XXIV. 1790. their choice. Dr. Price having asserted the abs- BOOK tract right of the people, as exemplified at the Revolution, to depose their governors for misconduct, and frame a government for themselves— Mr. Burke says, "the people of England utterly GISM is not circumscribed and confined to any one or two of the religions now professed in the world, but diffuses itself among all. All penal acts of parliament for opinions purely religious, which have no influence on the state, are so many encroachments upon liberty. Why may not all be citizens of the world?-A right Whig looks upon frequent parliaments as such a fundamental part of the constitution, that even no parliament can part with this right. He thinks that a waste or a desert has no claim to be represented. High Whiggism is for annual parliaments, and low Whiggism for triennial with annual meetings. I leave it to every man's judgment which of these is least liable to corruption! No man can be a sincere lover of liberty, that is not for increasing and communicating that blessing to all people.-And therefore the giving or restoring it, not only to our brethren of Scotland or Ireland, but even to FRANCE itself, were it in our power, is one of the PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF WHIGGISM.-A right Whig cannot satisfy himself with any of the foolish distinctions trumped of late years, but deals upon the square; and plainly owns that the exercise of an arbitrary illegal power would incapacitate king James or king William, or ANY OTHER KING, whenever the public has power to hinder it. A Whig is against the raising or keeping up a standing army in time of peace. LASTLY, the supporting of parliamentary credit, employing the poor, suppressing idlers, maintaining the liberty of the press, are all articles of my Whiggish belief; and if all these together amount to a COMMONWEALTH'S-MAN, I shall never be ashamed of the name." up XXIV. 1790. BOOK disclaim it; they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes." But how the people can, in any given or possible circumstances, resist their own act, is a paradox which Mr. Burke attempts not to solve. Certain it is that Dr. Price advanced, in this famous discourse, no other principles than those which Mr. LocкE had urged a hundred years before in defence of the title of king William and the validity of the Revolution government. Amongst innumerable passages to the same purpose, a single citation may well suffice in vindication of a doctrine resting on the immovable foundation of common sense. 66 Though in a constituted commonwealth (says that immortal writer) standing upon its own basis, and acting according to its own nature, that is, acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate; yet, the legislative being only a FIDUCIARY POWER, to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end-whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where XXIV. 1790. they shall think best for their safety and security. BOOK And thus the community perpetually retains a m supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs even of their legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties of the subject. If they who say this hypothesis lays a foundation for rebellion, mean that it may occasion civil wars or intestine broils to tell the people that they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made upon their liberties and properties, they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. I desire it may be considered what kind of peace there will be in the world, which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Polyphemus's den gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace, such a government, wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured. Are the people to be blamed if they have the sense of rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault who put things in such a posture, that they would not have them thought as they are? But whether the mischief hath oftener begun in the people's wanton XXIV. BOOK ness or in the rulers' insolence, I leave to impartial history to determine."* 1790. * Undoubtedly the point which Mr. Burke, in his successive publications, has with most plausibility and force contested, is that which relates to the submission due from the minority to the will of the majority of the members of a civil community. Unless a nation be self-governed, neither civil nor political liberty can, in a clear or proper sense, be said to subsist. And this seems to imply, that all the members of a community have an equal inherent right of suffrage, as to all questions which concern the body politic-and that the opinions of the majority should invariably prevail. Theoretically speaking, this is indeed a just and noble principle, and exhibits the most perfect model of civil society: but then this principle is so ill adapted to the actual situation of things, and to the imperfection, not to say the corruption and depravity, of human nature, that it can only be assented to, in practice, in a very qualified sense, and with numerous and important modifications. Hence arise the capital difficulties which occur, in treating on the science of government. It would be the highest extravagance to maintain that the majority have a right to dispense with the eternal laws of equity or justice; or that the few are bound, by any ties of political morality, to submit to the tyranny of the many. It would be also equally absurd to affirm, that all the members of a community, in every possible state of society, are qualified to exercise the right of suffrage. Government is founded on the basis of utility, and its powers must be limited by, and made commensurate with, its purposes. If the minority are in actual possession of the constituted authorities of government, and if they have good ground to believe that they cannot be safely transferred to the majo rity, they are perfectly justified in withholding them-still XXIV. 1790. Pernicious conse quences of the Reflections. From the date of the fatal publication of Mr. BOOK Burke, who seemed ambitious to signalize himself by setting not merely a palace or a temple, but the world itself on fire, the nation was divided and fatal into two violent and openly hostile parties. The Tory faction, which had hitherto scarcely dared to whisper their dislike-now, under the sanction of Mr. Burke's authority, became bold and clamorous in their vociferations. And the principles advanced by Mr. Burke, ever grateful to the ears of princes, at once obliterated all past offences, considering themselves as fiduciary trustees, who have no right to retain the monopoly whenever it becomes safe to surrender it. But who, it may be asked, is to be the judge when the minority may exercise exclusive power, or when, supposing their exclusion from power, they may justly refuse submission to the will of the majority? To this, no other answer can be given, than that the minority themselves, and each individual included in it, must, in all the vicissitudes of situation, act according to the dictates of their own understandings. In such cases, it is in vain to search for any precise rule of judg ment or of action. He who opposes the will of the majority of a community doubtless takes upon him to do that which very weighty and important reasons only can justify. He incurs at the same time a great risk, and a great responsibility. But to deny the right, in an abstract or modified sense, because it is liable to abuse, would be preposterous, and must tend to confound all moral and political distinctions and limitations. Upon this principle the Huguenots of France would be criminal in having recourse to arms, after the massacre of St. Bartholomew; and the Moriscoes of Spain would merit punishment by resisting the horrible edict of expulsion. |