Part 26

Besides, we must consider that, as obedience is our duty in the common course of things, it ought chiefly to be inculcated; nor can anything be more preposterous than an anxious care and solicitude in stating all the cases in which resistance may be allowed. Thus, though a philosopher reasonably acknowledges in the course of an argument that the rules of justice may be dispensed with in cases of urgent necessity, what should we think of a preacher or casuist who should make it his chief study to find out such cases and enforce them with all the vehemence of argument and eloquence? Would he not be better employed in inculcating the general doctrine than in displaying the particular exceptions, which we are, perhaps, but too much inclined of ourselves to embrace and extend?

There are, however, two reasons which may be pleaded in defence of that party among us who have, with so much industry, propagated the maxims of resistance—maxims which, it must be confessed, are in general so pernicious and so destructive of civil society. The first is that their antagonists carrying the doctrine of obedience to such an extravagant height as not only never to mention the exceptions in extraordinary cases (which might perhaps be excusable), but even positively to exclude them, it became necessary to insist on these exceptions, and defend the rights of injured truth and liberty. The second and perhaps better reason is founded on the nature of the British constitution and form of government.

It is almost peculiar to our constitution to establish a first magistrate with such high pre-eminence and dignity that, though limited by the laws, he is in a manner, so far as regards his own person, above the laws, and can neither be questioned nor punished for any injury or wrong which may be committed by him. His ministers alone, or those who act by his commission, are obnoxious to justice; and while the prince is thus allured by the prospect of personal safety to give the laws their free course, an equal security is in effect obtained by the punishment of lesser offenders, and at the same time a civil war is avoided, which would be the infallible consequence were an attack at every turn made directly upon the sovereign. But though the constitution pays this salutary compliment to the prince, it can never reasonably be understood by that maxim to have determined its own destruction, or to have established a tame submission where he protects his ministers, perseveres in injustice, and usurps the whole power of the commonwealth. This case, indeed, is never expressly put by the laws, because it is impossible for them in their ordinary course to provide a remedy for it, or establish any magistrate with superior authority to chastise the exorbitancies of the prince. But as a right without remedy would be the greatest of all absurdities, the remedy in this case is the extraordinary one of resistance, when affairs come to that extremity that the constitution can be defended by it alone. Resistance, therefore, must of course become more frequent in the British Government than in others which are simpler and consist of fewer parts and movements. Where the king is an absolute sovereign, he has little temptation to commit such enormous tyranny as may justly provoke rebellion; but where he is limited, his imprudent ambition, without any great vices, may run him into that perilous situation. This is commonly supposed to have been the case with Charles I., and if we may now speak truth, after animosities are laid, this was also the case with James II. These were harmless, if not, in their private character, good men; but mistaking the nature of our constitution, and engrossing the whole legislative power, it became necessary to oppose them with some vehemence, and even to deprive the latter formally of that authority which he had used with such imprudence and indiscretion.

OF THE COALITION OF PARTIES.

To abolish all distinctions of party may not be practicable, perhaps not desirable, in a free government. The only parties which are dangerous are such as entertain opposite views with regard to the essentials of government, the succession of the crown, or the more considerable privileges belonging to the several members of the constitution; where there is no room for any compromise or accommodation, and where the controversy may appear so momentous as to justify even an opposition by arms to the pretensions of antagonists. Of this nature was the animosity continued for above a century between the parties in England—an animosity which broke out sometimes into civil war, which occasioned violent revolutions, and which continually endangered the peace and tranquillity of the nation. But as there has appeared of late the strongest symptoms of a universal desire to abolish these party distinctions, this tendency to a coalition affords the most agreeable prospect of future happiness, and ought to be carefully cherished and promoted by every lover of his country.

There is not a more effectual method of promoting so good an end than to prevent all unreasonable insult and triumph of the one party over the other, to encourage moderate opinions, to find the proper medium in all disputes, to persuade each that its antagonist may possibly be sometimes in the right, and to keep a balance in the praise and blame which we bestow on either side. The two former essays, concerning the original contract and passive obedience, are calculated for this purpose with regard to the philosophical controversies between the parties, and tend to show that neither side are in these respects so fully supported by reason as they endeavour to flatter themselves. We shall proceed to exercise the same moderation with regard to the historical disputes, by proving that each party was justified by plausible topics, that there were on both sides wise men who meant well to their country, and that the past animosity between the factions had no better foundation than narrow prejudice or interested passion.

The popular party, who afterwards acquired the name of Whigs, might justify by very specious arguments that opposition to the crown, from which our present free constitution is derived. Though obliged to acknowledge that precedents in favour of prerogative had uniformly taken place during many reigns before Charles I., they thought that there was no reason for submitting any longer to so dangerous an authority. Such might have been their reasoning. The rights of mankind are so sacred that no prescription of tyranny or arbitrary power can have authority sufficient to abolish them. Liberty is the most inestimable of all blessings, and wherever there appears any probability of recovering it, a nation may willingly run many hazards, and ought not even to repine at the greatest effusion of blood or dissipation of treasure. All human institutions, and none more than government, are in continual fluctuation. Kings are sure to embrace every opportunity of extending their prerogatives, and if favourable incidents be not also laid hold of to extend and secure the privileges of the people, a universal despotism must for ever prevail among mankind. The example of all the neighbouring nations proves that it is no longer safe to entrust with the crown the same exorbitant prerogatives which had formerly been exercised during rude and simple ages. And though the example of many late reigns may be pleaded in favour of a power in the prince somewhat arbitrary, more remote reigns afford instances of stricter limitations imposed on the crown, and those pretensions of the Parliament, now branded with the title of innovations, are only a recovery of the just rights of the people.

These views, far from being odious, are surely large and generous and noble. To their prevalence and success the kingdom owes its liberty, perhaps its learning, its industry, commerce, and naval power. By them chiefly the English name is distinguished among the society of nations, and aspires to a rivalship with that of the freest and most illustrious commonwealths of antiquity. But as all these mighty consequences could not reasonably be foreseen at the time when the contest began, the royalists of that age wanted not specious arguments on their side, by which they could justify their defence of the then established prerogatives of the crown. We shall state the question, as it might appear to them at the assembling of that Parliament, which by their violent encroachments on the crown, began the civil wars.

The only rule of government, they might have said, known and acknowledged among men, is use and practice. Reason is so uncertain a guide that it will always be exposed to doubt and controversy. Could it ever render itself prevalent over the people, men had always retained it as their sole rule of conduct; they had still continued in the primitive, unconnected state of nature, without submitting to political government, whose sole basis is not pure reason, but authority and precedent. Dissolve these ties, you break all the bonds of civil society, and leave every man at liberty to consult his particular interest, by those expedients which his appetite, disguised under the appearance of reason, shall dictate to him. The spirit of innovation is in itself pernicious, however favourable its particular object may sometimes appear. A truth so obvious that the popular party themselves are sensible of it, and therefore cover their encroachments on the crown by the plausible pretence of their recovering the ancient liberties of the people.

But the present prerogatives of the crown, allowing all the suppositions of that party, have been incontestably established ever since the accession of the house of Tudor, a period which, as it now comprehends a hundred and sixty years, may be allowed sufficient to give stability to any constitution. Would it not have appeared ridiculous in the reign of the Emperor Adrian to talk of the constitution of the republic as the rule of government, or to suppose that the former rights of the senate and consuls and tribunes were still subsisting?

But the present claims of the English monarchs are infinitely more favourable than those of the Roman emperors during that age. The authority of Augustus was a plain usurpation, grounded only on military violence, and forms such an era in the Roman history as is obvious to every reader. But if Henry VII. really, as some pretend, enlarged the power of the crown, it was only by insensible acquisitions which escaped the apprehension of the people, and have scarcely been remarked even by historians and politicians. The new government, if it deserves the name, is an imperceptible transition from the former; is entirely engrafted on it; derives its title fully from that root; and is to be considered only as one of those gradual revolutions to which human affairs in every nation will be for ever subject.

The House of Tudor, and after them that of Stuart, exercised no prerogatives, but what had been claimed and exercised by the Plantagenets. Not a single branch of their authority can be said to be altogether an innovation. The only difference is that perhaps the more ancient kings exerted these powers only by intervals, and were not able, by reason of the opposition of their barons, to render them so steady a rule of administration.​ But the sole inference from this fact is that those times were more turbulent and seditious, and that the laws have happily of late gained the ascendant.

Under what pretence can the popular party now talk of recovering the ancient constitution? The former control over the kings was not placed in the commons, but in the barons. The people had no authority, and even little or no liberty, till the crown, by suppressing these factious tyrants, enforced the execution of the laws, and obliged all the subjects equally to respect each other’s rights, privileges, and properties. If we must return to the ancient barbarous and Gothic constitution, let those gentlemen, who now behave themselves with so much insolence to their sovereign, set the first example. Let them make court to be admitted as retainers to a neighbouring baron, and by submitting to slavery under him, acquire some protection to themselves, together with the power of exercising rapine and oppression over their inferior slaves and villains. This was the condition of the commons among their remote ancestors.

But how far back shall we go, in having recourse to ancient constitutions and governments? There was a constitution still more ancient than that to which these innovators affect so much to appeal. During that period there was no Magna Charta. The barons themselves possessed few regular, stated privileges, and the House of Commons probably had not an existence.

It is pleasant to hear a house, while they are usurping the whole power of the government, talk of reviving ancient institutions. Is it not known that, though the representatives received wages from their constituents, to be a member of their house was always considered as a burden, and a freedom from it as a privilege? Will they persuade us that power, which of all human acquisitions is the most coveted, and in comparison of which even reputation and pleasure and riches are slighted, could ever be regarded as a burden by any man?

The property acquired of late by the commons, it is said, entitles them to more power than their ancestors enjoyed. But to what is this increase of their property owing, but to an increase of their liberty and their security? Let them therefore acknowledge that their ancestors, while the crown was restrained by the seditious barons, really enjoyed less liberty than they themselves have attained, after the sovereign acquired the ascendant, and let them enjoy that liberty with moderation, and not forfeit it by new exorbitant claims, and by rendering it a pretence for endless innovations.

The true rule of government is the present established practice of the age. That has most authority, because it is recent. It is also better known for the same reason. Who has assured those tribunes that the Plantagenets did not exercise as high acts of authority as the Tudors? The historians, they say, do not mention them; but the historians are also silent with regard to the chief exertions of prerogative by the Tudors. Where any power or prerogative is fully and undoubtedly established, the exercise of it passes for a thing of course, and readily escapes the notice of history and annals. Had we no other monuments of Elizabeth’s reign than what are preserved even by Camden, the most copious, judicious, and exact of our historians, we should be entirely ignorant of the most important maxims of her government.

Was not the present monarchical government to its full extent authorized by lawyers, recommended by divines, acknowledged by politicians, acquiesced in—nay, passionately cherished—by the people in general; and all this during a period of at least a hundred and sixty years, and till of late, without the least murmur or controversy? This general consent surely, during so long a time, must be sufficient to render a constitution legal and valid. If the origin of all power be derived, as is pretended, from the people, here is their consent in the fullest and most ample terms that can be desired or imagined.

But the people must not pretend, because they can, by their consent, lay the foundations of government, that therefore they are to be permitted, at their pleasure, to overthrow and subvert them. There is no end of these seditious and arrogant claims. The power of the crown is now openly struck at; the nobility are also in visible peril; the gentry will soon follow; the popular leaders, who will then assume the name of gentry, will next be exposed to danger; and the people themselves, having become incapable of civil government, and lying under the restraint of no authority, must, for the sake of peace, admit, instead of their legal and mild monarchs, a succession of military and despotic tyrants.

These consequences are the more to be dreaded, as the present fury of the people, though glossed over by pretensions to civil liberty, is in reality incited by the fanaticism of religion, a principle the most blind, headstrong, and ungovernable by which human nature can ever possibly be actuated. Popular rage is dreadful, from whatever motive derived, but must be attended with the most pernicious consequences when it arises from a principle which disclaims all control by human law, reason, or authority.

These are the arguments which each party may make use of to justify the conduct of their predecessors during that great crisis. The event has shown that the reasonings of the popular party were better founded; but perhaps, according to the established maxims of lawyers and politicians, the views of the royalists ought beforehand to have appeared more solid, more safe, and more legal. But this is certain, that the greater moderation we now employ in representing past events, the nearer we shall be to produce a full coalition of the parties and an entire acquiescence in our present happy establishment. Moderation is of advantage to every establishment; nothing but zeal can overturn a settled power, and an over-active zeal in friends is apt to beget a like spirit in antagonists. The transition from a moderate opposition against an establishment to an entire acquiescence in it is easy and insensible.

There are many invincible arguments which should induce the malcontent party to acquiesce entirely in the present settlement of the constitution. They now find that the spirit of civil liberty, though at first connected with religious fanaticism, could purge itself from that pollution, and appear under a more genuine and engaging aspect—a friend to toleration, and an encourager of all the enlarged and generous sentiments that do honour to human nature. They may observe that the popular claims could stop at a proper period, and after retrenching the exorbitant prerogatives of the crown, could still maintain a due respect to monarchy, to nobility, and to all ancient institutions. Above all, they must be sensible that the very principle which made the strength of their party, and from which it derived its chief authority, has now deserted them and gone over to their antagonists. The plan of liberty is settled, its happy effects are proved by experience, a long tract of time has given it stability, and whoever would attempt to overturn it, and to recall the past government or abdicated family, would, besides other more criminal imputations, be exposed in their turn to the reproach of faction and innovation. While they peruse the history of past events, they ought to reflect, both that the rights of the crown are long since annihilated, and that the tyranny and violence and oppression to which they often gave rise are ills from which the established liberty of the constitution has now at last happily protected the people. These reflections will prove a better security to our freedom and privileges than to deny, contrary to the clearest evidence of facts, that such regal powers ever had any existence. There is not a more effectual method of betraying a cause than to lay the strength of the argument on a wrong place, and by disputing an untenable post inure the adversaries to success and victory.

NOTE, OF THE COALITION OF PARTIES.

The author believes that he was the first writer who advanced that the family of Tudor possessed in general more authority than their immediate predecessors—an opinion which, he hopes, will be supported by history, but which he proposes with some diffidence. There are strong symptoms of arbitrary power in some former reigns, even after signing of the charters. The power of the crown in that age depended less on the constitution than on the capacity and vigour of the prince who wore it.

OF THE PROTESTANT SUCCESSION.

I suppose that a member of Parliament in the reign of King William or Queen Anne, while the establishment of the Protestant Succession was yet uncertain, were deliberating concerning the party he would choose in that important question, and weighing with impartiality the advantages and disadvantages on each side. I believe the following particulars would have entered into his consideration.

He would easily perceive the great advantages resulting from the restoration of the Stuart family, by which we should preserve the succession clear and undisputed, free from a pretender, with such a specious title as that of blood, which with the multitude is always the claim the strongest and most easily comprehended. It is in vain to say, as many have done, that the question with regard to governors, independent of government, is frivolous and little worth disputing, much less fighting about. The generality of mankind never will enter into these sentiments; and it is much happier, I believe, for society that they do not, but rather continue in their natural prejudices and prepossessions. How could stability be preserved in any monarchical government (which, though perhaps not the best, is, and always has been, the most common of any) unless men had so passionate a regard for the true heir of their royal family, and even though he be weak in understanding, or infirm in years, gave him so great a preference above persons the most accomplished in shining talents or celebrated for great achievements? Would not every popular leader put in his claim at every vacancy, or even without any vacancy, and the kingdom become the theatre of perpetual wars and convulsions? The condition of the Roman Empire surely was not in this respect much to be envied, nor is that of the Eastern nations, who pay little regard to the title of their sovereigns, but sacrifice them every day to the caprice or momentary humour of the populace or soldiery. It is but a foolish wisdom which is so carefully displayed in under-valuing princes and placing them on a level with the meanest of mankind. To be sure, an anatomist finds no more in the greatest monarch than in the lowest peasant or day-labourer, and a moralist may perhaps frequently find less. But what do all these reflections tend to? We all of us still retain these prejudices in favour of birth and family, and neither in our serious occupations nor most careless amusements can we ever get entirely rid of them. A tragedy that should represent the adventures of sailors or porters, or even of private gentlemen, would presently disgust us; but one that introduces kings and princes acquires in our eyes an air of importance and dignity. Or should a man be able, by his superior wisdom, to get entirely above such prepossessions, he would soon, by means of the same wisdom, again bring himself down to them for the sake of society, whose welfare he would perceive to be intimately connected with them. Far from endeavouring to undeceive the people in this particular, he would cherish such sentiments of reverence to their princes as requisite to preserve a due subordination in society. And though the lives of twenty thousand men be often sacrificed to maintain a king in possession of his throne, or preserve the right of succession undisturbed, he entertains no indignation at the loss on pretence that every individual was perhaps in himself as valuable as the prince he served. He considers the consequences of violating the hereditary right of kings—consequences which may be felt for many centuries; while the loss of several thousand men brings so little prejudice to a large kingdom that it may not be perceived a few years afterwards.

The advantages of the Hanover succession are of an opposite nature, and arise from this very circumstance, that it violates hereditary right, and places on the throne a prince to whom birth gave no title to that dignity. It is evident to any one who considers the history of this island that the privileges of the people have during the last two centuries been continually upon the increase, by the division of the church-lands, by the alienations of the barons’ estates, by the progress of trade, and above all by the happiness of our situation, which for a long time gave us sufficient security without any standing army or military establishment. On the contrary, public liberty has, almost in every other nation of Europe, been during the same period extremely upon the decline, while the people were disgusted at the hardships of the old feudal militia, and chose rather to entrust their prince with mercenary armies, which he easily turned against themselves. It was nothing extraordinary, therefore, that some of our British sovereigns mistook the nature of the constitution and genius of the people; and as they embraced all the favourable precedents left them by their ancestors, they overlooked all those which were contrary, and which supposed a limitation in our government. They were encouraged in this mistake by the example of all the neighbouring princes, who, bearing the same title or appellation, and being adorned with the same ensigns of authority, naturally led them to claim the same powers and prerogatives.​ The flattery of courtiers further blinded them, and above all that of the clergy, who from several passages of Scripture, and these wrested too, had erected a regular and avowed system of tyranny and despotic power. The only method of destroying at once all these exorbitant claims and pretensions was to depart from the true hereditary line, and choose a prince who, being plainly a creature of the public, and receiving the crown on conditions, expressed and avowed, found his authority established on the same bottom with the privileges of the people. By electing him in the royal line we cut off all hopes of ambitious subjects who might in future emergencies disturb the government by their cabals and pretensions; by rendering the crown hereditary in his family we avoided all the inconveniences of elective monarchy; and by excluding the lineal heir we secured all our constitutional limitations, and rendered our government uniform and of a piece. The people cherish monarchy because protected by it, the monarch favours liberty because created by it. And thus every advantage is obtained by the new establishment, as far as human skill and wisdom can extend itself.