READ STUDY GUIDE: Of The Origin and Design of Government in General |
|
Section 1:
OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
OF THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL, WITH CONCISE REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
 Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its |
| best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable |
| one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A |
| GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, |
| our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by |
| which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost |
| innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers |
| of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and |
| irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not |
| being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his |
| property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he |
| is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case |
| advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, |
| security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably |
| follows that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it |
| to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to |
| all others. |
| In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of |
| government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some |
| sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will |
| then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In |
| this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A |
| thousand motives will excite them thereto, the strength of one man is |
| so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual |
| solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of |
| another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would |
| be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, |
| but ONE man might labour out the common period of life without |
| accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not |
| remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time |
| would urge him from his work, and every different want call him a |
| different way. Disease, nay even misfortune would be death, for |
| though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from |
| living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to |
| perish than to die. |
| This necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly |
| arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessing of which, |
| would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government |
| unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as |
| nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably |
| happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of |
| emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will |
| begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other; and this |
| remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some form |
| of government to supply the defect of moral virtue. |
| Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the |
| branches of which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on |
| public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will |
| have the title only of REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other |
| penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man, by |
| natural right, will have a seat. |
| But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase |
| likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, |
| will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every |
| occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations |
| near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out |
| the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to |
| be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are |
| supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who |
| appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body |
| would act were they present. If the colony continues increasing, it |
| will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives, |
| and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, |
| it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each |
| part sending its proper number; and that the ELECTED might never |
| form to themselves an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence |
| will point out the propriety of having elections often; because as |
| the ELECTED might by that means return and mix again with the |
| general body of the ELECTORS in a few months, their fidelity to the |
| public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod |
| for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a |
| common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually |
| and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning |
| name of king) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE HAPPINESS |
| OF THE GOVERNED. |
| Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode |
| rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the |
| world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and |
| security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears |
| deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest |
| darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason |
| will say, it is right. |
| I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in |
| nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any |
| thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier |
| repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few |
| remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was |
| noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is |
| granted. When the world was over run with tyranny the least remove |
| therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to |
| convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is |
| easily demonstrated. |
| Absolute governments (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have this |
| advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they |
| know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the |
| remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But |
| the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the |
| nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover |
| in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in |
| another, and every political physician will advise a different |
| medicine. |
| I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing |
| prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component |
| parts of the English constitution, we shall find them to be the base |
| remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican |
| materials. |
| FIRST. The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the |
| king. |
| SECONDLY. The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of |
| the peers. |
| THIRDLY. The new republican materials, in the persons of the |
| commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. |
| The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; |
| wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing towards |
| the freedom of the state. |
| To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of three |
| powers reciprocally CHECKING each other, is farcical, either the |
| words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions. |
| To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two |
| things. |
| FIRST. That the king is not to be trusted without being looked |
| after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the |
| natural disease of monarchy. |
| SECONDLY. That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, |
| are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown. |
| But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to |
| check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king |
| a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other |
| bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it |
| has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity! |
| There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of |
| monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet |
| empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. |
| The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a |
| king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different |
| parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the |
| whole character to be absurd and useless. |
| Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the |
| king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in |
| behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this |
| hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself; and |
| though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they |
| appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest |
| construction that words are capable of, when applied to the |
| description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too |
| incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be |
| words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot |
| inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question, |
| viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO |
| TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the |
| gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, |
| be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, |
| supposes such a power to exist. |
| But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot |
| or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; |
| for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all |
| the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to |
| know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that |
| will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, |
| as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as |
| they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first |
| moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is |
| supplied by time. |
| That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution |
| needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence |
| merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; |
| wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door |
| against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish |
| enough to put the crown in possession of the key. |
| The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by |
| king, lords and commons, arises as much or more from national pride |
| than reason. Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in |
| some other countries, but the WILL of the king is as much the LAW |
| of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that |
| instead of proceeding directly from his mouth, it is handed to the |
| people under the more formidable shape of an act of parliament. For |
| the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle—not |
| more just. |
| Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour |
| of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO |
| THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE |
| GOVERNMENT that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in |
| Turkey. |
| An inquiry into the CONSTITUTIONAL ERRORS in the English form of |
| government is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a |
| proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under |
| the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable |
| of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate |
| prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted |
| to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a |
| rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a |
| good one. |
