tative, Vicegerent, together with the ceremo- | confirmed dominion; that civil authority is nies of investitures and coronations, which are founded in opinion; that general opinion calculated not so much to recognise the au- therefore ought always to be treated with dethority of sovereigns, as to consecrate their ference, and managed with delicacy and cir persons. Where a fabulous religion permit- cumspection. ted it, the public veneration has been challeng 2. Opinion of right, always following the ed by bolder pretensions. The Roman emper-custom, being for the most part founded in noors usurped the titles and arrogated the wor-thing else, and lending one principal support ship of gods. The mythology of the heroic to government, every innovation in the conages, and of many barbarous nations, was easily stitution, or in other words, in the custom of converted to this purpose. Some princes, like governing, diminishes the stability of governthe heroes of Homer, and the founder of the ment. Hence some absurdities are to be reRoman name, derived their birth from the tained, and many small inconveniencies engods; others, with Numa, pretended a secret dured in every country, rather than that uscommunication with some divine being; and age should be violated, or the course of public others, again, like the incas of Peru, and the affairs diverted from their old and smooth ancient Saxon kings, extracted their descent channel. Even names are not indifferent. from the deities of their countries. The La. When the multitude are to be dealt with, there ma of Thibet, at this day, is held forth to his is a charm in sounds. It was upon this prinsubjects, not as the offspring or successor of a ciple, that several statesmen of those times addivine race of princes, but as the immortal vised Cromwell to assume the title of king, God himself, the object at once of civil obedi-together with the ancient style and insignia ence and religious adoration. This instance of royalty. The minds of many, they contendis singular, and may be accounted the farthest ed, would be brought to acquiesce in the aupoint to which the abuse of human credulity has ever been carried. But in all these instances the purpose was the same,-to engage the reverence of mankind, by an application to their religious principles. The reader will be careful to observe that, in this article, we denominate every opinion, whether true or false, a prejudice, which is not founded upon argument, in the mind of the person who entertains it. thority of a king, who suspected the office, and were offended with the administration, of a protector. Novelty reminded them of usurpation. The adversaries of this design opposed the measure, from the same persuasion of the efficacy of names and forms, jealous lest the veneration paid to these, should add an influence to the new settlement which might ensnare the liberty of the commonwealth. 3. Government may be too secure. The great. II. They who obey from reason, that is to est tyrants have been those, whose titles were say, from conscience as instructed by reason- the most unquestioned. Whenever therefore ings and conclusions of their own, are deter- the opinion of right becomes too predominant mined by the consideration of the necessity of and superstitious, it is abated by breaking the some government or other; the certain mis-custom. Thus the Revolution broke the cuschief of civil commotions; and the danger of tom of succession, and thereby moderated, both re-settling the government of their country in the prince and in the people, those lofty nobetter, or at all, if once subverted or disturbed. tions of hereditary right, which in the one were become a continual incentive to tyranny, III. They who obey from self-interest, are and disposed the other to invite servitude, by kept in order by want of leisure; by a succes- undue compliances and dangerous concessions. sion of private cares, pleasures, and engage- 4. As ignorance of union, and want of comments; by contentment, or a sense of the ease, munication, appear amongst the principal preplenty, and safety, which they enjoy; or last-servatives of civil authority, it behoves every ly, and principally, by fear, foreseeing that they state to keep its subjects in this want and igwould bring themselves by resistance into a norance, not only by vigilance in guarding aworse situation than their present, inasmuch gainst actual confederacies and combinations, as the strength of government, each discon- but by a timely care to prevent great collections tented subject reflects, is greater than his own, of men of any separate party or religion, or of and he knows not that others would join him. like occupation or profession, or in any way This last consideration has often been call-connected by a participation of interest or pased opinion of power. sion, from being assembled in the same viciniThis account of the principles by which man- ty. A protestant establishment in this counkind are retained in their obedience to civil try may have little to fear from its popish subgovernment, may suggest the following cau-jects, scattered as they are throughout the tions. 1. Let civil governors learn hence to respect their subjects; let them be admonished, that the physical strength resides in the governed; that this strength wants only to be felt and roused, to lay prostrate the most ancient and kingdom, and intermixed with the protestant inhabitants, which yet might think them a formidable body, if they were gathered together into one county. The most frequent and desperate riots are those which break out amongst men of the same profession, as weavers, min ers, sailors. This circumstance makes a mu- tions, the government of the state was thence tiny of soldiers more to be dreaded than any forward committed, and whose laws the seveother insurrection. Hence also one danger of ral members of the convention were, by their an overgrown metropolis, and of those great first undertaking, thus personally engaged to cities and crowded districts, into which the in- obey. This transaction is sometimes called habitants of trading countries are commonly the social compact, and these supposed original collected. The worst effect of popular tumults regulations compose what are meant by the consists in this, that they discover to the in- constitution, the fundamental laws of the constisurgents the secret of their own strength, teach tution; and form, on one side, the inherent inthem to depend upon it against a future occa- defeasible prerogative of the crown; and, on the sion, and both produce and diffuse sentiments other, the unalienable, imprescriptible birthof confidence in one another, and assurances right of the subject. of mutual support. Leagues thus formed and Secondly, A tacit or implied compact, by all strengthened, may overawe or overset the pow-succeeding members of the state, who by ac. er of any state; and the danger is greater, in cepting its protection, consent to be bound by proportion as, from the propinquity of habita- its laws; in like manner, as whoever voluntion and intercourse of employment, the pas- tarily enters into a private society is understood, sions and counsels of a party can be circulated without any other or more explicit stipulation, with ease and rapidity. It is by these means, to promise a conformity with the rules and and in such situations, that the minds of men obedience to the government of that society, are so affected and prepared, that the most dreadful uproars often arise from the slightest provocations. When the train is laid, a spark will produce the explosion. CHAPTER III. as the known conditions upon which he is admitted to a participation of its privileges. This account of the subject, although specious, and patronized by names the most respectable, appears to labour under the following objections: that it is founded upon a supposition false in fact, and leading to dangerous conclusions. No social compact, similar to what is here THE DUTY OF SUBMISSION TO CIVIL GO- described, was ever made or entered into in reVERNMENT EXPLAINED. THE subject of this chapter is sufficiently distinguished from the subject of the last, as the motives which actually produce civil obedience, may be and often are, very different from the reasons which make that obedience a duty. ality: 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 deliberate and vote upon topics, which the experience, and studies, and refinements, of civil life, alone suggest. Therefore In order to prove civil obedience to be a mo- no government in the universe began from ral duty, and an obligation upon the conscience, this original. Some imitation of a social comit hath been usual with many political writers pact may have taken place at a revolution. The (at the head of whom we find the venerable present age has been witness to a transaction, name of Locke,) to state a compact between which bears the nearest resemblance to this the citizen and the state, as the ground and political idea, of any of which history has precause of the relation between them: which served the account or memory: I refer to the compact, binding the parties for the same ge-establishment of the United States of North neral reason that private contracts do, resolves America. We saw the people assembled to ethe duty of submission to civil government into lect deputies, for the avowed purpose of fram. the universal obligation of fidelity in the per- ing the constitution of a new empire. We formance of promises. This compact is twofold: saw this deputation of the people deliberating and resolving upon a form of government, erecFirst, an express compact by the primitive ting a permanent legislature, distributing the founders of the state, who are supposed to have functions of sovereignty, establishing and proconvened for the declared purpose of settling mulgating a code of fundamental ordinances, the terms of their political union, and a future which were to be considered by succeeding geconstitution of government. The whole body nerations, not merely as laws and acts of the is supposed, in the first place, to have unani-state, but as the very terms and conditions of mously consented to be bound by the resolu- the confederation; as binding not only upon tions of the majority; that majority, in the the subjects and magistrates of the state, but next place, to have fixed certain fundamental as limitations of power, which were to control regulations and then to have constituted, ei- and regulate the future legislature. Yet even ther in one person, or in an assembly (the rule here much was presupposed. In settling the of succession, or appointment, being at the constitution, many important parts were presame time determined,) a standing legislature, sumed to be already settled. The qualifications to whom, under these pre-established restric-of the constituents who were admitted to vote : in the election of members of congress, as well as the mode of electing the representatives, were taken from the old forms of government. That was wanting, from which every social union should set off, and which alone makes the resolutions 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 it, were compulsory upon dissentients. be bound or not by the acts of the legislature, of any alternative being proposed to their choice, of a promise either required or given; nor do they apprehend that the validity or authority of the law depends at all upon their recognition or consent. In all stipulations, whether they be expressed or implied, private or public, formal or constructive, the parties stipulating must both possess the liberty of assent and refusal, and also be conscious of this liberty; which cannot with truth be affirmed of the subjects But the original compact, we are told, is not of civil government as government is now, or proposed as a fact, but as a fiction, which fur- ever was, actually administered. This is a denishes a commodious explication of the mutual fect, which no arguments can excuse or supply: rights and duties of sovereigns and subjects. all presumptions of consent, without this conIn answer to this representation of the matter, sciousness, or in opposition to it, are vain and we observe, that the original compact, if it be erroneous. Still less is it possible to reconcile not a fact, is nothing; can confer no actual au- with any idea of stipulation, the practice, in thority upon laws or magistrates; nor afford which all European nations agree, of founding any foundation to rights which are supposed to allegiance upon the circumstance of nativity, be real and existing. But the truth is, that in that is, of claiming and treating as subjects all the books, and in the apprehension, of those those who are born within the confines of their who deduce our civil rights and obligations à dominions, although removed to another counpactis, the original convention is appealed to try in their youth or infancy. In this instance and treated of as a reality. Whenever the dis- certainly, the state does not presume a compact. ciples of this system speak of the constitution; Also if the subject be bound only by his own of the fundamental articles of the constitution; consent, and if the voluntary abiding in the of laws being constitutional or unconstitution-country be the proof and intimation of that conal; of inherent, unalienable, inextinguishable sent, by what arguments should we defend the rights, either in the prince or in the people; or right, which sovereigns universally assume, of indeed of any laws, usages, or civil rights, as prohibiting, when they please, the departure of transcending the authority of the subsisting le- their subjects out of the realm ? gislature, or possessing a force and sanction su- Again, when it is contended that the taking perior to what belong to the modern acts and and holding possession of land amounts to an edicts of the legislature; they secretly refer us acknowledgment of the sovereign, and a vir. to what passed at the original convention. They tual promise of allegiance to his laws, it is newould teach us to believe, that certain rules and cessary to the validity of the argument to prove, ordinances were established by the people, at that the inhabitants, who first composed and the same time that they settled the charter of constituted the state, collectively possessed a government, and the powers as well as the form right to the soil of the country; a right to of the future legislature; that this legislature | parcel it out to whom they pleased, and to anconsequently, deriving its commission and ex-nex to the donation what conditions they istence from the consent and act of the primi- thought fit. How came they by this right? tive assembly (of which indeed it is only the standing deputation,) continues subject, in the exercise of its offices, and as to the extent of its power, to the rules, reservations, and limitations, which the same assembly then made and prescribed to it. An agreement amongst themselves would not confer it; that could only adjust what already belonged to them. A society of men vote themselves to be the owners of a region of the world; does that vote, unaccompanied especially with any culture, enclosure, or proper act of occupa "As the first members of the state were tion, make it theirs? does it entitle them to bound by express stipulation to obey the go- exclude others from it, or to dictate the condivernment which they had erected; so the suc- tions upon which it shall be enjoyed? Yet this ceeding inhabitants of the country are under-original collective right and ownership is the stood to promise allegiance to the constitution foundation for all the reasoning by which the and government they find established, by ac-duty of allegiance is inferred from the possescepting its protection, claiming its privileges, sion of land. and acquiescing in its laws; more especially, by The theory of government which affirms the the purchase or inheritance of lands, to the pos-existence and the obligation of a social com. session of which, allegiance to the state is an-pact, would, after all, merit little discussion, and nexed, as the very service and condition of the however groundless and unnecessary, should tenure." Smoothly as this train of argument receive no opposition from us, did it not appear proceeds, little of it will endure examination.to lead to conclusions unfavourable to the im The native subjects of modern states are not provement, and to the peace of human society. conscious of any stipulation with the sovereigns, 1st. Upon the supposition that government of ever exercising an election whether they will was first erected by, and that it derives all its just authority from, resolutions entered into by | upon compact, and confess any analogy be a convention of the people, it is capable of between the social compact and other contracts. ing presumed, that many points were settled In private contracts, the violation and nonby that convention, anterior to the establish- performance of the conditions, by one of the ment of the subsisting legislature, and which parties, vacates the obligation of the other. the legislature, consequently, has no right to Now the terms and articles of the social comalter, or interfere with. These points are call-pact being no where extant or expressed: the ed the fundamentals of the constitution: and rights and offices of the administrator of an as it is impossible to determine how many, or empire being so many and various; the imawhat, they are, the suggesting of any such ginary and controverted line of his prerogative serves extremely to embarrass the deliberations being so liable to be overstepped in one part of the legislature, and affords a dangerous pre- or other of it; the position that every such potence for disputing the authority of the laws.sition, that every such transgression amounts It was this sort of reasoning (so far as reason- to a forfeiture of the government, and conseing of any kind was employed in the question) quently authorises the people to withdraw that produced in this nation the doubt, which their obedience, and provide for themselves by so much agitated the minds of men in the reign a new settlement, would endanger the stabi of the second Charles, whether an Act of Par-lity of every political fabric in the world, and liament could of right alter or limit the succes-, has in fact always supplied the disaffected with sion of the Crown. a topic of seditious declamation. If occasions have arisen, in which this plea has been resorted to with justice and success, they have been occasions in which a revolution was defensible upon other and plainer principles. The plea itself is at all times captious and unsafe. Wherefore, rejecting the intervention of a compact, as unfounded in its principle, and dangerous in the application, we assign for the only ground of the subject's obligation, THE WILL OF GOD AS COLLECTED FROM EX PEDIENCY. The steps by which the argument proceeds, are few and direct." It is the will of God that the happiness of human life be promoted:"-this is the first step, and the foundation not only of this, but of every, moral conclusion. "Civil society conduces to that end:" is bound by his bargain. It is not permitted to any man to retreat from his engagement, merely because he finds the performance disadvantageous, or because he has an opportu nity of entering into a better. This law of contracts is universal: and to call the relation between the sovereign and the subjects a contract, yet not to apply to it the rules, or allow of the effects, of a contract, is an arbitrary use of names, and an unsteadiness in reasoning, which can teach nothing. Resistance to the encroachments of the supreme magistrate may be justified on this principle: recourse to arms, for the purpose of bringing about an amendment of the constitution, never can. No form of government contains a provision for this is the second proposition. "Civil socieits own dissolution; and few governors will ties cannot be upholden, unless, in each, the consent to the extinction, or even to any interest of the whole society be binding upon abridgement, of their own power. It does not every part and member of it:"-this is the therefore appear, how despotic governments third step, and conducts us to the conclusion, can ever, in consistency with the obligation of namely, “ that so long as the interest of the the subject, be changed or mitigated. Despo- whole society requires it, that is, so long as the tism is the constitution of many states: and established government cannot be resisted or whilst a despotic prince exacts from his sub-changed without public inconveniency, it is jects the most rigorous servitude, according to this account, he is only holding them to their agreement. A people may vindicate, by force, the rights which the constitution has left them but every attempt to narrow the prerogative of the crown by new limitations, and in opposition to the will of the reigning prince, whatever opportunities may invite, or success follow it, must be condemned as an infraction of the compact between the sovereign and the subject. 3dly. Every violation of the compact on the part of the governor, releases the subject from his allegiance, and dissolves the government. I do not perceive how we can avoid this consequence if we found the duty of allegiance the will of God (which will universally determines our duty) that the established government be obeyed," and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other. But who shall judge this? We answer, "Every man for himself." In contentions between the sovereign and the subject, the parties acknowledge no common arbitrator; and it would be absurd to refer the decision to those whose conduct has provoked the question and whose own interest, authority, and fate, are immediately concerned in it. The magnitude to outweigh the evils of civil disdanger of error and abuse is no objection to turbance. Nevertheless, every violation of the rule of expediency, because every other the constitution ought to be watched with jearule is liable to the same or greater and lousy, and resented as such, beyond what the every rule that can be propounded upon the quantity of estimable damage would require subject (like all rules indeed which appeal to, or warrant; because a known and settled usor bind the conscience) must in the application age of governing affords the only security adepend upon private judgment. It may be ob-gainst the enormities of uncontrolled dominion, served, however, that it ought equally to be accounted the exercise of a man's own private judgment, whether he be determined by reasonings and conclusions of his own, or submit to be directed by the advice of others, provided he be free to choose his guide. We proceed to point out some easy but important inferences, which result from the sub- | stitution of public expediency into the place of all implied compacts, promises, or conventions, whatsoever. I. It may be as much a duty, at one time, to resist government, as it is, at another, to obey it; to wit, whenever more advantage will, in our opinion, accrue to the community from resistance, than mischief. and because this security is weakened by every encroachment which is made without opposition, or opposed without effect. V. No usage, law, or authority whatsoever, is so binding, that it need or ought to be con tinued, when it may be changed with advan. tage to the community. The family of the prince, the order of succession, the prerogative of the crown, the form and parts of the legislature, together with the respective powers, office, duration, and mutual dependency, of the several parts, are all only so many laws, mutable like other laws, whenever expediency requires, either by the ordinary act of the legis lature, or, if the occasion deserve it, by the interposition of the people. These points are wont to be approached with a kind of awe; they are represented to the mind as principles of the constitution settled by our ancestors, and, being settled, to be no more committed II. The lawfulness of resistance, or the lawfulness of a revolt, does not depend alone upon the grievance which is sustained or feared, but also upon the probable expense and event of the contest. They who concerted the Revo-to innovation and debate; as foundations ne lution in England, were justifiable in their ver to be stirred; as the terms and conditions counsels, because, from the apparent disposi- of the social compact, to which every citizen tion of the nation, and the strength and cha. of the state has engaged his fidelity, by virtue racter of the parties engaged, the measure was of a promise which he cannot now recall. Such likely to be brought about with little mischief reasons have no place in our system: to us, if or bloodshed; whereas it might have been a there be any good reason for treating these question with many friends of their country, with more deference and respect than other whether the injuries then endured and threat-laws, it is either the advantage of the present ened would have authorised the renewal of a doubtful civil war. III. Irregularity in the first foundation of a state, or subsequent violence, fraud, or injustice, in getting possession of the supreme power, are not sufficient reasons for resistance, after the government is once peaceably settled. No subject of the British empire conceives himself engaged to vindicate the justice of the Norman claim or conquest, or apprehends that his duty in any manner depends upon that controversy. So, likewise, if the house of Lancaster, or even the posterity of Cromwell, had been at this day seated upon the throne of England, we should have been as little concerned to inquire how the founder of the family came there. No civil contests are so futile, although none have been so furious and sanguinary, as those which are excited by a disputed succession. constitution of government (which reason must be of different force in different countries,) or because in all countries it is of importance that the form and usage of governing be acknowledged and understood, as well by the governors as by the governed, and because, the seldomer it is changed, the more perfectly it will be known by both sides. VI. As all civil obligation is resolved into expediency, what, it may be asked, is the difference between the obligation of an Englishman and a Frenchman ? or why, since the obligation of both appears to be founded in the same reason, is a Frenchman bound in conscience to bear any thing from his king, which an Englishman would not be bound to bear? Their conditions may differ, but their rights, according to account, should seem to be equal: and yet we are accustomed to speak of the rights, as well as of the happiness of a free peoIV. Not every invasion of the subject's ple, compared with what belong to the subrights, or liberty, or of the constitution; not jects of absolute monarchies; how, you will every breach of promise, or of oath; not every say, can this comparison be explained, unless stretch of prerogative, abuse of power, or ne- we refer to a difference in the compacts by glect of duty by the chief magistrate, or by the which they are respectively bound ?This is whole or any branch of the legislative body, a fair question, and the answer to it will afjustifies resistance, unless these crimes draw ford a farther illustration of our principles. after them public consequences of sufficient We admit then that there are many things |