Volume III Part 23 (2/2)
Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors,--until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines and establis.h.i.+ng powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.
But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that deserves commendation in the indefatigable labors of this a.s.sembly? I do not deny, that, among an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some good may have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will remove some grievance. They who make everything new have a chance that they may establish something beneficial. To give them credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or to excuse them in the crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it must appear that the same things could not have been accomplished without producing such a revolution. Most a.s.suredly they might; because almost every one of the regulations made by them, which is not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the States, or in the concurrent instructions to the orders. Some usages have been abolished on just grounds; but they were such, that, if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state. The improvements of the National a.s.sembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Const.i.tution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own. In the former they have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their Const.i.tution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing to our Const.i.tution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or superadded. Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation. I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building. A politic caution, a guarded circ.u.mspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Const.i.tution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aeronauts of France.
I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but must follow, the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement, it may be obliged to pa.s.s, as one of our poets says, ”through great varieties of untried being,” and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.
I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others,--from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled but by what he considered as tyranny, and who s.n.a.t.c.hes from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression the hours he has employed on your affairs, and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all,--who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy,--who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end,--and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] Ps. cxlix.
[78] Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr. Richard Price, 3d edition, p. 17 and 18.
[79] ”Those who dislike that mode of wors.h.i.+p which is prescribed by public authority ought, if they can find _no_ wors.h.i.+p _out_ of the Church which they approve, _to set up a separate wors.h.i.+p for themselves_; and by doing this, and giving an example of a rational and manly wors.h.i.+p, men of _weight_ from their _rank_ and literature may do the greatest service to society and the world.”--P. 18, Dr. Price's Sermon.
[80] P. 34, Discourse on the Love of our Country, by Dr. Price.
[81] 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1.
[82] ”That King James the Second, having endeavored _to subvert the Const.i.tution_ of the kingdom, by breaking the _original contract_ between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the _fundamental_ laws, and _having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom_, hath _abdicated_ the government, and the throne is thereby _vacant_.”
[83] P. 23, 23, 24.
[84] See Blackstone's Magna Charta, printed at Oxford, 1759.
[85] 1 W. and M.
[86] Ecclesiasticus, chap, x.x.xviii. ver. 24, 25. ”The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?”
Ver. 27. ”So every carpenter and workmaster, that laboreth night and day,” &c.
Ver. 33. ”They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judge's seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment: they cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken.”
Ver. 34. ”But they will maintain the state of the world.”
I do not determine whether this book be canonical, as the Gallican Church (till lately) has considered it, or apocryphal, as here it is taken. I am sure it contains a great deal of sense and truth.
[87] Discourse on the Love of our Country, 3rd edit p. 39.
[88] Another of these reverend gentlemen, who was witness to some of the spectacles which Paris has lately exhibited, expresses himself thus:--”_A king dragged in submissive triumph by his conquering subjects_ is one of those appearances of grandeur which seldom rise in the prospect of human affairs, and which, during the remainder of my life, I shall think of with wonder and gratification.” These gentlemen agree marvellously in their feelings.
[89] State Trials, Vol. II. p. 360, 363.
[90] 6th of October, 1789.
[91] ”Tous les eveques a la lanterne!”
[92] It is proper here to refer to a letter written upon this subject by an eyewitness. That eyewitness was one of the most honest, intelligent, and eloquent members of the National a.s.sembly, one of the most active and zealous reformers of the state. He was obliged to secede from the a.s.sembly; and he afterwards became a voluntary exile, on account of the horrors of this pious triumph, and the dispositions of men, who, profiting of crimes, if not causing them, have taken the lead in public affairs.
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