Volume IV Part 8 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Princ.i.p.al n.o.bility and gentry well affected to the Church and crown, security against the design of innovation.]
”We are confident that no persons can have _such hard thoughts of us_ as to imagine that we have any other design in this undertaking than to procure a settlement of the _religion and of the liberties and properties of the subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may be no danger of the nation's relapsing into the like miseries at any time hereafter_. And as the forces that we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked design of conquering the nation, if we were capable of intending it, _so the great numbers of the princ.i.p.al n.o.bility and gentry, that are men of eminent quality and estates, and persons of known integrity and zeal, both for the religion and government of England, many of them, also being distinguished by their constant fidelity to the crown_, who do both accompany us in this expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it, will cover us from all such malicious insinuations.”
In the spirit, and, upon one occasion, in the words,[19] of this Declaration, the statutes pa.s.sed in that reign made such provisions for preventing these dangers, that scarcely anything short of combination of King, Lords, and Commons, for the destruction of the liberties of the nation, can in any probability make us liable to similar perils. In that dreadful, and, I hope, not to be looked-for case, any opinion of a right to make revolutions, grounded on this precedent, would be but a poor resource. Dreadful, indeed, would be our situation!
These are the doctrines held by _the Whigs of the Revolution_, delivered with as much solemnity, and as authentically at least, as any political dogmas were ever promulgated from the beginning of the world. If there be any difference between their tenets and those of Mr. Burke, it is, that the old Whigs oppose themselves still more strongly than he does against the doctrines which are now propagated with so much industry by those who would be thought their successors.
It will be said, perhaps, that the old Whigs, in order to guard themselves against popular odium, pretended to a.s.sert tenets contrary to those which they secretly held. This, if true, would prove, what Mr.
Burke has uniformly a.s.serted, that the extravagant doctrines which he meant to expose were disagreeable to the body of the people,--who, though they perfectly abhor a despotic government, certainly approached more nearly to the love of mitigated monarchy than to anything which bears the appearance even of the best republic. But if these old Whigs deceived the people, their conduct was unaccountable indeed. They exposed their power, as every one conversant in history knows, to the greatest peril, for the propagation of opinions which, on this hypothesis, they did not hold. It is a new kind of martyrdom. This supposition does as little credit to their integrity as their wisdom: it makes them at once hypocrites and fools. I think of those great men very differently. I hold them to have been, what the world thought them, men of deep understanding, open sincerity, and clear honor. However, be that matter as it may, what these old Whigs pretended to be Mr. Burke is.
This is enough for him.
I do, indeed, admit, that, though Mr. Burke has proved that his opinions were those of the old Whig party, solemnly declared by one House, in effect and substance by both Houses of Parliament, this testimony standing by itself will form no proper defence for his opinions, if he and the old Whigs were both of them in the wrong. But it is his present concern, not to vindicate these old Whigs, but to show his agreement with them. He appeals to them as judges: he does not vindicate them as culprits. It is current that these old politicians knew little of the rights of men,--that they lost their way by groping about in the dark, and fumbling among rotten parchments and musty records. Great lights, they say, are lately obtained in the world; and Mr. Burke, instead of shrouding himself in exploded ignorance, ought to have taken advantage of the blaze of illumination which has been spread about him. It may be so. The enthusiasts of this time, it seems, like their predecessors in another faction of fanaticism, deal in lights. Hudibras pleasantly says of them, they
”Have _lights_, where better eyes are blind,-- As pigs are said to see the wind.”
The author of the Reflections has _heard_ a great deal concerning the modern lights, but he has not yet had the good fortune to _see_ much of them. He has read more than he can justify to anything but the spirit of curiosity, of the works of these illuminators of the world. He has learned nothing from the far greater number of them than a full certainty of their shallowness, levity, pride, petulance, presumption, and ignorance. Where the old authors whom he has read, and the old men whom he has conversed with, have left him in the dark, he is in the dark still. If others, however, have obtained any of this extraordinary light, they will use it to guide them in their researches and their conduct. I have only to wish that the nation may be as happy and as prosperous under the influence of the new light as it has been in the sober shade of the old obscurity. As to the rest, it will be difficult for the author of the Reflections to conform to the principles of the avowed leaders of the party, until they appear otherwise than negatively. All we can gather from them is this,--that their principles are diametrically opposite to his. This is all that we know from authority. Their negative declaration obliges me to have recourse to the books which contain positive doctrines. They are, indeed, to those Mr. Burke holds diametrically opposite; and if it be true (as the oracles of the party have said, I hope hastily) that their opinions differ so widely, it should seem they are the most likely to form the creed of the modern Whigs.
I have stated what were the avowed sentiments of the old Whigs, not in the way of argument, but narratively. It is but fair to set before the reader, in the same simple manner, the sentiments of the modern, to which they spare neither pains nor expense to make proselytes. I choose them from the books upon which most of that industry and expenditure in circulation have been employed; I choose them, not from those who speak with a politic obscurity, not from those who only controvert the opinions of the old Whigs, without advancing any of their own, but from those who speak plainly and affirmatively. The Whig reader may make his choice between the two doctrines.
The doctrine, then, propagated by these societies, which gentlemen think they ought to be very tender in discouraging, as nearly as possible in their own words, is as follows: That in Great Britain we are not only without a good Const.i.tution, but that we have ”no Const.i.tution”;--that, ”though it is much talked about, no such thing as a Const.i.tution exists or ever did exist, and consequently that _the people have a Const.i.tution yet to form_;--that since William the Conqueror the country has never yet _regenerated itself_, and is therefore without a Const.i.tution;--that where it cannot be produced in a visible form there is none;--that a Const.i.tution is a thing antecedent to government; and that the Const.i.tution of a country is not the act of its government, but of a people const.i.tuting a government;--that _everything_ in the English government is the reverse of what it ought to be, and what it is said to be in England;--that the right of war and peace resides in a metaphor shown at the Tower for sixpence or a s.h.i.+lling apiece;--that it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the crown or in Parliament; war is the common harvest of those who partic.i.p.ate in the division and expenditure of public money;--that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by despotism.”
So far as to the general state of the British Const.i.tution.--As to our House of Lords, the chief virtual representative of our aristocracy, the great ground and pillar of security to the landed interest, and that main link by which it is connected with the law and the crown, these worthy societies are pleased to tell us, that, ”whether we view aristocracy before, or behind, or sideways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it is still a _monster_;--that aristocracy in France had one feature less in its countenance than what it has in some other countries: it did not compose a body of hereditary legislators; it was not _a corporation of aristocracy_” (for such, it seems, that profound legislator, M. de La Fayette, describes the House of Peers);--”that it is kept up by family tyranny and injustice;--that there is an unnatural unfitness in aristocracy to be legislators for a nation;--that their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at the very source; they begin life by trampling on all their younger brothers and sisters, and relations of every kind, and are taught and educated so to do;--that the idea of an hereditary legislator is as absurd as an hereditary mathematician;--that a body holding themselves unaccountable to anybody ought to be trusted by n.o.body;--that it is continuing the uncivilized principles of governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having a property in man, and governing him by a personal right;--that aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human species,” &c., &c.
As to our law of primogeniture, which with few and inconsiderable exceptions is the standing law of all our landed inheritance, and which without question has a tendency, and I think a most happy tendency, to preserve a character of consequence, weight, and prevalent influence over others in the whole body of the landed interest, they call loudly for its destruction. They do this for political reasons that are very manifest. They have the confidence to say, ”that it is a law against every law of Nature, and Nature herself calls for its destruction.
Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitures.h.i.+p, in a family of six children, five are exposed.
Aristocracy has never but _one_ child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast.”
As to the House of Commons, they treat it far worse than the House of Lords or the crown have been ever treated. Perhaps they thought they had a greater right to take this amicable freedom with those of their own family. For many years it has been the perpetual theme of their invectives. ”Mockery, insult, usurpation,” are amongst the best names they bestow upon it. They d.a.m.n it in the ma.s.s, by declaring ”that it does not arise out of the inherent rights of the people, as the National a.s.sembly does in France, and whose name designates its original.”
Of the charters and corporations, to whose rights a few years ago these gentlemen were so tremblingly alive, they say, ”that, when the people of England come to reflect upon them, they will, like France, annihilate those badges of oppression, those traces of a conquered nation.”
As to our monarchy, they had formerly been more tender of that branch of the Const.i.tution, and for a good reason. The laws had guarded against all seditious attacks upon it with a greater degree of strictness and severity. The tone of these gentlemen is totally altered since the French Revolution. They now declaim as vehemently against the monarchy as on former occasions they treacherously flattered and soothed it.
”When we survey the wretched condition of man under the monarchical and hereditary systems of government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of governments is necessary.
”What is government more than the management of the affairs of a nation?
It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it is supported; and though by force or contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things.
Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the nation only, and not to any individual; and a nation has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of government it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest, disposition, and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction of men into kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens, and is exploded by the principle upon which governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the sovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection, and his obedience can be only to the laws.”
Warmly recommending to us the example of Prance, where they have destroyed monarchy, they say,--
”Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away.”
”But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown? or rather, what is monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is it 'a contrivance of human wisdom,' or of human craft, to obtain money from a nation under specious pretences? Is it a thing necessary to a nation? If it is, in what does that necessity consist, what services does it perform, what is its business, and what are its merits? Doth the virtue consist in the metaphor or in the man? Doth the goldsmith that makes the crown make the virtue also? Doth it operate like Fortunatus's wis.h.i.+ng-cap or Harlequin's wooden sword? Doth it make a man a conjurer?
In fine, what is it? It appears to be a something going much out of fas.h.i.+on, falling into ridicule, and rejected in some countries both as unnecessary and expensive. In America it is considered as an absurdity; and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of the man and the respect for his personal character are the only things that preserve the appearance of its existence.”