tical conftitution. I ftate here the doctrine of the Revolutionifts, only that you and others may fee, what an opinion these gentlemen entertain of the conftitution of their country, and why they feem to think that fome great abufe of power, or fome great calamity, as giving a chance for the bleffing of a conftitution according to their ideas, would be much palliated to their feelings; you fee why they are fo much enamoured of your fair and equal representation, which being once obtained, the fame effects might follow. You fee they confider our house of commons as only a femblance," a form," a theory,' a fhadow," a mockery," perhaps 66 "a nuifance." "" " 99 66 Thefe gentlemen value themselves on being fyftematic; and not without reafon. They must therefore look on this grofs and palpable defect of reprefentation, this fundamental grievance (fo they call it) as a thing not only vi cious in itfelf, but as rendering our whole government abfolutely illegitimate, and not at all better than a downright ufurpation. Another revolution, to get rid of this illegitimate and ufurped government, would of courfe be perfectly justifiable, if not abfolutely neceffary. Indeed their principle, if you obferve it with any attention, goes much further than to an alteration in the election of the houfe of commons; for, if popular reprefentation, or choice, is neceffary to the legitimacy of all government, the house of lords is, at one ftroke, baftardized and corrupted in blood. That house is no reprefentative of the people at all, even in femblance or in form." The cafe of the crown is altogether as bad. In vain the crown may endeavour to fcreen itfelf against thefe gentlemen by the authority of the establishment made on the Revolution. The Revolution which is resorted to for a title, on their fyftem, wants a title itself. The Revolution is built, according to their theory, upon a bafis not more folid than our prefent formalities, as it was made by an house of lords not representing any one but themselves; and by an house of commons exactly fuch as the prefent, that is, as they term it, by a mere fhadow and mockery" of reprefentation. Something they must destroy, or they feem to themfelves to exift for no purpofe. One fet is for deftroying the the civil power through the ecclefiaftical; another for demolishing the ecclefiaftic through the civil. They are aware that the worst confequences might happen to the public in accomplishing this double ruin of church and ftate; but they are fo heated with their theories, that they give more than hints, that this ruin, with all the mifchiefs that must lead to it and attend it, and which to themselves appear quite certain, would not be unacceptable to them, or very remote from their wishes. A man amongst them of great authority, and certainly of great talents, fpeaking of a fuppofed alliance between church and ftate, fays, "perhaps we must wait for the fall of "the civil powers before this most unnatural alliance be broken. Calamitous no doubt will that time be. "what convulfion in the political world ought to be a "fubject of lamentation, if it be attended with so defir"able an effect?" You fee with what a steady eye thefe gentlemen are prepared to view the greatest calamities which can befall their country! But It is no wonder therefore, that with thefe ideas of every thing in their conftitution and government at home, either in church or ftate, as illegitimate and ufurped, or, at best, as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and paffionate enthufiafm. Whilft they are poffeffed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a conftitution, whofe merits are confirmed by the folid teft of long experience, and an increafing public strength and national profperity. They defpife experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the reft, they have wrought under-ground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have the rights of men." Against these there can be no prescription; against these no agreement is binding these admit no temperament, and no compromise any thing withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injuftice. Against these their rights of men let no government look for fecurity in the length of its continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its adminiftration. The objections of thefe fpeculatifts, if its forms do not quadrate with their theories, are as valid againft fuch fuch an old and beneficent government as against the moft violent tyranny, or the greeneft ufurpation. They are always at iffue with governments, not on a question of abufe, but a question of competency, and a question of title. I have nothing to fay to the clumfy fubtilty of their political metaphyfics. Let them be their amusement in the schools. Illa fe jacket in aula-Eolus, et claufo ventorum carcere regnet."-But let them not break prifon to burft like a Levanter, to fweep the earth with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of the great deep to overwhelm us. Far am I from denying in theory; full as far is my heart from withholding in practice (if I were of power to give or to withhold) the real rights of men. În denying their falfe claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are fuch as their pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil fociety be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an inftitution of beneficence; and law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to justice; as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politic function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their induftry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquifitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to inftruction in life, and to confolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trefpaffing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which fociety, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favour. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. He that has but five faillings in the partnership, has as good a right to it, as he that has five hundred pound has to his larger proportion. But he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock; and as to the fhare of power, authority, and : direction which each individual ought to have in the ma nagement of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil fociety; for I have in my contemplation the civil focial man, and no other. It is a thing to be fettled by convention. If If civil fociety be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention muft limit and modify all the defcriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every fort of legiflative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil fociety, rights which do not fo much as fuppofe its exiftence? Rights which are abfolutely repugnant to it? One of the firft motives to civil fociety, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man fhould be judge in bis own caufe. By this each perfon has at once divested himself of the firft fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to affert his own caufe. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclufively, in a great measure, abandons the right of felf-defence, the first law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may obtain juftice he gives up his right of determining what it is in points the most effential to him. That he may fecure fome liberty, he makes a surrender in truft of the whole of it. Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; and exift in much greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abftra&t perfection; but their abftract perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to every thing they want every thing. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants fhould be provided for by this wisdom. Among thefe wants is to be reckoned the want, out of civil fociety, of a fufficient restraint upon their paffions. Society requires not only that the paffions of individuals fhould be subjected, but that even in the mafs and body as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men fhould frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their paffions brought into fubjection. This can only be done by a power out of themfelves; and not, in the exercife of its function, fubject to that will and to thofe paffions which it is its office to bridle and fubdue. In this fenfe the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. But But as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times and circumstances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be fettled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is fo foolish as to discuss them upon that principle. The moment you abate any thing from the full rights of men, each to govern himfelf, and fuffer any artificial pofitive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a confideration of convenience. This it is which makes the conftitution of a state, and the due diftribution of its powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated kill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human neceffities, and of the things which facilitate or obftruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanifm of civil inftitutions. The ftate is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its diftempers. What is the ufe of difcuffing a man's abftract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and adminiftering them. In that deliberation I fhall always advife to call in the aid of the farmer and the phyfician, rather than the profeffor of metaphyfics. The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught à priori. Nor is it a fhort experience that can inftruct us in that practical fcience; because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its excellence may arife even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverfe alfo happens ; and very plausible schemes, with very pleafing commencements, have often fhameful and lamentable conclufions. In ftates there are often fome obfcure and almost latent caufes, things which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its profperity or adverfity may moft effentially depend. The fcience of government being therefore fo practical in itself, and intended for fuch practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any perfon can gain in his whole life, however fagacious |