His zeal is of a curious character.
It is not for the propagation of his own opinions, but
of any opinions. It is not for the diffusion of truth,
but for the spreading of contradiction. Let the noble
teachers but dissent, it is no matter from whom or
from what. This great point once secured, it is
taken for granted their religion will be rational and
manly. I doubt whether religion would reap all
the benefits which the calculating divine computes
from this "great company of great preachers. " It
would certainly be a valuable addition of nondescripts
to the ample collection of known classes, genera, and
species, which at present beautify the hortus siccus of
Dissent. A sermon from a noble duke, or a noble
marquis, or a noble earl, or baron bold, would certainly increase and diversify the amusements of this
town, which begins to grow satiated with the uniform
round of its' vapid dissipations. I should only stipulate that these new Mess-Johns in robes and coronets
should keep some sort of bounds in the democratic
and levelling principles which are expected from
their titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare
say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them.
They will not become, literally as well as figuratively,
* Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed by
public authority ought, if they can find no worship out of the Church
which they approve, to set up a separate worship for themselves; and by
doing this, and giving an example of a rational and manly worship,
men of weight from their rank and literature may do the greatest service to society and the world. " -P. 18, Dr. Price's Sermon.
? ? ? ? 248 REFLECTIONS ON THE
polemic divines, --nor be disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former blessed times,
preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and
corps of infantry and artillery. Such arrangements,
however favorable to the cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally conducive to the national tranquillity. These few restrictions I hope are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of despotism.
But I may say of our preacher,'" Utinam nugis tota
illa dedisset tempora scevitice. " All things in this his
fulminating bull are not of so innoxious a tendency.
His doctrines affect our Constitution in its vital parts.
He tells the Revolution Society, in this political sermon, that his Majesty " is almost the only lawful king
in the world, because the only one who owes his crown
to the choice of his people. " As to the kings of the
world, all of whom (except one) this arch-pontiff of
the rights of men, with all the plenitude and with
more than the boldness of the Papal deposing power
in its meridian fervor of the twelfth century, puts
into one sweeping clause of ban and anathema, and
proclaims usurpers by circles of longitude and latitude over the whole globe, it behooves them to consider how they admit into their territories these
apostolic missionaries, who are to tell their subjects
they are not lawful kings. That is their concern.
It is ours, as a domestic interest of some moment,
seriously to consider the solidity of the only principle
upon which these gentlemen acknowledge a king of
Great Britain to be entitled to their allegiance.
This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the
British throne, either is nonsense, and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms a most unfounded,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 249
dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position. According to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his Majesty does not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no lawful king. Now nothing can be
more untrue than that the crown of this kingdom is
so held by his Majesty. Therefore, if you follow their
rule, the king of Great Britain, who most certainly
does not owe his high office to any form of popular
election, is in no respect better than the rest of the
gang of usurpers, who reign, or rather rob, all over
the face of this our miserable world, without any sort
of right or title to the allegiance of their people. The
policy of this general doctrine, so qualified, is evident
enough. The propagators of this political gospel are
in hopes their abstract principle (their principle that
a popular choice is necessary to the legal existence
of the sovereign magistracy) would be overlooked,
whilst the king of Great Britain was not affected
by it. In the mean time the ears of their congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as if
it were a first principle admitted without dispute.
For the present it would only operate as a theory,
pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence,
and laid by for future use. Condo et compono quce mox
depromere possim. By this policy, whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favor, to
which it has no claim, the security which it has in
common with all governments, so far as opinion is
security, is taken away.
Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice
is taken of their doctrines; but when they come to
be examined upon the plain meaning of their words
and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then equivocations and slippery constructions come into play.
? ? ? ? 250 REFLECTIONS ON THE
When they say the king owes his crown to the choice
of his people, and is therefore the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they mean to say no more than that some of the king's
predecessors have been called to the throne by some
sort of choice, and therefore he owes his crown to
the choice of his people. Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. They are welcome to the
asylum they seek for their offence, since they take
refuge in their folly. For, if you admit this interpretation, how does their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? And how does the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line, derived from James the First, come to legalize our monarchy
rather than that of any of the neighboring countries?
At some time or other, to be sure, all the beginners
of dynasties were chosen by those who called them
to govern. There is ground enough for the opinion
that all the kingdoms of Europe were at a remote
period elective, with more or fewer limitations in the
objects of choice. But whatever kings might have
been here or elsewhere a thousand years ago, or in
whatever manner the ruling dynasties of England or
France may have begun, the king of Great Britain is
at this day king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty are
performed by him, (as they are performed,) he holds
his crown in contempt of the choice of the Revollltion Society, who have not a single vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively:
though I make no doubt they would soon erect them
selves into an electoral college, if things were ripe to
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. I5t
give effect to their claim. His Majesty's heirs tnd'
successors, each in his time and order, will come to
the crown with the same contempt of their choice
with which his Majesty has succeeded to that he
wears.
Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross error of fact, which supposes that
his Majesty (though he holds it in concurrence with
the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people, yet nothing can evade their full, explicit declaration concerning the principle of a right in the people to choose, --which right is directly maintained, and
tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique insinuations
concerning election bottom in this proposition, and
are referable to it. Lest the foundation of the king's
exclusive legal title should pass for a mere rant of
adulatory freedom(iihe political divine proceeds dogmatically to assert,* that, by the principles of the
Revolution, the people of England have acquired
three fundamental rights, all of which, with him,
compose one system, and lie together in one short
sentence: namely, that we have acquired a right
1. "To choose our own governors. "
2. "To cashier them for misconduct. "
3. "To frame a government for ourselves. "
This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights,
though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only.
The body of the people of England have no share
in it. They utterly disclaim it. They will resist the
practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes.
They are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution which
* P. 34, Discourse on the Love of our Country, by Dr. Price.
? ? ? ? 252 REFLECTIONS ON THE
-is appealed to in favor of the fictitious rights claimed
by the society which abuses its name.
These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about forty years before,
and the late French Revolution, so much before their
eyes and in their hearts, that they are constantly
confounding all the three together. It is necessary
that we should separate what they confound. We
must recall their erring fancies to the acts of the
Revolution which we revere, for the discovery of its
true principles. If'the principles of the Revolution
of 1688 are anywhere to be found, it is in the statute called the Declaration of Right. In that most wise, sober, and considerate declaration, drawn up
by great lawyers and great statesmen, and not by
warm and inexperienced enthusiasts, not one word
is said, nor one suggestion made, of a general right
"to choose our own governors, to cashier them for
misconduct, and to form a government for ourselves. "
This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of
William and Mary, sess. 2, ch. 2) is the corner-stone
of our Constitution, as reinforced, explained, improved,
and in its fundamental principles forever settled. It
is called " An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and for settling the succession of the crown.
" You will observe that these rights and
this succession are declared in one body, and bound
indissolubly together.
A few years after this period, a second opportunity
offered for asserting a right of election to the crown.
On the prospect of a total failure of issue from King
William, and from the princess, afterwards Queen
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. %E53
Anne, the consideration of the settlement of the
crown, and of a further security for the liberties of
the people, again came before the legislature. Did
they this second time make any provision for legalizing the crown on the spurious Revolution principles
of the Old Jewry? No. They followed the principles which prevailed in the Declaration of Right; indicating with more precision the persons who were
to inherit in the Protestant line. This act also incorporated, by the same policy, our liberties and an
hereditary succession in the se'ne act. Instead of
a right to choose our own governors, they declared
that the succession in that line (the Protestant line
drawn from James the First) was absolutely necessary
" for the peace, quiet, and security of the realm," and
that it was equally urgent on them " to maintain a
certainty in the succession thereof, to which the subjects
may safely have recourse for their protection. " Both
these acts, in which are heard the unerring, unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the delusive gypsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors," prove to a demonstration
how totally adverse the wisdom of the nation was from
turning a case of necessity into a rule of law.
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the
person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary
succession; but it is against all genuine principles of
jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made
in a special case and regarding an individual person.
Privilegiurn non transit in exemplum. If ever there
was a time favorable for establishing the principle
that a king of popular choice was the only legal king,
without all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not
? ? ? ? 254 REFLECTIONS ON THE
being done at that time is a proof that the nation
was of opinion it ought not to be done at any time.
There is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to know that the majority in Parliament,
of both parties, were so little disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince of Orange, but on that of his wife, Mary,
daughter of King James, the eldest born of the issue
of that king, which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his. It would4 be to repeat a very trite story, to
recall to your memory all those circumstances which
demonstrated that their accepting King William was
not properly a choice; but to all those who did not
wish in effect to recall King James, or to deluge
their country in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into the peril they had just
escaped, it was an act of necessity, in the strictest
moral sense in which necessity can be taken.
In the very act in which, for a time, and in a single case, Parliament departed from the strict order
of inheritance, in favor of a prince who, though not
next, was, however, very near in the line of succession,
it is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew
the bill called the Declaration of Right, has comported himself on that delicate occasion. It is curious to observe with what address this temporary
solution of continuity is kept from the eye; whilst all
that could be found in this act of necessity to countenance the idea of an hereditary succession is brought
forward, and fostered, and made the most of, by this
great man, and by the legislature who followed him.
Quitting the dry, imperative style of an act of Parliament, he makes the Lords and Commons fall to a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 255
pious legislative ejaculation, and declare that they
consider it " as a marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to preserve their
said Majesties' royal persons most happily to reign
over us on the throne of their ancestors, for which,
from the bottom of their hearts, they return their
humblest thanks and praises. " The legislature
plainly had in view the Act of Recognition of the first
of Queen Elizabeth, chap. 3rd, and of that of James
the First, chap. 1st, both acts strongly declaratory of
the inheritable nature of the crown; and in many
parts they follow, with a nearly literal precision, the
words, and even the form of thanksgiving which is
found in these old declaratory statutes.
The two Houses, in the act of King William, did
not thank God that they had found a fair opportunity
to assert a right to choose their own governors, much
less to make an election the only lawful title to the
crown. Their having been in a condition to avoid
the very appearance of it, as much as possible, was
by them considered as a providential escape. They
threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the
meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they had then settled forever. Accordingly, that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy, and that they might preserve a close conformity to the practice of their ancestors, as it appeared in the declaratory statutes
of Queen Mary* and Queen Elizabeth, in the next
clause they vest, by recognition, in their Majesties
all the legal prerogatives of the crown, declaring
* 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1.
? ? ? ? 256 REFLECTIONS ON THE
"that in them they are most fully, rightfully, and
entirely invested, incorporated, united, and annexed. "
In the clause which follows, for preventing questions,
by reason of any pretended titles to the crown, they
declare (observing also in this the traditionary language, along with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a rubric the language
of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that
on the preserving " a certainty in the SUCCESSION
thereof the unity, peace, and tranquillity of this;ration doth, under God, wholly depend. "
They knew that a doubtful title of succession
would but too much resemble an election, and that
an election would be utterly destructive of the
" unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation," which
they thought to be considerations of some moment.
To provide for these objects, and therefore to exclude
forever the Old Jewry doctrine of " a right to choose
our own governors," they follow with a clause containing a most solemn pledge, taken from the preceding act of Queen Elizabeth, - as solemnn a pledge as ever was or can be given in favor of an hereditary
succession, and as solemn a renunciation as could
be made of the principles by this society imputed
to them:- " The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves,
their heirs, and posterities forever; and do faithfully
promise that they will stand to, maintain, and
defend their said Majesties, and also the limitation
of the crown, herein specified and contained, to the
utmost of their powers," &c. , &c.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a
right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 257
we had possessed it before, the English nation did
at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate
it, for themselves, and for all their posterity forever.
These gentlemen may value themselves as much as
they please on their Whig principles; but I never
desire to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to understand the principles of the Revolution better than those by whom it was brought about, or to read in the Declaration of Right any mysteries
unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances, and in our hearts, the
words and spirit of that immortal law.
It is true, that, aided with the powers derived fromforce and opportunity, the nation was at that time'.
in some sense, free to take what course it pleased fo3r
filling the throne, -but only free to do so upon the
same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their monarchy, and every other part of their
Constitution. However, they did not think such bold'
changes within their commission. It is, indeed, difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere
abstract competence of the supreme power, such as
was exercised by Parliament at that time; but the
limits of a moral competence, subjecting, even in
powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will
to permanent reason, and to the steady maxims of
faith, justice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding upon those
who exercise any authority, under anlly name, or under any title, in the state. The House of Lords, for
instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the
House of Commons, - no, nor even to dissolve itself,
nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom. Though a king may abdicate
VOL. III. 17
? ? ? ? 258 REFLECTIONS ON THE
for his own person, he callnot abdicate for the mono
archy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the
House of Commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement and pact of society, which
generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbiids such invasion and such surrender. The constituent parts of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all those who
derive any serious interest under their engagements,
as much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith
with separate communities: otherwise, competence
and power would soon be confounded, and no law be
left but the will of a prevailing force. | On this principle, the succession of the crown has always been
what it now is, an hereditary succession by law: in
the old line it was a succession by the Common Law;
in the new by the statute law, operating on the principles of the Common Law, not changing the substance, but regulating the mode and describing the persons. Both these descriptions of law are of the
same force, and are derived from an equal authority,
emanating from the common agreement and original
compact of the state, communi sponsione reipublicce,
and as such are equally binding on king, and people
too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the same body politic.
It is far from impossible to reconcile, if we do not
suffer ourselves to be entangled in the mazes of metaphysic sophistry, the use both of a fixed rule and an
occasional deviation,- the sacredness of an hereditary principle of succession in our government with a
power of change in its application in cases of extreme
emergency. Even in that extremity, (if we take the
measure of our rights by our exercise of them at the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 259
Revolution,) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only,- to the part which produced the necessary deviation; and even then it is to be effected without a decomposition of the whole civil and political mass, for the purpose of originating a new civil
order out of the first elements of society.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such
means it might even risk the loss of that part of the
Constitution which it wished the most religiously to
preserve. The two principles of conservation and
correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England
found itself without a king. At both those periods
the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient
edifice: they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old Constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these
old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the
ancient organized states in the shape of their old
organization, and not by the organic moleculce of a
disbanded people. At no time, perhaps, did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to
that fundamental principle of British constitutional
policy than at the time of the Revolution, when it
deviated from the direct line of hereditary succession.
The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in
which it had before moved; but the new line was
derived from the same stock. It was still a line of
hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in the
same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified
with Protestantism. When the legislature altered
? ? ? ? 260 REFLECTIONS ON THE
the direction, but kept the principle, they showed
that they held it inviolable.
On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted some amendment in the old time, and long
before the era of the Revolution. Some time after
the Conquest great questions arose upon the legal
principles of hereditary descent. It became a matter
of doubt whether the heir per capita or the heir per
stirpes was to succeed; but whether the heir per capita gave way when the heirdom per stirpes took place, or the Catholic heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable principle survived with a sort
of immortality through all transmigrations, --
Multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domfis, et avi numerantur avorum.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its
settled course, but in all its revolutions. Whoever
came in, or however he came in, whether he obtained
the _crown by law or by force, the hereditary successiAh was either continued or adopted.
The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see
nothing in that of 1688 but the deviation from the
Constitution; and they take the deviation from the
principle for the principle. They have little regard
to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though
they may see that it leaves positive authority in very
few of the positive institutions of this country. When
such an unwarrantable maxim is once established,
that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act
of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid. Do these theorists mean to imitate some of their predecessors, who dragged the bodies
of our ancient sovereigns out of the quiet of their
tombs? Do they mean to attaint and disable back
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 261
wards all the kings that have reigned before the
Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of
England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
Do they mean to invalidate, annul, or to call into
question, together with the titles of the whole line
of our kings, that great body of our statute law which
passed under. those whom they treat as usurpers? to
annul laws of inestimable value to our liberties, - of
as great value at least as any which have passed at
or since the period of the Revolution? If kings who
did not owe their crown to the choice of their people
had no title to mako laws, what will become of the
statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of
Bight. ? of the act of Habeas Corpus? Do these new
doctors of the rights of men presume to assert that
King James the Second, who came to the crown as
next of blood, according to the rules of a then unqualified succession, was not to all intents and purposes a lawful king of England, before he had done any of those acts which were justly construed into
an abdication of his crown? If he was not, much
trouble in Parliament might have been saved at the
period these gentlemen commemorate. But King
James was a bad king with a good title, and not
an usurper. The princes who succeeded according
to the act of Parliament which settled the crown on
the Electress Sophia and on her descendants, being
Protestants, came in as much by a title of inheritance as Kiing James did. He came in according
to the law, as it stood at his accession to the crown;
and the princes of the House of Brunswick came to
the inheritance of the crown, not by election, but by
the law, as it stood at their several accessions, of
Protestant descent and inheritance, as I hope I have
shown sufficiently.
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The law by which this royal family'is specifically
destined to the succession is the act of the 12th and
13th of King William. The terms of this act bind
" us, and our heirs, and our posterity, to them, their
heirs, and their posterity," being Protestants, to the
end of time, in the same words as the Declaration
of Right had bound us to the heirs of King William
and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except the constitutional policy of forming
an establishment to secure that kind of succession
which is to preclude a choice of the people forever,
could the legislature have fastidiously rejected the
fair and abundant choice which our own country
presented to them, and searched in strange lands
for a foreign princess, from whose womb the line of
our future rulers were to derive their title to govern
millions of men through a series of ages?
The Princess Sophia was named in the act of settlement of the 12th and 13th of King William, for
a stock and root of inheritance to our kings, and not
for her merits as a temporary administratrix of a
power which she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise. She was adopted for one reason, and for one only, - because, says the act, " the most
excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess
Dowager of Hanover, is daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord King James the
First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be
the next in succession in the Protestant line," &c. ,
&c. ;" and the crown shall continue to the heirs of
her body, being Protestants. " This limitation was
made by Parliament, that through the Princess
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 263
Sophia an inheritable line not only was to be continued in future, but (what they thought very material) that through her it was to be connected with the old stock of inheritance in King James the First;
in order that the monarchy might preserve an uin
broken unity through all ages, and might be preserved
(with safety to our religion) in the old approved mode
by descent, in which, if our liberties had been once
endangered, they had often, through all storms and
struggles of prerogative and privilege, been preserved.
Tlhey did well. No experience has taught us that
in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated
and preserved sacred as our hereditary right. An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to
throw off an irregular, convulsive disease. But the
course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution. Was. it that the legislature wanted, at the act for the limitation of the crown in the Hanoverian line, drawn through the female descendants of James the First, a due sense of the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly more, foreigners in succession to the British throne? No!
-they had a due sense of the evils which might
happen from such foreign rule, and more tllan a due
sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot
be given of the full conviction of the British nation
that the principles of the Revolution did not authorize them to elect kings at their pleasure, and without
any attention to the ancient fundamental principles
of our government, than their continuing to adopt
a plan of hereditary Protestant succession in the old
line, with all the dangers and all the inconveniences
of its being a foreign line full before their eyes,
? ? ? ? 264 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and operating with the utmost force upon their
minds.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the
then unnecessary support of any argument; but this
seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly
taught, avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to
revolutions, the signals for which have so often been
given from pulpits, -- the spirit of change that is gone
abroad, -the total contempt which prevails with you,
and may come to prevail with us, of all ancient ilnstitutions, when set in opposition to a present sense of convenience, or to the bent of a present inclination,all these considerations make it not unadvisable, in my opinion, to call back our attention to the true principles of our own domestic laws, that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and that we should
continue to cherish them. We ought not, on either
side of the water, to suffer ourselves to be imposed
upon by the counterfeit wares which some persons,
by a double fraud, export to you in illicit bottoms,
as raw commodities of British growth, though wholly
alien to our soil, in order afterwards to smuggle them
back again into this country, manufactured after the
newest Paris fashion of an improved liberty.
The people of England will not ape the fashions
they have never tried, nor go back to those which
they have found mischievous on trial. They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs, - as
a benefit, not as a grievance, -- as a security for their
liberty, not as a badge of servitude. They look on
the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands,
to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 265
undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge
of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our Constitution.
I shall beg leave, before I go any further, to take
notice of some paltry artifices which the abettors of
election as the only lawful title to the crown are
ready to employ, in order to render the support of
the just principles of our Constitution a task somewhat invidious. These sophisters substitute a fictitious cause, and feigned personages, in whose favor they suppose you engaged, whenever you defend the
inheritable nature of the crown. It is common with
them to dispute as if they were in a conflict with some
of those exploded fanatics of slavery who formerly
maintained, what I believe no creature now maintains, " that the crown is held by divine, hereditary,
and indefeasible right. " These old fanatics of single
arbitrary power dogmatized as if hereditary royalty
was the only lawful government in the world, --just
as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary power maintain that a popular election is the sole lawful source
of authority. The old prerogative enthusiasts, it is
true, did speculate foolishly, and perhaps impiously
too, as if monarchy had more of a divine sanction
than any other mode of government, --and as if a
right to govern by inheritance were in strictness indefeasible in every person who should be found in the
succession to a throne, and under every circumstance, which no civil or political right can be. But
all absurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary
right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law anld
policy. If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are con.
? ? ? ? 266 REFLECTIONS ON THE
versant, we should have no law and no religion left
in the world. But an absurd theory on one side of a
question forms no justification for alleging a false fact
or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
The second claim of the Revolution Society is' a
right of cashiering their governors for mnisconduct. "
Perhaps the apprehensions our ancestors entertained
of forming such a precedent as that "' of cashiering
for misconduct" was the cause that the declaration
of the act which implied the abdication of King
James was, if it had any fault, rather too guarded
and too circumstantial. * But all this guard, and all
this accumulation of circumstances, serves to show the
spirit of caution which predominated in the national
councils, in a situation in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt
to abandon themselves to violent and extreme courses;
it shows the anxiety of the great men who influenced
the conduct of affairs at that great event to make
the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
No government could stand a moment, if it could
be blown down with anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of " misconduct. " They who led at
the Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of
King James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They charged him with nothing less than a
design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts,
* (That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
Constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between
king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violatcd the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant. "
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 267
to subvert the Protestant Church and State, and their
fundamental, unquestionable laws and liberties: they
charged him with having broken the original contract
between king and people. This was more than misconduct. A grave and overruling necessity obliged
them to take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all
laws. Their trust for the future preservation of the
Constitution was not in future revolutions. The
grand policy of all their regulations was to render it
almost impracticable for any future sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown,
what in the eye and estimation of law it had ever
been, perfectly irresponsible. In order to lighten the
crown still further, they aggravated responsibility on
ministers of state. By the statute of the first ot
King William, sess. 2d, called "' the act for declaring
the rights and liberties of the subject, and for settling
the succession of the crown," they enacted that the
ministers should serve the crown on the terms of
that declaration. They secured soon after the frequent meetings of Parliament, by which the whole government would be under the constant inspection
and active control of the popular representative and
of the magnates of the kingdom. In the next great
constitutional act, that of the 12th and 13th of King
William, for the further limitation of the crown, and
better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,
they provided " that no pardon under the great seal of
England should be pleadable to an impeachment by
the Commons in Parliament. " The rule laid down
for government in the Declaration of Right, the constant inspection of Parliament, the practical claim of
?
edly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 241
good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago,
have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government, (for she then had a government,) without
inquiry what the nature of that government was, or
how it was administered? Can I now congratulate
the same nation upon its freedom? Is it because
liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the
blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate
a madman who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell on his
restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty?
Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer
who has brok. 0 _rison upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again thescene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and: their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the.
Sorrowful Countenance.
When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a,
strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all
I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed
air, is plainly broker loose: but we ought to suspend
our judgment until the first effervescence is a little
subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see
something deeper than the agitation of a troubled:
and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before.
I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a bless --
ing, that they have really received one. Flattery
corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to
kings. - I should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government, with public force, with the discipline and obedience'
of armies, with the collection of an effective and'
VOL. III. lb
? ? ? ? 242 REFLECTIONS ON THE
well-distributed revenue, with morality and religion,
with solidity and property, with peace and order,
with civil and social manners. All these (in their
way) are good things, too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not'likely
to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought
to see what it will please them to do, before we risk
congratulations, which may be soon turned into conmplaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men. But liberty, when
men act in bodies, is power. Considerate people,
before they declare themselves, will observe the use
which is made of power, --and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions they have little
or no experience, and in situations where those who
appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly
not be the real movers.
All these considerations, however, were below the
transcendental dignity of the Revolution Society.
Whilst I continued in the country, from whence I
had the honor of writing to you, I had but an imperfect idea of their transactions. On my coming
to town, I sent for an account of their proceedings,
which had been published by their authority, containing a sermon of Dr. Price, with the Duke de Rochefoucault's and the Archbishop of Aix's letter
and several other documents annexed. The whole
of that publication, with the manifest design of connecting the affairs of France with those of England, by drawing us into an imitation of the conduct
of the National Assembly, gave me a considerable
degree of uneasiness. The effect of that conduct
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 243
upon the power, credit, prosperity, and tranquillity of
France became every day more evident. The form
of constitution to be settled, for its future polity, became more clear. We are now in a condition to discern with tolerable exactness the, true nature of
the object held up to our imitation. If the prudence
of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. The beginnings of confusion with us in England are at present feeble enough; but with you we have seen
an infancy still more feeble growing by moments
into a strength to heap mountains upon mountains,
and to wage war with Heaven itself. Whenever our
neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for
the engines to play a little on our own. Better to
be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.
Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country, but by no means unconcerned for yours, I wish
to communicate more largely what was at first intended only for your private satisfaction. I shall
still keep your affairs in my eye, and continue to
address myself to you. Indulging myself in the freedom of epistolary intercourse, I beg leave to throw out my thoughts and express my feelings just as
they arise in my mind, with very little attention to
formal method. I set out with the proceedings of
the Revolution Society; but I shall not confine myself to them. Is it possible I should? It looks to
me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs
of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more
than Europe. All circumstances taken together, the
French Revolution is the most astonishing that has
? ? ? ? 244 REFLECTIONS ON THE
hitherto happened in the world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous, in the most
ridiculous modes, and apparently by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity,
and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all
sorts of follies. In viewing this monstrous tragicomic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily succeed and sometimes mix with each other in the
mind: alternate contempt and indignation, alternate
laughter and tears, alternate scorn and horror.
It cannot, however, be denied that to some this
strange scene appeared in quite another point of
view. Into them it inspired no other sentiments than
those of exultation and rapture. They saw nothing
in what has been done in France but a firm and
temperate exertion of freedom, -so consistent, on
the whole, with morals and with piety as to make it
deserving not only of the secular applause of dashing
Machiavelian politicians, but to render it a fit theme
for all the devout effusions of sacred eloquence.
On the forenoon of the fourth of November last,
Doctor Richard Price, a Non-Conforming minister of
eminence, preached at the Dissenting meeting-house
of the Old Jewry, to his club or society, a very extraordinary miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some good moral and religious sentiments, and not
ill expressed, mixed up with a sort of porridge of
various political opinions and reflections: but the
Revolution in France is the grand ingredient in the
caldron. I consider the address transmitted by the
Revolution Society to the National Assembly, through
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 245
Earl Stanhope, as originating in the principles of the
sermon, and as a corollary from them. It was moved
by the preacher of that discourse. It was passed by
those who came reeking from the effect of the sermon, without any censure or qualification, expressed
or implied. If, however, any of the gentlemen concerned shall wish to separate the sermon from the
resolution, they know how to acknowledge the one
and to disavow the other. They may do it: I cannot.
For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public declaration of a man much connected with literary caballers and intriguing philosophers, with political theologians and theological politicians, both at home and abroad. I know they set him up as
a sort of oracle; because, with the best intentions in
the world, he naturally philippizes, and chants his
prophetic song in exact unison with their designs.
That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not
been heard in this kingdom, in any of the pulpits
which are tolerated or encouraged in it, since the
year 1648, --when a predecessor of Dr. Price, the
Reverend Hugh Peters, made the vault of the king's
own chapel at St. James's ring with the honor and
privilege of the saints, who, with the " high praises
of God in their mouths, and a two-edgedi sword in
their hands, were to execute judgment on the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their
kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of
iron. " * Few harangues from the pulpit, except in
the days of your League in France, or in the days of
our Solemn League and Covenant in England, have
ever breathed less of the spirit of moderation thaa
*Ps. cxlix.
? ? ? ? 246 REFLECTIONS ON THE
this lecture in the Old Jewry. Supposing, however,
that something like moderation were visible in this
political sermon, yet politics and the pulpit are terms
that have little agreement. No sound ought to be
heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper
character to assume what does not belong to them
are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they
are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its
affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions
they excite. Surely the church is a place where one
day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and
animosities of mankind.
This pulpit style, revived after so long a discontinuance, had to me the air of novelty, and of a novelty
not wholly without danger. I do not charge this
danger equally to every part of the discourse. The
hint given to a noble and reverend lay-divine, who is
supposed high in office in one of our universities,*
and other lay-divines " of rank and literature," may be
proper and seasonable, though somewhat new. If the
noble Seekers should find nothing to satisfy their pious
fancies in the old staple of the national Church, or
in all the rich variety to be found in the well-assorted
warehouses of the Dissenting congregations, Dr. Price
advises them to improve upon Non-Conformity, and
to set up, each of them, a separate meeting-house
* Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr.
Richard Price, 3d edition, p. 17 and 18.
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 247
upon his own particular principles. * It is somewhat
remarkable that this reverend divine should be so
earnest for setting up new churches, and so perfectly indifferent concerning the doctrine which may be
taught in them. His zeal is of a curious character.
It is not for the propagation of his own opinions, but
of any opinions. It is not for the diffusion of truth,
but for the spreading of contradiction. Let the noble
teachers but dissent, it is no matter from whom or
from what. This great point once secured, it is
taken for granted their religion will be rational and
manly. I doubt whether religion would reap all
the benefits which the calculating divine computes
from this "great company of great preachers. " It
would certainly be a valuable addition of nondescripts
to the ample collection of known classes, genera, and
species, which at present beautify the hortus siccus of
Dissent. A sermon from a noble duke, or a noble
marquis, or a noble earl, or baron bold, would certainly increase and diversify the amusements of this
town, which begins to grow satiated with the uniform
round of its' vapid dissipations. I should only stipulate that these new Mess-Johns in robes and coronets
should keep some sort of bounds in the democratic
and levelling principles which are expected from
their titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare
say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them.
They will not become, literally as well as figuratively,
* Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed by
public authority ought, if they can find no worship out of the Church
which they approve, to set up a separate worship for themselves; and by
doing this, and giving an example of a rational and manly worship,
men of weight from their rank and literature may do the greatest service to society and the world. " -P. 18, Dr. Price's Sermon.
? ? ? ? 248 REFLECTIONS ON THE
polemic divines, --nor be disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former blessed times,
preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and
corps of infantry and artillery. Such arrangements,
however favorable to the cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally conducive to the national tranquillity. These few restrictions I hope are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of despotism.
But I may say of our preacher,'" Utinam nugis tota
illa dedisset tempora scevitice. " All things in this his
fulminating bull are not of so innoxious a tendency.
His doctrines affect our Constitution in its vital parts.
He tells the Revolution Society, in this political sermon, that his Majesty " is almost the only lawful king
in the world, because the only one who owes his crown
to the choice of his people. " As to the kings of the
world, all of whom (except one) this arch-pontiff of
the rights of men, with all the plenitude and with
more than the boldness of the Papal deposing power
in its meridian fervor of the twelfth century, puts
into one sweeping clause of ban and anathema, and
proclaims usurpers by circles of longitude and latitude over the whole globe, it behooves them to consider how they admit into their territories these
apostolic missionaries, who are to tell their subjects
they are not lawful kings. That is their concern.
It is ours, as a domestic interest of some moment,
seriously to consider the solidity of the only principle
upon which these gentlemen acknowledge a king of
Great Britain to be entitled to their allegiance.
This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the
British throne, either is nonsense, and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms a most unfounded,
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 249
dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position. According to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his Majesty does not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no lawful king. Now nothing can be
more untrue than that the crown of this kingdom is
so held by his Majesty. Therefore, if you follow their
rule, the king of Great Britain, who most certainly
does not owe his high office to any form of popular
election, is in no respect better than the rest of the
gang of usurpers, who reign, or rather rob, all over
the face of this our miserable world, without any sort
of right or title to the allegiance of their people. The
policy of this general doctrine, so qualified, is evident
enough. The propagators of this political gospel are
in hopes their abstract principle (their principle that
a popular choice is necessary to the legal existence
of the sovereign magistracy) would be overlooked,
whilst the king of Great Britain was not affected
by it. In the mean time the ears of their congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as if
it were a first principle admitted without dispute.
For the present it would only operate as a theory,
pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence,
and laid by for future use. Condo et compono quce mox
depromere possim. By this policy, whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favor, to
which it has no claim, the security which it has in
common with all governments, so far as opinion is
security, is taken away.
Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice
is taken of their doctrines; but when they come to
be examined upon the plain meaning of their words
and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then equivocations and slippery constructions come into play.
? ? ? ? 250 REFLECTIONS ON THE
When they say the king owes his crown to the choice
of his people, and is therefore the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they mean to say no more than that some of the king's
predecessors have been called to the throne by some
sort of choice, and therefore he owes his crown to
the choice of his people. Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. They are welcome to the
asylum they seek for their offence, since they take
refuge in their folly. For, if you admit this interpretation, how does their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? And how does the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line, derived from James the First, come to legalize our monarchy
rather than that of any of the neighboring countries?
At some time or other, to be sure, all the beginners
of dynasties were chosen by those who called them
to govern. There is ground enough for the opinion
that all the kingdoms of Europe were at a remote
period elective, with more or fewer limitations in the
objects of choice. But whatever kings might have
been here or elsewhere a thousand years ago, or in
whatever manner the ruling dynasties of England or
France may have begun, the king of Great Britain is
at this day king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty are
performed by him, (as they are performed,) he holds
his crown in contempt of the choice of the Revollltion Society, who have not a single vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively:
though I make no doubt they would soon erect them
selves into an electoral college, if things were ripe to
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. I5t
give effect to their claim. His Majesty's heirs tnd'
successors, each in his time and order, will come to
the crown with the same contempt of their choice
with which his Majesty has succeeded to that he
wears.
Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross error of fact, which supposes that
his Majesty (though he holds it in concurrence with
the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people, yet nothing can evade their full, explicit declaration concerning the principle of a right in the people to choose, --which right is directly maintained, and
tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique insinuations
concerning election bottom in this proposition, and
are referable to it. Lest the foundation of the king's
exclusive legal title should pass for a mere rant of
adulatory freedom(iihe political divine proceeds dogmatically to assert,* that, by the principles of the
Revolution, the people of England have acquired
three fundamental rights, all of which, with him,
compose one system, and lie together in one short
sentence: namely, that we have acquired a right
1. "To choose our own governors. "
2. "To cashier them for misconduct. "
3. "To frame a government for ourselves. "
This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights,
though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only.
The body of the people of England have no share
in it. They utterly disclaim it. They will resist the
practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes.
They are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very Revolution which
* P. 34, Discourse on the Love of our Country, by Dr. Price.
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-is appealed to in favor of the fictitious rights claimed
by the society which abuses its name.
These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about forty years before,
and the late French Revolution, so much before their
eyes and in their hearts, that they are constantly
confounding all the three together. It is necessary
that we should separate what they confound. We
must recall their erring fancies to the acts of the
Revolution which we revere, for the discovery of its
true principles. If'the principles of the Revolution
of 1688 are anywhere to be found, it is in the statute called the Declaration of Right. In that most wise, sober, and considerate declaration, drawn up
by great lawyers and great statesmen, and not by
warm and inexperienced enthusiasts, not one word
is said, nor one suggestion made, of a general right
"to choose our own governors, to cashier them for
misconduct, and to form a government for ourselves. "
This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of
William and Mary, sess. 2, ch. 2) is the corner-stone
of our Constitution, as reinforced, explained, improved,
and in its fundamental principles forever settled. It
is called " An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and for settling the succession of the crown.
" You will observe that these rights and
this succession are declared in one body, and bound
indissolubly together.
A few years after this period, a second opportunity
offered for asserting a right of election to the crown.
On the prospect of a total failure of issue from King
William, and from the princess, afterwards Queen
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. %E53
Anne, the consideration of the settlement of the
crown, and of a further security for the liberties of
the people, again came before the legislature. Did
they this second time make any provision for legalizing the crown on the spurious Revolution principles
of the Old Jewry? No. They followed the principles which prevailed in the Declaration of Right; indicating with more precision the persons who were
to inherit in the Protestant line. This act also incorporated, by the same policy, our liberties and an
hereditary succession in the se'ne act. Instead of
a right to choose our own governors, they declared
that the succession in that line (the Protestant line
drawn from James the First) was absolutely necessary
" for the peace, quiet, and security of the realm," and
that it was equally urgent on them " to maintain a
certainty in the succession thereof, to which the subjects
may safely have recourse for their protection. " Both
these acts, in which are heard the unerring, unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the delusive gypsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors," prove to a demonstration
how totally adverse the wisdom of the nation was from
turning a case of necessity into a rule of law.
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the
person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary
succession; but it is against all genuine principles of
jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made
in a special case and regarding an individual person.
Privilegiurn non transit in exemplum. If ever there
was a time favorable for establishing the principle
that a king of popular choice was the only legal king,
without all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not
? ? ? ? 254 REFLECTIONS ON THE
being done at that time is a proof that the nation
was of opinion it ought not to be done at any time.
There is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to know that the majority in Parliament,
of both parties, were so little disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince of Orange, but on that of his wife, Mary,
daughter of King James, the eldest born of the issue
of that king, which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his. It would4 be to repeat a very trite story, to
recall to your memory all those circumstances which
demonstrated that their accepting King William was
not properly a choice; but to all those who did not
wish in effect to recall King James, or to deluge
their country in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into the peril they had just
escaped, it was an act of necessity, in the strictest
moral sense in which necessity can be taken.
In the very act in which, for a time, and in a single case, Parliament departed from the strict order
of inheritance, in favor of a prince who, though not
next, was, however, very near in the line of succession,
it is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew
the bill called the Declaration of Right, has comported himself on that delicate occasion. It is curious to observe with what address this temporary
solution of continuity is kept from the eye; whilst all
that could be found in this act of necessity to countenance the idea of an hereditary succession is brought
forward, and fostered, and made the most of, by this
great man, and by the legislature who followed him.
Quitting the dry, imperative style of an act of Parliament, he makes the Lords and Commons fall to a
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 255
pious legislative ejaculation, and declare that they
consider it " as a marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to preserve their
said Majesties' royal persons most happily to reign
over us on the throne of their ancestors, for which,
from the bottom of their hearts, they return their
humblest thanks and praises. " The legislature
plainly had in view the Act of Recognition of the first
of Queen Elizabeth, chap. 3rd, and of that of James
the First, chap. 1st, both acts strongly declaratory of
the inheritable nature of the crown; and in many
parts they follow, with a nearly literal precision, the
words, and even the form of thanksgiving which is
found in these old declaratory statutes.
The two Houses, in the act of King William, did
not thank God that they had found a fair opportunity
to assert a right to choose their own governors, much
less to make an election the only lawful title to the
crown. Their having been in a condition to avoid
the very appearance of it, as much as possible, was
by them considered as a providential escape. They
threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the
meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they had then settled forever. Accordingly, that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy, and that they might preserve a close conformity to the practice of their ancestors, as it appeared in the declaratory statutes
of Queen Mary* and Queen Elizabeth, in the next
clause they vest, by recognition, in their Majesties
all the legal prerogatives of the crown, declaring
* 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1.
? ? ? ? 256 REFLECTIONS ON THE
"that in them they are most fully, rightfully, and
entirely invested, incorporated, united, and annexed. "
In the clause which follows, for preventing questions,
by reason of any pretended titles to the crown, they
declare (observing also in this the traditionary language, along with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a rubric the language
of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that
on the preserving " a certainty in the SUCCESSION
thereof the unity, peace, and tranquillity of this;ration doth, under God, wholly depend. "
They knew that a doubtful title of succession
would but too much resemble an election, and that
an election would be utterly destructive of the
" unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation," which
they thought to be considerations of some moment.
To provide for these objects, and therefore to exclude
forever the Old Jewry doctrine of " a right to choose
our own governors," they follow with a clause containing a most solemn pledge, taken from the preceding act of Queen Elizabeth, - as solemnn a pledge as ever was or can be given in favor of an hereditary
succession, and as solemn a renunciation as could
be made of the principles by this society imputed
to them:- " The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves,
their heirs, and posterities forever; and do faithfully
promise that they will stand to, maintain, and
defend their said Majesties, and also the limitation
of the crown, herein specified and contained, to the
utmost of their powers," &c. , &c.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a
right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 257
we had possessed it before, the English nation did
at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate
it, for themselves, and for all their posterity forever.
These gentlemen may value themselves as much as
they please on their Whig principles; but I never
desire to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to understand the principles of the Revolution better than those by whom it was brought about, or to read in the Declaration of Right any mysteries
unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances, and in our hearts, the
words and spirit of that immortal law.
It is true, that, aided with the powers derived fromforce and opportunity, the nation was at that time'.
in some sense, free to take what course it pleased fo3r
filling the throne, -but only free to do so upon the
same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their monarchy, and every other part of their
Constitution. However, they did not think such bold'
changes within their commission. It is, indeed, difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere
abstract competence of the supreme power, such as
was exercised by Parliament at that time; but the
limits of a moral competence, subjecting, even in
powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will
to permanent reason, and to the steady maxims of
faith, justice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding upon those
who exercise any authority, under anlly name, or under any title, in the state. The House of Lords, for
instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the
House of Commons, - no, nor even to dissolve itself,
nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom. Though a king may abdicate
VOL. III. 17
? ? ? ? 258 REFLECTIONS ON THE
for his own person, he callnot abdicate for the mono
archy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the
House of Commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement and pact of society, which
generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbiids such invasion and such surrender. The constituent parts of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all those who
derive any serious interest under their engagements,
as much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith
with separate communities: otherwise, competence
and power would soon be confounded, and no law be
left but the will of a prevailing force. | On this principle, the succession of the crown has always been
what it now is, an hereditary succession by law: in
the old line it was a succession by the Common Law;
in the new by the statute law, operating on the principles of the Common Law, not changing the substance, but regulating the mode and describing the persons. Both these descriptions of law are of the
same force, and are derived from an equal authority,
emanating from the common agreement and original
compact of the state, communi sponsione reipublicce,
and as such are equally binding on king, and people
too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the same body politic.
It is far from impossible to reconcile, if we do not
suffer ourselves to be entangled in the mazes of metaphysic sophistry, the use both of a fixed rule and an
occasional deviation,- the sacredness of an hereditary principle of succession in our government with a
power of change in its application in cases of extreme
emergency. Even in that extremity, (if we take the
measure of our rights by our exercise of them at the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 259
Revolution,) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only,- to the part which produced the necessary deviation; and even then it is to be effected without a decomposition of the whole civil and political mass, for the purpose of originating a new civil
order out of the first elements of society.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such
means it might even risk the loss of that part of the
Constitution which it wished the most religiously to
preserve. The two principles of conservation and
correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England
found itself without a king. At both those periods
the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient
edifice: they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old Constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these
old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the
ancient organized states in the shape of their old
organization, and not by the organic moleculce of a
disbanded people. At no time, perhaps, did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to
that fundamental principle of British constitutional
policy than at the time of the Revolution, when it
deviated from the direct line of hereditary succession.
The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in
which it had before moved; but the new line was
derived from the same stock. It was still a line of
hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in the
same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified
with Protestantism. When the legislature altered
? ? ? ? 260 REFLECTIONS ON THE
the direction, but kept the principle, they showed
that they held it inviolable.
On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted some amendment in the old time, and long
before the era of the Revolution. Some time after
the Conquest great questions arose upon the legal
principles of hereditary descent. It became a matter
of doubt whether the heir per capita or the heir per
stirpes was to succeed; but whether the heir per capita gave way when the heirdom per stirpes took place, or the Catholic heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable principle survived with a sort
of immortality through all transmigrations, --
Multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domfis, et avi numerantur avorum.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its
settled course, but in all its revolutions. Whoever
came in, or however he came in, whether he obtained
the _crown by law or by force, the hereditary successiAh was either continued or adopted.
The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see
nothing in that of 1688 but the deviation from the
Constitution; and they take the deviation from the
principle for the principle. They have little regard
to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though
they may see that it leaves positive authority in very
few of the positive institutions of this country. When
such an unwarrantable maxim is once established,
that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act
of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid. Do these theorists mean to imitate some of their predecessors, who dragged the bodies
of our ancient sovereigns out of the quiet of their
tombs? Do they mean to attaint and disable back
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 261
wards all the kings that have reigned before the
Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of
England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
Do they mean to invalidate, annul, or to call into
question, together with the titles of the whole line
of our kings, that great body of our statute law which
passed under. those whom they treat as usurpers? to
annul laws of inestimable value to our liberties, - of
as great value at least as any which have passed at
or since the period of the Revolution? If kings who
did not owe their crown to the choice of their people
had no title to mako laws, what will become of the
statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of
Bight. ? of the act of Habeas Corpus? Do these new
doctors of the rights of men presume to assert that
King James the Second, who came to the crown as
next of blood, according to the rules of a then unqualified succession, was not to all intents and purposes a lawful king of England, before he had done any of those acts which were justly construed into
an abdication of his crown? If he was not, much
trouble in Parliament might have been saved at the
period these gentlemen commemorate. But King
James was a bad king with a good title, and not
an usurper. The princes who succeeded according
to the act of Parliament which settled the crown on
the Electress Sophia and on her descendants, being
Protestants, came in as much by a title of inheritance as Kiing James did. He came in according
to the law, as it stood at his accession to the crown;
and the princes of the House of Brunswick came to
the inheritance of the crown, not by election, but by
the law, as it stood at their several accessions, of
Protestant descent and inheritance, as I hope I have
shown sufficiently.
? ? ? ? 262 REFLECTIONS ON THE
The law by which this royal family'is specifically
destined to the succession is the act of the 12th and
13th of King William. The terms of this act bind
" us, and our heirs, and our posterity, to them, their
heirs, and their posterity," being Protestants, to the
end of time, in the same words as the Declaration
of Right had bound us to the heirs of King William
and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except the constitutional policy of forming
an establishment to secure that kind of succession
which is to preclude a choice of the people forever,
could the legislature have fastidiously rejected the
fair and abundant choice which our own country
presented to them, and searched in strange lands
for a foreign princess, from whose womb the line of
our future rulers were to derive their title to govern
millions of men through a series of ages?
The Princess Sophia was named in the act of settlement of the 12th and 13th of King William, for
a stock and root of inheritance to our kings, and not
for her merits as a temporary administratrix of a
power which she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise. She was adopted for one reason, and for one only, - because, says the act, " the most
excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess
Dowager of Hanover, is daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord King James the
First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be
the next in succession in the Protestant line," &c. ,
&c. ;" and the crown shall continue to the heirs of
her body, being Protestants. " This limitation was
made by Parliament, that through the Princess
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 263
Sophia an inheritable line not only was to be continued in future, but (what they thought very material) that through her it was to be connected with the old stock of inheritance in King James the First;
in order that the monarchy might preserve an uin
broken unity through all ages, and might be preserved
(with safety to our religion) in the old approved mode
by descent, in which, if our liberties had been once
endangered, they had often, through all storms and
struggles of prerogative and privilege, been preserved.
Tlhey did well. No experience has taught us that
in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated
and preserved sacred as our hereditary right. An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to
throw off an irregular, convulsive disease. But the
course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution. Was. it that the legislature wanted, at the act for the limitation of the crown in the Hanoverian line, drawn through the female descendants of James the First, a due sense of the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly more, foreigners in succession to the British throne? No!
-they had a due sense of the evils which might
happen from such foreign rule, and more tllan a due
sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot
be given of the full conviction of the British nation
that the principles of the Revolution did not authorize them to elect kings at their pleasure, and without
any attention to the ancient fundamental principles
of our government, than their continuing to adopt
a plan of hereditary Protestant succession in the old
line, with all the dangers and all the inconveniences
of its being a foreign line full before their eyes,
? ? ? ? 264 REFLECTIONS ON THE
and operating with the utmost force upon their
minds.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the
then unnecessary support of any argument; but this
seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly
taught, avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to
revolutions, the signals for which have so often been
given from pulpits, -- the spirit of change that is gone
abroad, -the total contempt which prevails with you,
and may come to prevail with us, of all ancient ilnstitutions, when set in opposition to a present sense of convenience, or to the bent of a present inclination,all these considerations make it not unadvisable, in my opinion, to call back our attention to the true principles of our own domestic laws, that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and that we should
continue to cherish them. We ought not, on either
side of the water, to suffer ourselves to be imposed
upon by the counterfeit wares which some persons,
by a double fraud, export to you in illicit bottoms,
as raw commodities of British growth, though wholly
alien to our soil, in order afterwards to smuggle them
back again into this country, manufactured after the
newest Paris fashion of an improved liberty.
The people of England will not ape the fashions
they have never tried, nor go back to those which
they have found mischievous on trial. They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs, - as
a benefit, not as a grievance, -- as a security for their
liberty, not as a badge of servitude. They look on
the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands,
to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 265
undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge
of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our Constitution.
I shall beg leave, before I go any further, to take
notice of some paltry artifices which the abettors of
election as the only lawful title to the crown are
ready to employ, in order to render the support of
the just principles of our Constitution a task somewhat invidious. These sophisters substitute a fictitious cause, and feigned personages, in whose favor they suppose you engaged, whenever you defend the
inheritable nature of the crown. It is common with
them to dispute as if they were in a conflict with some
of those exploded fanatics of slavery who formerly
maintained, what I believe no creature now maintains, " that the crown is held by divine, hereditary,
and indefeasible right. " These old fanatics of single
arbitrary power dogmatized as if hereditary royalty
was the only lawful government in the world, --just
as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary power maintain that a popular election is the sole lawful source
of authority. The old prerogative enthusiasts, it is
true, did speculate foolishly, and perhaps impiously
too, as if monarchy had more of a divine sanction
than any other mode of government, --and as if a
right to govern by inheritance were in strictness indefeasible in every person who should be found in the
succession to a throne, and under every circumstance, which no civil or political right can be. But
all absurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary
right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law anld
policy. If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are con.
? ? ? ? 266 REFLECTIONS ON THE
versant, we should have no law and no religion left
in the world. But an absurd theory on one side of a
question forms no justification for alleging a false fact
or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
The second claim of the Revolution Society is' a
right of cashiering their governors for mnisconduct. "
Perhaps the apprehensions our ancestors entertained
of forming such a precedent as that "' of cashiering
for misconduct" was the cause that the declaration
of the act which implied the abdication of King
James was, if it had any fault, rather too guarded
and too circumstantial. * But all this guard, and all
this accumulation of circumstances, serves to show the
spirit of caution which predominated in the national
councils, in a situation in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt
to abandon themselves to violent and extreme courses;
it shows the anxiety of the great men who influenced
the conduct of affairs at that great event to make
the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
No government could stand a moment, if it could
be blown down with anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of " misconduct. " They who led at
the Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of
King James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They charged him with nothing less than a
design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts,
* (That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
Constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between
king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violatcd the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant. "
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 267
to subvert the Protestant Church and State, and their
fundamental, unquestionable laws and liberties: they
charged him with having broken the original contract
between king and people. This was more than misconduct. A grave and overruling necessity obliged
them to take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all
laws. Their trust for the future preservation of the
Constitution was not in future revolutions. The
grand policy of all their regulations was to render it
almost impracticable for any future sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown,
what in the eye and estimation of law it had ever
been, perfectly irresponsible. In order to lighten the
crown still further, they aggravated responsibility on
ministers of state. By the statute of the first ot
King William, sess. 2d, called "' the act for declaring
the rights and liberties of the subject, and for settling
the succession of the crown," they enacted that the
ministers should serve the crown on the terms of
that declaration. They secured soon after the frequent meetings of Parliament, by which the whole government would be under the constant inspection
and active control of the popular representative and
of the magnates of the kingdom. In the next great
constitutional act, that of the 12th and 13th of King
William, for the further limitation of the crown, and
better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,
they provided " that no pardon under the great seal of
England should be pleadable to an impeachment by
the Commons in Parliament. " The rule laid down
for government in the Declaration of Right, the constant inspection of Parliament, the practical claim of
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