proclamation were issued in pursuance of these new powers, or none but what was recommended by the highest wisdom and utility. The security was gone. Were it probable that the welfare and accommodation of the people would be as studiously, and as providently, consulted in the edicts of a despotic prince, as by the resolutions of a popular assembly, then would an absolute form of government be no less free than the purest democracy. The different degree of care and knowledge of the public interest, which may reasonably be expected from the different form and composition of the legislature, constitutes the distinction, in respect of liberty, as well between these two extremes, as between all the intermediate modifications of civil government.

according to this account of it, a reversed propor- their legislature; not their enjoyment, but their tion to the number and severity of the restrictions safety; not their present burthens, but their proswhich are either useless, or the utility of which pects of future grievances; and this we pronounce does not outweigh the evil of the restraint, it fol- a change from the condition of freemen to that lows, that every nation possesses some, no nation of slaves. In like manner, in our own country, the perfect, liberty that this liberty may be enjoyed act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the under every form of government: that it may be Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation impaired indeed, or increased, but that it is neither the force of law, has properly been called a comgained, nor lost, nor recovered, by any single re-plete and formal surrender of the liberty of the gulation, change, or event whatever: that conse-nation; and would have been so, although no quently, those popular phrases which speak of a free people; of a nation of slaves; which call one revolution the æra of liberty, or another the loss of it; with many expressions of a like absolute form; are intelligible only in a comparative sense. Hence also we are enabled to apprehend the distinction between personal and civil liberty. A citizen of the freest republic in the world may be imprisoned for his crimes; and though his personal freedom be restrained by bolts and fetters, so long as his confinement is the effect of a beneficial public law, his civil liberty is not invaded. If this instance appear dubious, the following will be plainer. A passenger from the Levant, who, upon his return to England, should be conveyed to a lazaretto by an order of quarantine, with whatever impatience he might desire his enlargement, The definitions which have been framed of civil and though he saw a guard placed at the door to liberty, and which have become the subject of oppose his escape, or even ready to destroy his much unnecessary altercation, are most of them life if he attempted it, would hardly accuse govern- adapted to this idea. Thus one political writer ment of encroaching upon his civil freedom; nay, makes the very essence of the subject's liberty to might, perhaps, be all the while congratulating consist in his being governed by no laws but those himself that he had at length set his foot again in to which he hath actually consented; another is a land of liberty. The manifest expediency of satisfied with an indirect and virtual consent; anthe measure not only justifies it, but reconciles the other, again, places civil liberty in the separation most odious confinement with the perfect pos- of the legislative and executive offices of governsession, and the loftiest notions, of civil liberty.ment; another, in the being governed by law; And if this be true of the coercion of a prison, that is, by known, preconstituted, inflexible rules that it is compatible with a state of civil freedom, of action and adjudication; a fifth, in the excluit cannot with reason be disputed of those more mo- sive right of the people to tax themselves by their derate constraints which the ordinary operation of own representatives; a sixth, in the freedom and government imposes upon the will of the individual. purity of elections of representatives; a seventh, It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency of laws in the control which the democratic party of the and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical. constitution possesses over the military establishThere is another idea of civil liberty, which, ment. Concerning which, and some other simithough neither so simple nor so accurate as the lar accounts of civil liberty, it may be observed, former, agrees better with the signification, which that they all labour under one inaccuracy, viz. the usage of common discourse, as well as the ex- that they describe not so much liberty itself, as the ample of many respectable writers upon the sub-safeguards and preservatives of liberty: for examject, has affixed to the term. This idea places liberty in security; making it to consist not merely in an actual exemption from the constraint of useless and noxious laws and acts of dominion, but in being free from the danger of having such hereafter imposed or exercised. Thus, speaking of the political state of modern Europe, we are accustomed to say of Sweden, that she hath lost her liberty by the revolution which lately took place in that country; and yet we are assured that the people continue to be governed by the same laws as before, or by others which are wiser, milder, and more equitable. What then have they lost? They have lost the power and functions of their diet; the constitution of their states and orders, whose deliberations and concurrence were required in the formation and establishment of every public law; and thereby have parted with the security which they possessed against any attempts of the crown to harass its subjects, by oppressive and useless exertions of prerogative. The loss of this security we denominate the loss of liberty. They have changed, not their laws, but

ple, a man's being governed by no laws but those to which he has given his consent, were it practicable, is no otherwise necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it affords a probable security against the dictation of laws imposing superfluous restrictions upon his private will. This remark is applicable to the rest. The diversity of these definitions will not surprise us, when we consider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst them whatever: for, by how many different provisions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, so many different accounts of liberty itself, all sufficiently consistent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may. In which view, those definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that essential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and disturb the public content with complaints, which no wisdom or benevolence of government can remove.

ARISTOCRACY

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an | vernors, of the interests and accommodation of the idea, which occurs so much oftener as the subject people, and a consequent deficiency of salutary of panegyric and careless declamation, than of just regulations; want of constancy and uniformity in reasoning or correct knowledge, should be attend-the rules of government, and, proceeding from thence, insecurity of person and property. The separate advantage of an consists in the wisdom which may be expected from experience and education:-a permanent council naturally possesses experience; and the members who succeed to their places in it by inheritance, will, probably, be trained and educated with a view to the stations which they are destined by their birth to occupy.

ed with uncertainty and confusion; or that it should be found impossible to contrive a definition, which may include the numerous, unsettled, and ever-varying significations, which the term is made to stand for, and at the same time accord with the condition and experience of social life.

Of the two ideas that have been stated of civil liberty, whichever we assume, and whatever reasoning we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature, value, and preservation, this is the conclusion-that that people, government, and constitution, is the freest, which makes the best provision for the enacting of expedient and salutary laws.

CHAPTER VI.

Of different Forms of Government.

The mischiefs of an ARISTOCRACY are, dissensions in the ruling orders of the state, which, from the want of a common superior, are liable to proceed to the most desperate extremities; oppression of the lower orders by the privileges of the higher, and by laws partial to the separate interest of the lawmakers.

The advantages of a REPUBLIC are, liberty, or exemption from needless restrictions; equal laws; regulations adapted to the wants and circumstances of the people; public spirit, frugality, averseness As a series of appeals must be finite, there ne- to war; the opportunities which democratic ascessarily exists in every government a power from semblies afford to men of every description, of prowhich the constitution has provided no appeal; and ducing their abilities and counsels to public obserwhich power, for that reason, may be termed ab-vation, and the exciting thereby, and calling forth solute, omnipotent, uncontrollable, arbitrary, des-to the service of the commonwealth, the faculties potic; and is alike so in all countries. of its best citizens.

The person, or assembly, in whom this power resides, is called the sovereign, or the supreme power of the state.

Since to the same power universally appertains the office of establishing public laws, it is called also the legislature of the state.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legislature; which form is likewise what we commonly mean by the constitution of a

The evils of a REPUBLIC are, dissension, tumults, faction; the attempts of powerful citizens to possess themselves of the empire; the confusion, rage, and clamour, which are the inevitable consequences of assembling multitudes, and of propounding questions of state to the discussion of the people; the delay and disclosure of public counsels and designs; and the imbecility of measures retarded by the necessity of obtaining the consent of numbers: lastly, the oppression of the provinces which are not adPolitical writers enumerate three principal mitted to a participation in the legislative power. forms of government, which, however, are to be A mixed government is composed by the comregarded rather as the simple forms, by some combination of two or more of the simple forms of gobination and intermixture of which all actual government above described:-and in whatever provernments are composed, than as any where ex-portion each form enters into the constitution of a isting in a pure and elementary state. These forms

country.

are.

1. Despotism, or absolute MONARCHY, where the legislature is in a single person.

government, in the same proportion may both the advantages and evils, which we have attributed to that form, be expected: that is, those are the uses to be maintained and cultivated in each part of the constitution, and these are the dangers to be provided against in each. Thus, if secrecy and despatch be truly enumerated amongst the separate excellencies of regal government, then a mixed government, which retains monarchy in one part of its constitution, should be careful that the other III A REPUBLIC, or democracy, where the peo-estates of the empire do not, by an officious and ple at large, either collectively or by representation, constitute the legislature.

II. An ARISTOCRACY, where the legislature is in a select assembly, the members of which either fill up by election the vacancies in their own body, or succeed to their places in it by inheritance, property, tenure of certain lands, or in respect of some personal right, or qualification.

inquisitive interference with the executive functions, which are, or ought to be, reserved to the The separate advantages of MONARCHY, are, administration of the prince, interpose delays, or unity of counsel, activity, decision, secrecy, de- divulge what it is expedient to conceal. On the spatch; the military strength and energy which other hand, if profusion, exaction, military domiresult from these qualities of government; the ex-nation, and needless wars, be justly accounted natuclusion of popular and aristrocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of succession, of all competition for the supreme power; and thereby repressing the hopes, intrigues, and dangerous ambition of aspiring citizens.

The mischiefs, or rather the dangers, of MoNARCHY are, tyranny, expense, exaction, military mination: unnecessary wars, waged to gratify the passions of an individual; risk of the charactar of the reigning prince; ignorance, in the go

ral properties of monarchy, in its simple unqualified form; then are these the objects to which, in a mixed government, the aristrocratic and popular part of the constitution ought to direct their vigilance; the dangers against which they should raise and fortify their barriers; these are departments of sovereignty, over which a power of inspection and control ought to be deposited with the people.

The same observation may be repeated of all the other advantages and inconveniences which have

been ascribed to the several simple forms of government; and affords a rule whereby to direct the construction, improvements, and administration, of mixed governinents-subjected however to this remark, that a quality sometimes results from the conjunction of two simple forms of government, which belongs not to the separate existence of either: thus corruption, which has no place in an absolute monarchy, and little in a pure republic, is sure to gain admission into a constitution which divides the supreme power between an executive magistrate and a popular council.

difficult to obtain the consent of a majority to any specific act of oppression which the iniquity of an individual might prompt him to propose: or if the will were the sanie, the power is more confined; one tyrant, whether the tyranny reside in a single person, or a senate, cannot exercise oppression at so many places, at the same time, as it may be carried on by the dominion of a numerous nobility over their respective vassals and dependants. Of all species of domination, this is the most odious: the freedom and satisfaction of private life are more constrained and harassed by it than by the most vexatious law, or even by the lawless will of an arbitrary monarch, from whose knowledge, and from whose injustice, the greatest part of his subjects are removed by their distance, or concealed by their obscurity.

An hereditary MONARCHY is universally to be preferred to an elective monarchy. The confession of every writer on the subject of civil government, the experience of ages, the example of Poland, and of the papal dominions, seem to place this amongst the few indubitable maxims which Europe exhibits more than one modern example, the science of politics admits of. A crown is too where the people, aggrieved by the exactions, or splendid a prize to be conferred upon merit: the provoked by the enormities, of their immediate passions or interests of the electors exclude all superiors, have joined with the reigning prince in consideration of the qualities of the competitors. the overthrow of the aristocracy, deliberately exThe same observation holds concerning the ap-changing their condition for the miseries of despotpointments to any office which is attended with a ism. About the middle of the last century, the great share of power or emolument. Nothing is commons of Denmark, weary of the oppressions gained by a popular choice, worth the dissensions, which they had long suffered from the nobles, tumults, and interruption of regular industry, with and exasperated by some recent insults, presented which it is inseparably attended. Add to this, themselves at the foot of the throne with a formal that a king, who owes his elevation to the event offer of their consent to establish unlimited doof a contest, or to any other cause than a fixed minion in the king. The revolution in Sweden, rule of succession, will be apt to regard one part still more lately brought about with the acquiof his subjects as the associates of his fortune, and escence, not to say the assistance, of the people, the other as conquered foes. Nor should it be owed its success to the same cause, namely, to the forgotten, amongst the advantages of an heredi- prospect of deliverance that it afforded from the tary monarchy, that, as plans of national im- tyranny which their nobles exercised under the provement and reform are seldom brought to ma- old constitution. In England, the people beheld turity by the exertions of a single reign, a nation the depression of the barons, under the house of cannot attain to the degree of happiness and pros- Tudor, with satisfaction, although they saw the perity to which it is capable of being carried, crown acquiring thereby a power which no limiunless an uniformity of counsels, a consistency tations that the constitution had then provided of public measures and designs, be continued were likely to confine. The lesson to be drawn through a succession of ages. This benefit may from such events, is this: that a mixed governbe expected with greater probability where the ment, which admits a patrician order into its consupreme power descends in the same race, and stitution, ought to circumscribe the personal priwhere each prince succeeds, in some sort, to the vileges of the nobility, especially claims of hereaim, pursuits, and disposition of his ancestor, than ditary jurisdiction and local authority, with a if the crown, at every change, devolve upon a jealousy equal to the solicitude with which it stranger, whose first care will commonly be to wishes its own preservation: for nothing so pull down what his predecessor had.built up; alienates the minds of the people from the governand to substitute systems of administration, which ment under which they live, by a perpetual sense must, in their turn, give way to the more favour of annoyance and inconveniency, or so prepares ite novelties of the next successor.. them for the practices of an enterprising prince or a factious demagogue, as the abuse which almost always accompanies the existence of separate immunities.

Amongst the inferior, but by no means inconsiderable advantages of a DEMOCRATIC constitution, or of a constitution in which the people partake of the power of legislation, the following should not be neglected:

ARISTOCRACIES are of two kinds.-First, where the power of the nobility belongs to them in their collective capacity alone; that is, where, although the government reside in an assembly of the order, yet the members of that assembly separately and indvidually possess no authority or privilege beyond the rest of the community-this describes the constitution of Venice. Secondly, where the nobles are severally invested with great personal I. The direction which it gives to the educapower and immunities, and where the power of tion, studies, and pursuits, of the superior orders the senate is little more than the aggregated of the community. The share which this has in power of the individuals who compose it-this is forming the public manners and national characthe constitution of Poland. Of these two formster, is very important. In countries, in which of government, the first is more tolerable than the last; for, although the members of a senate should many, or even all of them, be profligate enough to abuse the authority of their stations in the prosecution of private designs, yet, not being all under a temptation to the same injustice, not having all the same end to gain, it would still be

the gentry are excluded from all concern in the government, scarcely any thing is left which leads to advancement, but the profession of arms. They who do not addict themselves to this profession (and miserable must that country be, which constantly employs the military service of a great proportion of any order of its subjects!) are

II. Popular elections procure to the common people courtesy from their superiors. That contemptuous and overbearing insolence, with which the lower orders of the community are wont to be treated by the higher, is greatly mitigated where the people have something to give. The assiduity with which their favour is sought upon these occasions, serves to generate settled habits of condescension and respect; and as human life is more embittered by affronts than injuries, whatever contributes to procure mildness and civility of manners towards those who are most liable to suffer from a contrary behaviour, corrects, with the pride, in a great measure, the evil of inequality, and deserves to be accounted among the most generous institutions of social life.

commonly lost by the mere want of object and des- | part of the nation, the folly of village-statesmen and tination: that is, they either fall, without reserve, coffee-house politicians: but I allow nothing to be into the more sottish habits of animal gratification, a trifle which ministers to the harmless gratificaor entirely devote themselves to the attainment of tion of multitudes; nor any order of men to be inthose futile arts and decorations which compose significant, whose number bears a respectable the business and recommendations of a court: on proportion to the sum of the whole community. the other hand, where the whole, or any effective We have been accustomed to an opinion, that portion, of civil power is possessed by a popular as- a REPUBLICAN form of government suits only with sembly, more serious pursuits will be encouraged; the affairs of a small state: which opinion is foundpurer morals, and in a more intellectual character, ed in the consideration, that unless the people, will engage the public esteem; those faculties in every district of the empire, be admitted to a which qualify men for deliberation and debate, share in the national representation, the govern and which ar ne fruit of sober habits, of early ment is not, as to them, a republic; that elections, and long-continued application, will be roused where the constituents are numerous, and disand animated by the reward which, of all others, | persed through a wide extent of country, are conmost readily awakens the ambition of the human ducted with difficulty, or rather, indeed, managed mind-political dignity and importance. by the intrigues and combinations of a few, who are situated near the place of election each voter considering his single suffrage as too minute a portion of the general interest to deserve his care or attendance, much less to be worth any opposition to influence and application; that whilst we contract the representation within a compass small enough to admit of orderly debate, the interest of the constituent becomes too small, of the representative too great. It is difficult also to maintain any connexion between them. He who represents two hundred thousand, is necessarily a stranger to the greatest part of those who elect him: and when his interest amongst them ceases to depend upon an acquaintance with their persons and character, or a care or knowledge of their affairs; when such a representative finds the treasures and honours of a great empire at the disposal of a few, and himself one of the few, there is little reason to hope that he will not prefer to his public duty those temptations of personal aggrandisement which his situation offers, and which the price of his vote will always purchase. All appeal to the people is precluded by the impossibility of collecting a sufficient proportion of their force and numbers. The factions and the unanimity of the senate are equally dangerous. Add to these considerations, that in a democratic constitution the mechanism is too complicated, and the motions too slow, for the operations of a great empire; whose defence and government require execution and despatch, in proportion to the magnitude, extent, and variety, of its concerns. There is weight, no doubt, in these reasons; but much of the objection seems to be done away by the contrivance of a federal republic, which, distributing the country into districts of a commodious extent, and leaving to each district its internal legislation, reserves to a convention of the states the adjustment of their relative claims; the levying, direction, and government, of the common force of the confederacy; the requisition of subsidies for the support of this force; the making of peace and war; the entering into treaties; the regulation of foreign commerce; the equalization of duties upon imports, so as to prevent the defrauding the revenue of one province by smuggling articles of taxation from the borders of another; and likewise so as to guard against undue partialities in the encouragement of trade. To what limits such a republic might, without inconveniency, enlarge its dominions, by assuming neighbouring provinces into the confederation; or how far it is capable of uniting the liberty of a small commonwealth with the safety of a powerful empire; or whether, amongst co-ordinate

Ill. The satisfactions which the people in free governments derive from the knowledge and agitation of political subjects; such as the proceedings and debates of the senate; the conduct and characters of ministers; the revolutions, intrigues, and contentions of parties; and, in general, from the discussion of public measures, questions, and occurrences. Subjects of this sort excite just enough of interest and emotion to afford a moderate engagement to the thoughts, without rising to any painful degree of anxiety, or ever leaving a fixed operation upon the spirits;-and what is this, but the end and aim of all those amusements which compose so much of the business of life and of the value of riches? For my part (and I believe it to be the case with most men who are arrived at the middle age, and occupy the middle classes of life,) had I all the money which I pay in taxes to government, at liberty to lay out upon amusement and diversion, I know not whether I could make choice of any in which I could find greater pleasure than what I receive from expecting bearing, and relating public news; reading parliamentary debates and proceedings; canvass ing the political arguments, projects, predictions, and intelligence, which are conveyed by various channels, to every corner of the kingdom. These topics, exciting universal curiosity, and being such as almost every man is ready to form and prepared to deliver his opinion about, greatly promote, and, I think, improve conversation. They render it more rational and more innocent; they supply a substitute for drinking, gaming, scandal, and obscenity. Now the secrecy, the jealousy, the solitude, and precipitation, of despotic governments, exclude all this. But the loss, you say, is thing. I know that it is possible to render even the mention of it ridiculous by representing it as the alle employment of the most insignificant

powers, dissensions and jealousies would not be | likely to arise, which, for want of a common superior, might proceed to fatal extremities; are questions upon which the records of mankind do not authorise us to decide with tolerable certainty. The experiment is about to be tried in America upon a large scale.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the British Constitution.

No such plan was ever formed, consequently no such first principles, original model, or standard, exist: I mean, there never was a date or point of time in our history, when the government of England was to be set up anew, and when it was referred to any single person, or assembly, or committee, to frame a charter for the future government of the country; or when a constitution so prepared and digested, was by common consent received and established. In the time of the civil wars, or rather between the death of Charles the First and the restoration of his son, many such projects were published, but none were carried By the CONSTITUTION of a country, is meant into execution. The Great Charter, and the so much of its law, as relates to the designation Bill of Rights, were wise and strenuous efforts to and form of the legislature; the rights and fune- obtain security against certain abuses of regal tions of the several parts of the legislative body; power, by which the subject had been formerly the construction, office, and jurisdiction, of courts aggrieved: but these were, either of them, much of justice. The constitution is one principal di- too partial modifications of the constitution, to vision, section, or title, of the code of public laws; give it a new original. The constitution of Engdistinguished from the rest only by the superior land, like that of most countries of Europe, hath importance of the subject of which it treats. grown out of occasion and emergency; from the Therefore the terms constitutional and unconsti- fluctuating policy of different ages; from the contutional, mean legal and illegal. The distinction tentions, successes, interests, and opportunities, of and the ideas which these terms denote, are found- different orders and parties of men in the comed in the same authority with the law of the munity. It resembles one of those old mansions, land upon any other subject; and to be ascer-which, instead of being built all at once, after tained by the same inquiries. In England, the sys- a regular plan, and according to the rules of tem of public jurisprudence is made up of acts of architecture at present established, has been parliament, of decisions of courts of law, and of im-reared in different ages of the art, has been altered memorial usages; consequently, these are the principles of which the English constitution itself consists, the sources from which all our knowledge of its nature and limitations is to be deduced, and the authorities to which all appeal ought to be made, and by which every constitutional doubt and question can alone be decided. This plain and intelligible definition is the more necessary to be preserved in our thoughts, as some writers upon the subject absurdly confound what is constitutional with what is expedient; pronouncing forthwith a measure to be unconstitutional, which they adjudge in any respect to be detrimental or dangerous whilst others, again, ascribe a kind of transcendant authority, or mysterious sanctity, to the constitution, as if it were founded in some higher original than that which gives force and obligation to the ordinary laws and statutes of the realm, or were inviolable on any other account than its intrinsic utility. An act of parliament in England can never be unconstitutional, in the strict and proper acceptation of the term; in a lower sense it may, viz. when it militates with the spirit, contradicts the analogy, or defeats the provision, of other laws, made to regulate the form of government. Even that flagitious abuse of their trust, by which a parliament of Henry the Eighth conferred upon the king's proclamation the authority of law, was unconstitutional only in this latter sense.

from time to time, and has been continually receiving additions and repairs suited to the taste, fortune, or conveniency, of its successive proprietors. In such a building, we look in vain for the elegance and proportion, for the just order and correspondence of parts, which we expect in a modern edifice; and which external symmetry, after all, contributes much more perhaps to the amusement of the beholder, than the accommodation of the inhabitant.

In the British, and possibly in all other constitutions, there exists a wide difference between the actual state of the government and the theory. The one results from the other: but still they are different. When we contemplate the theory of the British government, we see the king invested with the most absolute personal impunity; with a power of rejecting laws, which have been resolved upon by both houses of parliament; of conferring by his charter, upon any set or succession of men he pleases, the privilege of sending representatives into one house of parliament, as by his immediate appointment he can place whom he will in the other. What is this, a foreigner might ask, but a more circuitous despotism? Yet, when we turn our attention from the legal extent, to the actual exercise of royal authority in England, we see these formidable prerogatives dwindled into mere ceremonies; and, in their stead, a sure and commanding influence, of which the constitution, it seems, is totally ignorant, growing out of that enormous patronage which the increased territory and opulence of the empire have placed in the disposal of the executive ma

Most of those who treat of the British constitution, consider it as a scheme of government formally planned and contrived by our ancestors, in some certain era of our national history, and as set up in pursuance of such regular plan and de-gistrate. sign. Something of this sort is secretly supposed, or referred to, in the expressions of those who speak of the "principles of the constitution," of bringing back the constitution to its "first principles," of restoring it to its "original purity," or "primitive model." Now this appears to me an erroneous conception of the subject.

Upon questions of reform, the habit of reflection to be encouraged, is a sober comparison of the constitution under which we live,—not with models of speculative perfection, but with the actual chance of obtaining a better. This turn of thought will generate a political disposition, equally removed from that puerile admiration of