the relation which the agent sustains to the subject. The rule of conduct with a view to immediate action must be applicable to that specific class of actions, to which the act required pertains, and which cannot without modification be applied to any other class. By attending to this in forming a system of morals, the specific rules, the most numerous class, are approved and adopted by the preceding general rules diminishing in number, and these again, by the universal rule, thus preserving the harmony of the system, and constantly directing the whole to the one great and important end.

A neglect of this, and perhaps a fondness for considering action in the abstract only, has thrown a degree of obscurity over the author's whole Treatise on Morals, and in his second part, the Elements of Political Knowledge, has led to some gross errors. Thus in the passage before us, the propositions, and the conclusion are floating above, and the medium of immediate communication with human conduct, wholly omitted. He seems not to have in his view of the subject, considered that civil institutions are the device of man influenced, sometimes, by high passions, appetites, propensities, and necessities, and sometimes by reason and experience; that those institutions are founded in different principles, establishing different rules and different limits of the authority and obedience; in some more, in others less precise; that they employ different means and different modes for promoting the general interest. But for any thing in the propositions contained in his argument, we might suppose every civil institution to be a spontaneous production of nature,—that from this spontaneously flows the interest of the whole, and of the parts, composing that whole; and thence through the same spontaneity springs the duty of passive obedience and non-resistance. His conclusion, however, denies this last consequence, and he admits that resistance to government may become lawful, and even a duty. But he seems not to suppose, at least, he no where suggests, that the principles of a government may vary or diminish the justifiable causes of resistance, or afford any other rule of decision in the case, than the vague opinion of public expedience, floating in the mind of each individual.

Now, although different governments may contain no

subordinate principles, which when considered in themselves, are not embraced in the general principle, which aims at human happiness through civil institutions, yet some may contain more, and some less of those subordinate principles, and may in their construction, so harmonize and identify the interest of the whole with the interests of the several parts and render the union so evident and palpable, as greatly to diminish, or wholly supersede all causes that might lead to a justifiable resistance. In a government constituted and administered agreeable to such principles, the liberty of resistance will rarely be admitted, or the duty exist. And in a despotic government, especially an ancient despotism, the liberty of resistance can rarely serve to any to any other purpose than indiscriminate and atrocious vengeance. If the people, by some more outrageous act of oppression, are roused to resistance, they generally avenge themselves by a massacre of the tyrant and his instruments; but having forgotten or never known any other form of government, they elevate some other person to the same dignity, whom they at once suppose vested with the same unlimited power, the same, to them, sacred rights. They trust to the character of the new sovereign, and never think it either necessary or possible, to provide any security against the same tyrannical acts. In these cases, public expedience is very rarely the object, and still more rarely is a melioration, the issue of such resistance. The principles which we have here advocated, are not the mere visions of philosophy, to be realized only in the closet. They have been realized and cherished by nations whose civil institutions, while they have excited the jealousy of some and the envy of others, have commanded the admiration of all.

I will conclude with two examples by way of illustration, and shall hope to be pardoned, if, for the sake of a more full illustration, I should indulge in some repetitions. The first I shall adduce, is a government of the mixed kind, founded partly on the mutual, and partly on the reciprocal compact. Such is the government of Great Britain or the English constitution. Of the three co-ordinate branches that compose the legislature or great council of the nation, the people by their representatives in the house of commons constitute one equal, and in some

instances, paramount branch; for they claim the sole right of proposing taxes, and an equal voice in all appropriations. As far as it relates to this branch, the government is founded on the mutual compact-the mutual assent of the people. Between the popular branch and the two others, the house of lords who hold their seats by hereditary rights and enjoy certain privileges independent of the people, and the king whose power is also hereditary and who constitutes one branch of the legislature, with the power of a negative, is the sole executive of the nation, and vested with certain prerogatives, of which one is to be personally accountable to no one for his acts, the compact is reciprocal, as being between different parties. Still it is a fixed principle of the constitution, that both the king and the peers hold their powers in trust for the nation, and that these powers may be modified, limited, or changed by the full consent of the three estates in parliament. Not only the people, but the king and the peers are bound by all constitutional acts of the legislature; and as the legislature so composed, have also the power of political legislation, the power of altering and amending by their acts, the constitution itself, or the civil compact of the state, although they may pass an improvident act, they cannot pass an unconstitutional law; because the people, by their representatives, and the king and the lords for themselves give their assent to every alteration and amendment of the constitution, whether contained expressly in an act intended for that purpose, or incidentally in any other act of legislation. In this, which is a practical view of the subject, no resistance can be justly made to any act of the legislature. It is indeed possible, but in the present improved state of knowledge, of the government, and of public opinion, there is little probability, that the king, the peers, or both combined, by an assumption of unconstitutional powers, should render resistance a necessary or justifiable act. And in that case the resistance would not be to the government, but to a functionary or functionaries, who might be removed and replaced with a better or in a better manner; for if taken as a forfeiture, it extends to the functionary only, and no more effects a dissolution of government than the removal of a minister. The second part or parts have still a sufficient power to apply the

proper remedy. Of this, that government has furnished a precedent of the highest authority in those acts which excluded the second James, and elevated the prince and princess of Orange to the throne of the kingdom.

The second example is found in the government of the United States. This government is founded on the mutual compact, an agreement among the people themselves, to form a constitution, which they should by their own engagement be bound to support, and to observe and obey all laws and regulations to be made pursuant to the powers instituted in that constitution. It is a representative government, and all the functionaries are elected and appointed mediately or immediately by the people, and periodically accountable to them through that medium. The constitution contains limitations of the powers entrusted to the several organs sufficiently specific to afford a fair ground of decision whether these powers shall, in any instance, have been exceeded or abused; and a tribunal sufficiently independent, and yet sufficiently accountable to decide on the constitutionality of every act, which shall be called in question in any cause before them. If the act be adjudged unconstitutional, it is void. If it be a legislative act, the legislators are accountable to the people through the medium of elections. If it be an executive act, in addition to the avoidance of the act, and the accountability of the officer in the same manner, he is farther liable to removal by impeachment and disqualification for office, to a reparation in damages, and as the case may be, to prosecution and punishment at law for the offence. There is also ample provision in the constitution for such alterations and amendments as shall from time to time be found necessary and expedient, to be made by the people, the original source of power, and the only parties to the compact, in the mode prescribed either by their representatives in their state conventions called for that purpose, or by their representatives in the state legislatures, to whom proposals of amendment, which must be specific, are to be referred. Here all by their own free consent, through which the author's universal principle of obligation is brought down, and placed in immediate communication with human action, are solemnly bound to support the constitution, and support and obey every constitutional act of the government.

It seems therefore impossible to conceive, that with the people, and the people includes every class and grade in the community, under this constitution there ever can arise a justifiable cause for resisting the government.

The precedent and example of our own government would alone have been a sufficient refutation of the author's opinion of the nullity of any civil compact in the establishment of civil institutions, of its impracticability and the dangerous consequences of admitting its principles as a ground of civil union and civil obedience. But I wished also to adduce the example of the British government for several reasons; among others to show how a man of the first reputation for talents and integrity, may be blinded by a favorite theory of which he considers himself to be the author, or has undertaken to be the champion. In no other way, can we account how such a man, fully acquainted with the political writings of those authors who are still the pride of his nation, with the general opinion of his countrymen, with the theory, practice, public acts, and declarations of his government, should have rejected the true and acknowledged principles of that government, and substituted, in their stead, an abstractprin ciple, to the mass of mankind neither visible, nor tangible, and which is rarely, if ever, the immediate motive to action; thus cutting asunder the strongest ligament of society, the only legitimate bond of union, in the mutual and voluntary assent of its members; and leaving, without any obligation, voluntarily contracted, every member under the guidance of this principle, so evanescent in practice, and without the intervention of a common judge, to determine the expediency and measure of obedience, and the expediency, time, and measure of resistance, a situation only to be found in a despotic government. It is true the author wrote at a time when wild and extravagant opinions of civil liberty, or rather political liberty, and the social compact, were beginning to be broached in Europe, which afterwards drove the people of the continent to madness, and made many proselytes in his own country. Probably, the disgust, which he conceived, from the accidental abuse of a good principle, led him, as is too often the case, to declare war against the principle itself, and prevented him