discovery reserved for the age in which we live. For the revolution in America is not in point. That, properly, had the character of a foreign war. If, then, to the certain evils of a revolution, be added a doubt whether it will gain the end we propose by it, the alternative becomes still worse than before. The question remains, whether, though we admit the existence of those evils which a revolution would produce, and though we would shrink both from inflicting and risking them, it still may not be the part of a good citizen to endeavour to alarm the Government into those conces sions which he contends are politic in themselves, and which, if granted, would, he thinks, obviate discontent, and be powerful to avert the revolution which he dreads? Now, to this I answer, that to threaten the Government, to alarm its fears of insurrection or resistance, is plainly to threaten nothing less than a revolution: and I know of no instance in which the code of politics will authorise what the code of morals forbids, the threat of any thing, which, in the last alternative, we should not be justified and determined to do. That threats may be wise in some cases, where we are prepared and authorised to carry them into execution, is a point which I do not either doubt or deny. If a demonstration of our force will gain us a victory, we may be spared the actual battle. Mere threatening, how ever, serves only to exasperate, and we have to consider whether, in the case before us, alarm or apprehension, instead of gaining from the Government any of the concessions which are thought wanting for liberty, does not, in fact, throw into alliance with Government, the natural friends of liberty, and so weaken, perhaps irremediably, its cause. For it is at least probable, that, if what is wanted is reasonable, and is also seen to be the decided wish of the public, one or other of the existing parties in the Legislature, though it be only for the sake of its own popularity, will, unless alarmed, be found to adopt the cause: and such a party, so backed by public opinion, can scarcely fail, ultimately, of success. -I am, Sir, &c. SIR, Letter VI. The points which have been advanced in the foregoing letters are, in general, these: that the sole rights of mankind are the right of possession, and the right given by law, and that further right, which, I do not deny, may be found in some cases to accrue from expediency. That the consent of the governed is not always a necessary condition of just right in the governor, may have been shown sufficiently in what has already been said; but I shall now proceed to select some particular instances in which it has been pretended, that the existence of right depends on its origin in some such consent, that I may show more evidently the emptiness of the pretension. This opinion, then, that the consent of the governed is a necessary element of the governor's right, I have often seen so stated, as to assert that no monarch in Europe, but the King of England, has properly a rightful title to his crown; because he only reigns by the choice of the people, as signified at the Revolution, and by the Act of Settlement. But say, omitting many natural observations which this assertion might readily suggest, say that precisely the same laws, assigning, in each case, the same rights to the subject, are also established in some other country where the monarch has succeeded to a seat hereditary from the very oldest times; say that the people in both countries are equally happy and contented, and equally secure of the advantages which they enjoy ;-is it for a moment credible that there can be more right to disturb the monarch who reigns by title of succession, than him who claims by compact or consent? The truth is, as I have said in a former letter, that power, by whatever means acquired, and law, whether it be equitable or not, carry always a prima facie title; and that, in all cases, the only just ground of resisting them is, that the yoke which they impose is intolerable, or, at least, that some other system may probably be adopted more conducive to the public welfare or happiness. Thus, while Buonaparte was master of France, right in that country was measured, apparently, by his will, or by those laws which bent always to his convenience. He had a right also prima facie to his crown; and that precisely on the same principle on which, in this country, right is declared by the most equitable of its magistrates, and on which George IV. has peaceably succeeded to his father's undisputed inheritance,-on the same principle on which the President of the United States fills that station which he has been elected to fill, or on which Louis sits on the throne of his ancestors. I will not deny, that, in each case, the same principle of expediency might justify resistance to the established authority, if, in each case, the expediency could be evidently made out: but then there are so many differences in the cases, that the expediency is very different in them all. The right of Buonaparte was often in conflict with law, with those very laws which he himself had established: it was exercised hardly, and with oppression. There was therefore the more reason for resisting it; and as it wanted the natural strength and hold of opinion which a regular transmission communicates, there was the more prospect of resisting it with success. On the other hand, the Revolution had remedied many evils: many of the evils of the Revolution itself had been remedied by the strong hand of Buonaparte; and the splendour of his career and his military triumphs had gained him the public vanity for his friend. All these circumstances operated in his favour: and that Frenchmen would have had an arduous question to settle, who might have been called on, during the reign of Buonaparte, to say, whether, in comparing the evils of the tyranny established, with the prospect of success in the attempt to subvert it, the calculation would justify such an attempt. But yet this plainly was the question for him to decide. In our own country, the true question is the same, though, happily, the circumstances are so much clearer, that it may be thought to be only the wantonness of disputation which can ever call on us to agitate it. "Why has the magistrate a right to expect obedience?” "Because this right is given by prescription or statute." But the law of power, or the statute-law, is oppressive; it deprives me of my natural liberty, it imposes on me an excessive taxation. I have a full right, therefore, to overturn it if I can.' "Not unless you can suggest a better law,-not unless you can get that better law established, not unless the good you propose outweigh the risk of the struggle: and can it be possible to affirm all these points in a country in which the public opinion possesses a certain, though perhaps a tardy operation, and in which there exist so many legal ways of asserting the cause of justice and truth?" I must own, however, that if certain dicta were true, which are authorised even by most respectable names, I could not resist any of those popular arguments, which rest on the consent of the governed, the sole right which is possessed by the crown or the magistrate. It is said by Blackstone, that the right of the magistrate to punish offences against the laws of society, is founded on the consent of the criminal to those laws by which he is doomed to suffer. And, undoubtedly, if we begin with one fiction, by assuming that the consent of the governed is, in every free government, a necessary ingredient of constitutional law, we must be compelled to follow it up with another, or rather to follow up the same fiction into all the particular applications which it may receive. But this sort of fiction, though it may be convenient for lawyers, to enable them to methodize their legal analogies, has no foundation in the nature of man or of things, and can only serve, in any practical question, to throw men off from the true footing on which they stand. The criminal who is this day to be executed, has given, it is said, his consent to the law by which he dies! Is this the fact? or can it be supposed to be fact on any principle of the real origin of law? Is he not in truth the declared enemy of law, and the actual victim of power? The true reason why a criminal is not injured even by the infliction of * Commentaries, Vol. IV. p. 8. capital punishment, is, that it is his duty to submit to the law. Why his duty? Because, cut off as he is from all commerce in future with mankind, it is still his duty to God and to society to do what he can to expiate his transgression. Else I know not of any obligation he can be under, or that there is any principle which is to prevent him from taking arms, and resisting the execution of the law. The most remarkable instance, perhaps, on record, of the effect produced by the legal fiction of which I have spoken, the fiction that compact and consent are the sole basis of right, was the instance, probably, of that war with America, which eventually established the independence of the colonies. During that war, it was contended for the Americans, that the principle of natural right exempted them, because unrepresented in Parliament, from any taxation which England might impose. And no person can recur to, or can remember the history of, that ill-managed contest, without recognising the great influence on men's opinions which this principle then possessed and exerted. On the same principle, no doubt, in the mother country, every payer of taxes may claim a right to vote in imposing them, or, as is said, to vote for a representative or rather, this position is too limited in its extent: and every person who is destined by Providence to act or suffer, to avoid evil, or to enjoy good, has a right to an equal voice in the representation of that country in which he happens to live. While this pretension was confined to the colonies, its only effect was to hasten that separation by which the interests, both of America and of England, may possibly have been, on the whole, benefited. But when the pretension comes to be agitated on our own shores, we ought to beware that we do not urge inconsiderately, any claim which cannot be urged without serious danger, the danger of actually losing those rights of which we are now in present enjoyment, or the danger, at least, of some public convulsion. It is at length seen, probably, that the argument of the colonies should have been altogether of a different purport. If they had held that the English rule was oppressive, that their own period of nonage was now past, and that they claimed a right of setting up for themselves, analogous to that of an adult individual, who is about to leave the paternal mansion for his own, their claim, if the facts stated were accurate, or the analogy fully borne out by them, could scarcely, perhaps, have been reasonably denied. But those Englishmen who are dissatisfied with their condition, or that large class which feels most sensibly the exhaustion which a war of upwards of twenty years' duration, in very peculiar and trying circumstances, has produced, are far from being in the same condition with the Americans. They form of the state an integral portion: it is not possible that they can be severed from it. They have more to risk, both for themselves and for others, in any changes of polity which may take place, namely, the whole difference between revolution and war. I say, not that there can never be circumstances in which even a wise and temperate man may not apprehend, that even the risk of a revolution may be compensated by the good which it promises. I hold no opinions adverse to liberty. Though I deny that, in its true and natural course, power emanates either actually or virtually from the people, I admit most willingly, that the benefit of the people is the sole legitimate purpose for which it can be used. If not so used, the people may, perhaps justly, take, though they cannot often be properly said to resume it, from a vicious or from an imbecile hand. But this, again, is that only argument, namely, the argument derived from expediency, which I have so often shown, in so many different ways, to be the sole argument which, on the principles of liberty, can exist in any case for any change of constitution; and which I am persuaded, also, must, in all government by law, where law is not made the tool of power, oppose universally every inroad of violence on the established rights, either of the magistrate or of the people. I am, Sir, &c. WILLIAM AND MARY; A SIMPLE TALE. THERE is no connection in life more beautiful than that subsisting between an amiable brother and sister. To see two young people of different sexes loving each other with all the warmth and tenderness of which their nature is capable, yet with a purity and disinterestedness which has so little reference to self, is peculiarly gratifying to those who delight in the more pleasing traits of human nature. While we look back to our own happy days of childhood, when we knew no other home than our father's house, does not the brother or sister who shared our sports, and sympathized in all our little sorrows, as the recollection steals upon our minds, kindle in our breasts a glow of generous affection which all our later attachments in life have failed to inspire? They are so intimately connected with the endearing remembrance of our father's house, and the little history of our early years, that cold indeed is his heart who can forget the tie which binds him to a being who shared in course with himself, a parent's blessing, and a parent's care. These reflections were suggested to me by a circumstance which lately came under my observation, and deeply interested my feelings. I have, for nearly forty years, been the pastor of a small parish in a beautiful and retired spot in the west of Scotland. I have there been a happy husband and father, and I have there mourned the loss of those who were near and dear to my affections; yet I am not disgusted with the world, and though willing, cheerfully, to resign my life when called for by Him who bestowed it, I still find much to attach and interest me in those by whom I am surrounded. William and Mary Lindsay were the children of my nearest neighbour, at least among those who had any claim to the title of gentlemen, and, by birth and education, Mr Lindsay merited that epithet. He was the younger son of a great landed proprietor inshire, but the extravagant habits of his youth had reduced his fortune so much, that he found it necessary to retire to a small property in my parish, known by the name of Woodside, consisting of only a few acres of ground, on which stood a small, though commodious house, hitherto occupied by a farmer, who rented the place from Mr Lindsay. At the time my acquaintance with that gentleman commenced, he was a widower; his wife had died about a twelvemonth before, leaving behind her two children, William and Mary. I soon found that the dispositions of my new neighbour would prevent all approaches to an inti macy between us, to which I had looked forward with pleasure. He was cold and reserved in his manners, seemed discontented with himself and the world in which he lived, and secluded himself, as much as politeness would allow, from those around him. He was, in short, a man satiated by the pleasure which, in youth, he had too deeply indulged in, and the recollection of which, joined to his loss of fortune, probably caused that sort of morbid melancholy which gives a distaste for the endearing enjoyments of social intercourse. Be that as it may, Mr Lindsay's time was more frequently spent in solitary rambles, or in perusing the contents of a well-selected library, than in holding communion with his fellows. Till William and Mary had reached their eighth and ninth years, their education had been the joint care of the village schoolmaster, and a sort of upper-servant, who likewise superintended the concerns of Mr Lindsay's household. I often sighed to think, had my children been spared to me, with what delight every leisure hour should have been devoted to their improvement; the uncommonly interesting appearance of the two children inspired me with a wish to serve them; and a resemblance that I traced, or fancied that I traced, in the features of William, to my own dear boy, strengthened this desire so much, that I at length proposed to Mr Lindsay, (one day, when he had broken so far through his usual habits as to call at the Manse,) that his son should spend a part of each day, in listening to my instructions. I was the more urgent in my request, as I knew that Mr Lindsay, from the state of his affairs, could not afford to do justice to the education of his children. After a little hesitation, he complied with my request, on being assured that the task I imposed upon myself was a pleasant one, and would serve to divert some tedious hours. "And little Mary may come too," said my wife, taking off her spectacles, and looking up from her work. "I do not like to see the poor things separated; and if she does not learn Latin with her brother, she shall at least learn all that I can teach her, which is not very much, to be sure, but she will be better here than with the servants at home, or idling about Mr's school: do not refuse me now, Mr Lindsay, for it will do good both to her and me. I sometimes think the forenoons very long, since my poor little Elizabeth was taken from me, that used to while away the time with her prattle." My good wife wiped her eyes, and Mr Lindsay, looking really grateful, shook her cordially by the hand, and promised that both his children should spend their forenoons at the Manse. From this time, the intercourse between the young Lindsays and my family was so close and constant, that I felt for them almost a parental affection; and never were two beings more formed to excite the liveliest emotions of interest and attachment. I can yet bring them distinctly to my recollection, as they used to trip gaily along the little foot-path between Woodside and the Manse; the dimpled cheek and laughing eyes of Mary forming a fine contrast to the darker complexion and more pensive expression of her brother, while the motions of both were full of grace and nature. The minds of each were of a most superior cast, although the same shades of difference were perceptible in their characters, as in their external appearance. William was grave and thoughtful, but possessed of an intenseness of feeling that displayed itself in the enthusiastic ardour with which he engaged in any study or pursuit, suited to his inclina tion and genius. His sister, with talents not inferior to those of her brother, joined a thousand little sportive graces, which gave an additional charm to the powers of her mind. She joined William in all his studies; for, secluded as she was from the society of her equals in age and rank, I considered it a duty to supply her with those resources in herself, which might serve to employ many a solitary hour, otherwise, possibly, passed in painful, or at least idle contemplations. Nor were those branches more immediately connected with female usefulness neglected; my wife instructed her in the management of household affairs, and the use of her needle, which her more serious studies did not cause her to neglect; in short, she united, to what is admirable in our sex, all that is lovely in her own. To the happiness of possessing such children Mr Lindsay could not be insensible, yet his repulsive manners and reserved habits prevented that interchange of thought and endearing intercourse which sweetens the connections of domestic life. William and Mary felt for their father that attachment and respect which an amiable child instinctively feels for a parent who is neither vicious nor cruel: they did more; they felt the keenest pity for the dejection that so often clouded his mind. But their warmest affections were centred in each other, and neither had a thought of happiness that was not, in some degree, connected with the other; nor could it have been otherwise, gifted, as they were, with the ardent feelings natural to youth and genius, and, from childhood, dependent upon each other's society for almost every pleasure they enjoyed. In this happy and tranquil manner they passed their days, till William had attained his seventeenth year, when it was judged advisable, by Mr Lindsay and myself, that he should be sent to one of our principal Universities, to pursue his studies, which I was unable to complete. My reader can scarcely conceive the pain with which William and Mary looked forward to a separation of little more than six months, unless, like them, during early youth, he has been shut out |