the ancient Saxon polity in favor of the commons, had granted to certain towns, cities, and districts the privilege of sending representatives to parliament; yet they sat and voted promiscuously with the barons, and, being much a minority had very little influence. The lords having been permitted, gradually to alienate their vast landed property, much of it fell into the possesion of the wealthy commons. As the people under the favor of the monarch, rose in wealth and importance, it was deemed proper that they should have the same privilege as the nobles, of being taxed by their own consent only. For this purpose, the right of representation was considerably extended, and the representatives of the people met by thmselves, forming what has since been called the house of commons, and no longer mingled with the barons in their deliberations. But further than granting subsidies they had no direct voice in legislation. They had the privilege of preferring petitions for the redress of some grievance, or for the passage of some law for the benefit of their constituents, which were sometimes granted, and sometimes denied, by the king or the barons in parliament, according to the nature of the subject, and the order of proceedings in those times. Thus the people, by their representatives in the house of commons, became a constituent, but subordinate order in the government. By degrees, the commons, favored by circumstances, rose in power and importance, until they have long since, become a coordinate, and in some instances a paramount branch of the legislature, and a third estate of the kingdom.

Thus constituted, the legislature have the power both of civil and political legislation; the power of altering, amending, and explaining every part of the constitution. This power has been often exercised and fully confirmed. But to the validity of every act and law, civil and political, the separate assent of the three estates is necessary; as well of the people by their representatives in the house of commons, as of the king and the house of lords. By this authority, the mutual assent of the three estates, and however it commenced, and which for a long time was known only in their customs, that government has been brought to its present form. Many of the ancient customs have been abrogated, changed, or modified;-some

have been suffered to remain entire, and many new articles have been added, to adapt it to modern times and modern improvements. All these acts by which that constitution, has been altered, amended, and confirmed by competent authority, in their very nature, constitute the civil compact of that state,a compact of the mixed kind, mutual as between the people themselves, and reciprocal as between the people and the other branches of the government, the king and the house of lords.

If, however, the opinion of Mr. Paley be correct, all our speculations upon this subject are vain and elusory. He wholly rejects the notion of a civil compact in the establishment of government. He denies that any such compact was ever made, or if made, an adherence to it could be practicable in any form of government; and that it can afford no ground of obligation to civil obedience. This is a matter of great importance to the people of these states, as they have ever believed their civil institutions to be founded on the civil compact, and that in this compact is found the obligation, the measure, and limits of civil obedience; and as the Treatise on Moral Philosophy, and the Elements of Political Knowledge, in which this opinion is maintained, is considered a classical work of high authority, and is put into the hands of our youth in most or all of our colleges and universities, I shall examine that opinion with all the attention and candor which it merits, as coming from such an author.

In the second part of his work, which he entitles, "Elements of Political Knowledge," he undertakes to refute the opinion of those writers, who have laid the foundation of all legitimate government in the civil compact. To this refutation he has devoted the third chapter in which he undertakes to explain the duty of civil obedience upon a different principle. He tells us, that "In order to prove civil obedience to be a moral duty, and an obligation upon conscience, it has been usual with many political writers, at the head of whom we find the venerable name of Locke, to státe a compact between the citizens and the state, as the ground, and cause of the relation between them; which compact, binding the parties for the same general reason, that private contracts do, resolves the duty of submission

to civil government, into the universal obligation of fidelity in the performance of promises. This compact is two fold,first, an express compact, by the primitive founders of the state, who are supposed to have convened for the express purpose of settling the terms of their political union and a future constitution of government. The whole body is supposed in the first place to be bound by the resolutions of the majority;-in the next place to have fixed certain fundamental regulations, and then to have constituted, either in one person or an assembly, (the rule of succession or appointment being at the same time determined,) a standing legislature, to whom under these established restrictions, the government of the state was thenceforward committed, and whose laws the several members of the convention were, by their first undertaking, personally engaged to obey. This transaction is sometimes called the social compact, and these supposed original regulations compose what are meant by the constitution, the fundamental laws of the constitution; and form on the one side, the inherent, indefeasible prerogatives of the crown, and on the other, the inalienable, imprescriptible birthright of the subject, secondly, a tacit or implied compact by all succeeding members of the state, who by accepting its protection, consent to be bound by its laws, in like manner, as whosoever enters into a private society is understood without more explicit stipulation to promise a conformity with the rules and obedience to the government of that society, as the known conditions upon which he is admitted to a participation

of its privileges." "This account" he says "labors under the following objections,-that it is false in fact, and leading to dangerous conclusions. No social compact such as here described, was ever made and entered into in reality. No such original convention of the people was ever actually holden, or in any country could be holden, antecedent to the existence of civil government in that country. It is to suppose it possible to call savages out of caves and deserts, to vote and deliberate on topics which the experience, and studies, and refinements of civilized life alone suggest."

It will be observed that the compact here stated is what I have called the reciprocal compact between the people on one

side, and the person or persons appointed to exercise the powers of government on the other, and who are supposed to have a property in the government, and rights distinct from the people. This form, unless the mutual compact be intervened, as an effectual guaranty between the parties, degenerates in the instant of its formation into absolute monarchy, which annihilates all civil compacts. Were this all, however the author may have mistaken the true ground of his objection, I would not throw away a word on the subject, but he proceeds either in terms or by direct inference, to deny the possible existence of any social or civil compact, and to condemn the principle as impracticable in its operation, and dangerous in its consequences to any government.

For my part, I never understood those writers to whom he refers, to suppose that an express compact was ever formed by the primitive founders of any government in the first ages of the world, or by any infant people. They considered that a compact formed by the tacit consent, and confirmed by the usages of a people, had as real an existence and was as obligatory on the parties, as though it had been committed to writing, and unanimously confirmed by a convention of the people assembled for that express purpose. Those writers were also sufficiently acquainted with history to know, what the author himself well knew, that governments had been remodelled and reformed, new articles added, old articles retrenched, altered, and amended by the people themselves, or by their authorised agents, and to these solemn acts so confirmed, they gave the name of state compacts, what they purported to be, and in fact were.

The author proceeds,-" Some imitations of a social compact may have taken place at a revolution. The present age has been witness to a transaction that bears the nearest resemblance to that idea of any, of which history has preserved the account. I refer to the establishment of the United States of North America.—We saw the people assembled to elect deputies, for the avowed purpose of framing a constitution for a new empire; we saw these deputies of the people deliberating and resolving upon a form of government, erecting a permanent legislature, distributing the functions of sovereignty, establishing and promulgating a code of fundamental ordinances, which were

to be considered by succeeding generations, not merely as laws and acts of the state, but as the very terms and conditions of the confederation; as binding not only upon the subjects and magistrates of the state, but as limitations of power, which were to control and regulate the future legislature. Yet here much was pre-supposed.-In settling the constitution much was presumed to be already settled. The constituents who were permitted to vote in the elections of members of congress as well as the mode of electing the representatives were taken from the old forms of government."

It is indeed, an article of that constitution, settled and agreed, that "the house of representatives shall consist of members, chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. According to our author, then, if the parties making a contract, borrow the form or expressions of any known instrument, or by special reference adopt an article from such instrument, with whatever solemnity they may execute the act, it cannot have the force, although it may have the nearest resemblance to a contract ;-one is astonished at such an argument from such a source.

He tells us further, that in forming the constitution, "that was wanting from which every social union should set off, and which alone makes the act of the society the act of the individual, the unconstrained consent of all to be bound by the decision of the majority; and yet, without this previous consent, the revolt and the regulations which followed were compulsory upon dissentients."

The inference intended to be drawn is, that because at the commencement of the revolution, the votes of the majority were made compulsory on a dissenting minority. The United States, notwithstanding the subsequent acknowledgment of their independence by the mother country, and by the world, never have, and never can make a valid civil compact. This by itself needs no answer. But the principle, from which the author sets off merits a discussion. And let it be observed, that no question is here made of the right of the majority to resist the measures of the British government, or of their right