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 superior to what belong to the modern acts and edicts of the legislature; they secretly refer us to what passed at the original convention. They would teach us to believe, that certain rules and ordinances were established by the people, at the same time that they settled the charter of government, and the powers as well as the form of the future legislature; that this legislature consequently, deriving its commission and ex-nex to the donation what conditions they istence from the consent and act of the primitive 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.

Again, when it is contended that the taking and holding possession of land amounts to an acknowledgment of the sovereign, and a vir. tual promise of allegiance to his laws, it is necessary to the validity of the argument to prove, that the inhabitants, who first composed and constituted the state, collectively possessed a right to the soil of the country; a right to parcel it out to whom they pleased, and to an

thought fit. How came they by this right? 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 purchase or inheritance of lands, to the possession of which, allegiance to the state is annexed, as the very service and condition of the tenure." Smoothly as this train of argument proceeds, little of it will endure examination. The native subjects of modern states are not conscious of any stipulation with the sovereigns, of ever exercising an election whether they will

The theory of government which affirms the existence and the obligation of a social compact, would, after all, merit little discussion, and however groundless and unnecessary, should receive no opposition from us, did it not appear to lead to conclusions unfavourable to the improvement, and to the peace of human society.

1st. Upon the supposition that government 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 be- tween 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 ima what, 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 conse ing 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.

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:"

2dly. If it be by virtue of a compact, that the subject owes obedience to civil government, it will follow that he ought to abide by the form of government which he finds established, be it ever so absurd or inconvenient. He 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 Wherefore, rejecting the intervention of a nity of entering into a better. This law of con- compact, as unfounded in its principle, and tracts is universal: and to call the relation be- dangerous in the application, we assign for the tween the sovereign and the subjects a con-only ground of the subject's obligation, THE tract, yet not to apply to it the rules, or allow of WILL OF GOD AS COLLECTED FROM EXthe effects, of a contract, is an arbitrary use PEDIENCY. 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 its own dissolution; and few governors will consent to the extinction, or even to any abridgement, of their own power. It does not therefore appear, how despotic governments can ever, in consistency with the obligation of the subject, be changed or mitigated. Despotism is the constitution of many states: and whilst a despotic prince exacts from his subjects 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 sovereigu 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

this is the second proposition. "Civil societies cannot be upholden, unless, in each, the interest of the whole society be binding upon every part and member of it:"-this is the third step, and conducts us to the conclusion, namely, "that so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is 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.

66

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

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.

Pate, 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 jea. rule 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 a depend upon private judgment. It may be ob-gainst the enormities of uncontrolled dominion, served, however, that it ought equally to be and because this security is weakened by eveaccounted the exercise of a man's own private ry encroachment which is made without op. judgment, whether he be determined by rea-position, or opposed without effect. sonings and conclusions of his own, or submit V. No usage, law, or authority whatsoever, to be directed by the advice of others, provided is so binding, that it need or ought to be conhe be free to choose his guide. tinued, when it may be changed with advanWe proceed to point out some easy but im- tage to the community The family of the portant inferences, which result from the sub-prince, the order of succession, the prerogative stitution of public expediency into the place of of the crown, the form and parts of the legisla all implied compacts, promises, or conventions, ture, together with the respective powers, ofwhatsoever. fice, 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 to innovation and debate; as foundations never to be stirred; as the terms and conditions of the social compact, to which every citizen of the state has engaged his fidelity, by virtue of a promise which he cannot now recall. Such reasons have no place in our system: to us, if there be any good reason for treating these with more deference and respect than other laws, it is either the advantage of the present 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.

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 Revolution in England, were justifiable in their counsels, because, from the apparent disposition of the nation, and the strength and character of the parties engaged, the measure was likely to be brought about with little mischief or bloodshed; whereas it might have been a question with many friends of their country, whether the injuries then endured and threat 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.

VI. As all civil obligation is resolved into expediency, what, it may be asked, is the dif. ference between the obligation of an English. man 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 thin

which a Frenchman is bound in conscience, as | mitted to the adjudication of this rule with ma well as by coercion, to endure at the hands of tual safety. A public advantage is measured his prince, to which an Englishman would not by the advantage which each individual rebe obliged to submit: but we assert, that it is ceives, and by the number of those who receive for these two reasons alone: first, because the it. A public evil is compounded of the same same act of the prince is not the same griev-proportions. Whilst, therefore, a colony is ance, where it is agreeable to the constitution, small, or a province thinly inhabited, if a comand where it infringes it; secondly, because petition of interests arises between the original redress in the two cases is not equally attain-country and their acquired dominions, the forable. Resistance cannot be attempted with mer ought to be preferred; because it is fit equal hopes of success, or with the same pros-that, if one must necessarily be sacrificed, the pect of receiving support from others, where less give place to the greater; but when, by the people are reconciled to their sufferings, as an increase of population, the interest of the where they are alarmed by innovation. In provinces begins to bear a considerable proporthis way, and no otherwise, the subjects of dif- tion to the entire interest of the community, it ferent states possess different civil rights; the is possible that they may suffer so much by duty of obedience is defined by different boun- their subjection, that not only theirs, but daries; and the point of justifiable resistance the whole happiness of the empire, may be obplaced at different parts of the scale of suffer- structed by their union. The rule and prining; all which is sufficiently intelligible with-ciple of the calculation being still the same, the out a social compact.

result is different: and this difference begets a VII. "The interest of the whole society is new situation, which entitles the subordinate binding upon every part of it. No rule, short parts of the states to more equal terms of conof this, will provide for the stability of civil federation, and if these be refused, to indegovernment, or for the peace and safety of so-pendency.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.

WE affirm that, as to the extent of our ci

left us where she found us; that she hath neither altered it nor ascertained it; that the New Testament contains not one passage, which, fairly interpreted, affords either argument or objection applicable to any conclusions upon the subject that are deduced from the law and religion of nature.

The only passages which have been serious. ly alleged in the controversy, or which it is necessary for us to state and examine, are the two following; the one extracted from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the other from the First General Epistle of St. Peter :

cial life. Wherefore, as individual members of the state are not permitted to pursue their emolument to the prejudice of the community, so is it equally a consequence of this rule, that no particular colony, province, town, or district, can justly concert measures for their THE DUTY OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE, ASSTATED separate interest, which shall appear at the same time to diminish the sum of prosperity. 'I do not mean, that it is necessary to the jus. tice of a measure, that it profit each and eve-vil rights and obligations, Christianity hath ry part of the community, (for, as the happiness of the whole may be increased, whilst that of some parts is diminished, it is possible that the conduct of one part of an empire may be detrimental to some other part, and yet just, provided one part gain more in happiness than the other part loses, so that the common weal be augmented by the change;) but what I affirm is, that those counsels can never be reconciled with the obligations resulting from civil union, which cause the whole happiness of the society to be impaired for the conveniency of a part. This conclusion is applicable to the question of right between Great Britain and her revolted colonies. Had I been an American, I should not have thought it en- "Let every soul be subject unto the higher ough to have had it even demonstrated, that powers: for there is no power but of God: a separation from the parent state would pro- the powers that be, are ordained of God. Whoduce effects beneficial to America; my relation soever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth to that state imposed upon me a further inquiry, the ordinance of God; and they that resist, namely, whether the whole happiness of the shall receive to themselves damnation. For empire was likely to be promoted by such a rulers are not a terror to good works, but to measure not indeed the happiness of every the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the part; that was not necessary, nor to be ex-power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt pected; but whether what Great Britain would have praise of the same: for he is the minister lose by the separation, was likely to be com- of God to thee for good. But if thou do that pensated to the joint stock of happiness, by the which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not advantages which America would receive from the sword in vain: for he is the minister of it. The contested claims of sovereign states God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him and their remote dependencies, may be sub-that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be

ROMANS xiii. 1-7.

subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour."

1 PETER ii. 13-18.

and restrictions being superfluous, and foreign to the doubts I was employed to remove.

If, in a short time afterwards, I should be accosted by the same person, with complaints of public grievances, of exorbitant taxes, of acts of cruelty and oppression, of tyrannical encroachments upon the ancient or stipulated rights of the people, and should be consulted whether it were lawful to revolt, or justifiable "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of to join in an attempt to shake off the yoke by man, for the Lord's sake; whether it be to open resistance; I should certainly consider the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as myself as having a case and question before me unto them that are sent by him for the punish- very different from the former. I should now ment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them define and discriminate. I should reply, that that do well. For so is the will of God, that if public expediency be the foundation, it is alwith well-doing ye may put to silence the ig- so the measure, of civil obedience: that the norance of foolish men: as free, and not using obligation of subjects and sovereigns is reciyour liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God."

procal; that the duty of allegiance, whether it be founded in utility or compact, is neither unlimited nor unconditional; that peace may be purchased too dearly; that patience becomes culpable pusillanimity, when it serves only to encourage our rulers to increase the weight of our burthen, or to bind it the faster ; that the submission which surrenders the liberty of a nation, and entails slavery upon future generations, is enjoined by no law of rational morality; finally, I should instruct the inquirer to compare the peril and expense of his enterprise with the effects it was expected to produce, and to make choice of the alternative by which not his own present relief or profit, but the whole and permanent interest of the state, was likely to be best promoted. If any one who had been present at both these conversations should upbraid me with change or inconsistency of opinion, should retort upon me the passive doctrine which I before taught, the large and absolute terms in which I then delivered lessons of obedience and submission, I should account myself unfairly dealt with. I should reply, that the only difference which the language of the two conversations presented was, that I added now many exceptions and limitations, which were omitted or unthought of then: that this difference arose naturally from the two occasions, such exceptions being as necessary to the subject of our present conference, as they would have been superfluous and unseasonable in the former.

To comprehend the proper import of these instructions, let the reader reflect, that upon the subject of civil obedience there are two questions: the first, whether to obey government be a moral duty and obligation upon the conscience at all; the second, how far, and to what cases, that obedience ought to extend? that these two questions are so distinguishable in the imagination, that it is possible to treat of the one, without any thought of the other; and lastly, that if expressions which relate to one of these questions be transferred and applied to the other, it is with great danger of giving them a signification very different from the author's meaning. This distinction is not only possible, but natural. If I met with a person who appeared to entertain doubts, whether civil obedience were a moral duty which ought to be voluntarily discharged, or whether it were not a mere submission to force, like that which we yield to a robber who holds a pistol to our breast, I should represent to him the use and offices of civil government, the end and the necessity of civil subjection; or, if I preferred a different theory, I should explain to him the social compact, urge him with the obligation and the equity of his implied promise and tacit consent to be governed by the laws of the state from which he received protection; or I should argue, perhaps, that Nature herself dictated the law of subordination, when she planted within us an inclination to Now the difference in these two conversaassociate with our species, and framed us with tions is precisely the distinction to be taken in capacities so various and unequal. From what-interpreting those passages of Scripture, conever principle I set out, I should labour to in- cerning which we are debating. They inculfer from it this conclusion, “That obedience cate the duty, they do not describe the extent to the state is to be numbered among the re- of it. They enforce the obligation by the prolative duties of human life, for the transgres- per sanctions of Christianity, without intendsion of which we shall be accountable at the ing either to enlarge or contract, without contribunal of Divine justice, whether the ma-sidering, indeed, the limits by which it is gistrate be able to punish us for it or not;" and bounded. This is also the method in which being arrived at this conclusion, I should stop, the same apostles enjoin the duty of servants having delivered the conclusion itself, and to their masters, of children to their parents, throughout the whole argument expressed the of wives to their husbands: "Servants, be subobedience, which I inculcated, in the most ge-ject to your masters."- "Children, obey your neral and unqualified terms; all reservations parents in all things."—"Wives, submit your