Volume IV Part 6 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Commons do not state the limits of submission.]
[Sidenote: To secure the laws, the only aim of the Revolution.]
”In clearing up and vindicating the justice of the Revolution, which was the second thing proposed, it is far from the intent of the Commons to state the _limits and bounds_ of the subject's submission to the sovereign. That which the law hath been wisely silent in, the Commons desire to be silent in too; nor will they put _any_ case of a justifiable resistance, but that of the Revolution only: and _they persuade themselves that the doing right to that resistance will be so far from promoting popular license or confusion, that it will have a contrary effect, and be a means of settling men's minds in the love of and veneration for the laws_; to rescue and secure which was the _ONLY aim and intention of those concerned in that resistance_.”
Dr. Sacheverell's counsel defended him on this principle, namely,--that, whilst he enforced from the pulpit the general doctrine of non-resistance, he was not obliged to take notice of the theoretic limits which ought to modify that doctrine. Sir Joseph Jekyl, in his reply, whilst he controverts its application to the Doctor's defence, fully admits and even enforces the principle itself, and supports the Revolution of 1688, as he and all the managers had done before, exactly upon the same grounds on which Mr. Burke has built, in his Reflections on the French Revolution.
_Sir Joseph Jekyl._
[Sidenote: Blamable to state the bounds of non-resistance.]
[Sidenote: Resistance lawful only in _case_ of extreme and obvious necessity.]
”If the Doctor had pretended to have stated the particular bounds and limits of non-resistance, and told the people in what cases they might or might not resist, _he would have been much to blame_; nor was one word said in the articles, or by the managers, as if that was expected from him; but, _on the contrary, we have insisted that in NO case can resistance be lawful, but in case of EXTREME NECESSITY, and where the Const.i.tution can't otherwise be preserved; and such necessity ought to be plain and obvious to the sense and judgment of the whole nation: and this was the case at the Revolution_.”
The counsel for Doctor Sacheverell, in defending their client, were driven in reality to abandon the fundamental principles of his doctrine, and to confess that an exception to the general doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience and non-resistance did exist in the case of the Revolution.
This the managers for the Commons considered as having gained their cause, as their having obtained _the whole_ of what they contended for.
They congratulated themselves and the nation on a civil victory as glorious and as honorable as any that had obtained in arms during that reign of triumphs.
Sir Joseph Jekyl, in his reply to Harcourt, and the other great men who conducted the cause for the Tory side, spoke in the following memorable terms, distinctly stating the whole of what the Whig House of Commons contended for, in the name of all their const.i.tuents.
_Sir Joseph Jekyl._
[Sidenote: Necessity creates an exception, and the Revolution a case of necessity, the utmost extent of the demand of the Commons.]
”My Lords, the concessions” (the concessions of Sacheverell's counsel) ”are these: That _necessity_ creates an _exception_ to the general rule of submission to the prince; that such exception is understood or implied in the laws that require such submission; and that _the case of the Revolution was a case of necessity._
”These are concessions _so ample_, and do so _fully_ answer the drift of the Commons in this article, and are to _the utmost extent of their meaning in it_, that I can't forbear congratulating them upon this success of their impeachment,--that in full Parliament, this erroneous doctrine of _unlimited_ non-resistance is given up and disclaimed. And may it not, in after ages, be an addition to the glories of this bright reign, that so many of those who are honored with being in her Majesty's service have been at your Lords.h.i.+ps' bar thus successfully contending for the _national_ rights of her people, and proving they are not precarious or remediless?
”But to return to these concessions: I must appeal to your Lords.h.i.+ps, whether they are not a _total departure_ from the Doctor's answer.”
I now proceed to show that the Whig managers for the Commons meant to preserve the government on a firm foundation, by a.s.serting the perpetual validity of the settlement then made, and its coercive power upon posterity. I mean to show that they gave no sort of countenance to any doctrine tending to impress the _people_ (taken separately from the legislature, which includes the crown) with an idea that _they_ had acquired a moral or civil competence to alter, without breach of the original compact on the part of the king, the succession to the crown, at their pleasure,--much less that they had acquired any right, in the case of such an event as caused the Revolution, to set up any new form of government. The author of the Reflections, I believe, thought that no man of common understanding could oppose to this doctrine the ordinary sovereign power as declared in the act of Queen Anne: that is, that the kings or queens of the realm, with the consent of Parliament, are competent to regulate and to settle the succession of the crown. This power is and ever was inherent in the supreme sovereignty, and was not, as the political divines vainly talk, acquired by the Revolution. It is declared in the old statute of Queen Elizabeth. Such a power must reside in the complete sovereignty of every kingdom; and it is in fact exercised in all of them. But this right of _competence_ in the legislature, not in the people, is by the legislature itself to be exercised with _sound discretion_: that is to say, it is to be exercised or not, in conformity to the fundamental principles of this government, to the rules of moral obligation, and to the faith of pacts, either contained in the nature of the transaction or entered into by the body corporate of the kingdom,--which body in juridical construction never dies, and in fact never loses its members at once by death.
Whether this doctrine is reconcilable to the modern philosophy of government I believe the author neither knows nor cares, as he has little respect for any of that sort of philosophy. This may be because his capacity and knowledge do not reach to it. If such be the case, he cannot be blamed, if he acts on the sense of that incapacity; he cannot be blamed, if, in the most arduous and critical questions which can possibly arise, and which affect to the quick the vital parts of our Const.i.tution, he takes the side which leans most to safety and settlement; that he is resolved not ”to be wise beyond what is written”
in the legislative record and practice; that, when doubts arise on them, he endeavors to interpret one statute by another, and to reconcile them all to established, recognized morals, and to the general, ancient, known policy of the laws of England. Two things are equally evident: the first is, that the legislature possesses the power of regulating the succession of the crown; the second, that in the exercise of that right it has uniformly acted as if under the _restraints_ which the author has stated. That author makes what the ancients call _mos majorum_ not indeed his sole, but certainly his princ.i.p.al rule of policy, to guide his judgment in whatever regards our laws. Uniformity and a.n.a.logy can be preserved in them by this process only. That point being fixed, and laying fast hold of a strong bottom, our speculations may swing in all directions without public detriment, because they will ride with sure anchorage.
In this manner these things have been always considered by our ancestors. There are some, indeed, who have the art of turning the very acts of Parliament which were made for securing the hereditary succession in the present royal family, by rendering it penal to doubt of the validity of those acts of Parliament, into an instrument for defeating all their ends and purposes,--but upon grounds so very foolish that it is not worth while to take further notice of such sophistry.