The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

Introduction

Of the Origin of Government

The origin of government has in all ages no less perplexed the heads of lawyers and politicians than the origin of evil has embarrassed divines and philosophers, and 'tis probable the world may receive a satisfactory solution on both those points of inquiry at the same time.

The various opinions on the origin of government have been reduced to four. 1. That dominion is founded in grace. 2. 0n force or mere power. 3. On compact. 4. On property.

The first of these opinions is so absurd, and the world has paid so very dear for embracing it, especially under the administration of the Roman pontiffs, that mankind seem at this day to be in a great measure cured of their madness in this particular, and the notion is pretty generally exploded and hissed off the stage.

To those who lay the foundation of government in force and mere brutal power it is objected that their system destroys all distinction between right and wrong; that it overturns all morality, and leaves it to every man to do what is right in his own eyes; that it leads directly to skepticism, and ends in atheism. When a man's will and pleasure is his only rule and guide, what safety can there be either for him or against him, but in the point of a sword?

On the other hand the gentlemen in favor of the original compact have been often told that their system is chimerical and unsupported by reason or experience. Questions like the following have been frequently asked them, and may be again.

"When and where was the original compact for introducing government into any society, or for creating a society, made? Who were present and parties to such compact? Who acted for infants and women, or who appointed guardians for them? Had these guardians power to bind both infants and women during life and their posterity after them? Is it in nature or reason that a guardian should by his own act perpetuate his power over his ward and bind him and his posterity in chains? Is not every man born as free by nature as his father? Has he not the same natural right to think and act and contract for himself? Is it possible for a man to have a natural right to make a slave of himself or of his posterity? Can a father supersede the laws of nature? What man is or ever was born free if every man is not? What will there be to distinguish the next generation of men from their forefathers, that they should not have the same right to make original compacts as their ancestors had? If every man has such right, may there not be as many original compacts as there are men and women born or to be born? Are not women born as free as men? Would it not be infamous to assert that the ladies are all slaves by nature? If every man and woman born or to be born has and will have a right to be consulted and must accede to the original compact before they can with any kind of justice be said to be bound by it, will not the compact be ever forming and never finished, ever making but never done? Can it with propriety be called a compact, original or derivative, that is ever in treaty but never concluded?"

When it has been said that each man is bound as soon as he accedes, and that the consent may be either express or tacit, it has been asked, "What is a tacit consent or compact? Does it not appear plain that those who refuse their assent cannot be bound? If one is at liberty to accede or not, is he not also at liberty to recedeon the discovery of some intolerable fraud and abuse that has been palmed upon him by the rest of the high contracting parties? Will not natural equity in several special cases rescind the original compacts of great men as effectually as those of little men are rendered null and void in the ordinary course of a court of chancery?"

There are other questions which have been started and a resolution of them demanded which may perhaps be deemed indecent by those who hold the prerogatives of an earthly monarch and even the power of a plantation government so sacred as to think it little less than blasphemy to inquire into their origin and foundation, while the government of the supreme ruler of the universe is every day discussed with less ceremony and decency than the administration of a petty German prince. I hope the reader will consider that I am at present only mentioning such questions as have been put by highfliers and others in church and state who would exclude all compact between a sovereign and his people, without offering my own sentiments upon them; this however I presume I may be allowed hereafter to do without offense. Those who want a full answer to them may consult Mr. Locke's discourses on government, M. De Vattel's law of nature and nations, and their own consciences.

"What state were Great Britain, Ireland, and the plantations left in by the abdication of James II? Was it a state of nature or of civil government? If a state of civil government, where were the supreme legislative and executive powers from the abdication to the election of William and Mary? Could the Lords and Commons be called a complete Parliament or supreme power without a King to head them? Did any law of the land or any original compact previous to the abdication provide that on such an event the supreme power should devolve on the two houses? Were not both houses so manifestly puzzled with the novelty and strangeness of the event, and so far from finding any act of Parliament, book case, or precedent to help them that they disputed in solemn conference by what name to call the action, and at last gave it one as new in our language and in that of Parliament as the thing itself was in fact?"(1)

If on this memorable and very happy event the three kingdoms and the dominions fell back into a state of nature, it will be asked "Whether every man and woman were not then equal? If so, had not every one of them a natural and equitable right to be consulted in the choice of a new King or in the formation of a new original compact or government if any new form had been made? Might not the nation at that time have rightfully changed the monarchy into a republic or any form that might seem best? Could any change from a state of nature take place without universal consent, or at least without the consent of the majority of the individuals? Upon the principles of the original compact as commonly explained and understood, could a few hundred men who before the dissolution of the government had been called, and in fact were, lords, knights, and gentlemen have lawfully made that glorious deliverer and defender William III rightful King?" Such an one he certainly was, and such have been all his illustrious successors to the present happy times, when we have the joy to see the scepter swayed in justice, wisdom, and mercy by our lawful sovereign, George the Third, a prince who glories in being a Briton born, and whom may God long preserve and prosper.

"If upon the abdication all were reduced to a state of nature, had not apple women and orange girls as good a right to give their respectable suffrages for a new King as the philosopher, courtier, petit-mattre, and politician? Were these and ten millions of others such ever more consulted on that occasion than the multitude now are in the adjustment of that real modern farce, an election of a King of the Romans, which serves as a contrast to the grandeur of the ancient republics, and shows the littleness of the modern German and some other gothic constitutions in their present degenerate state?

"In the election of W. 3. were the votes of Ireland and the plantations ever called for or once thought of till the affair was settled? Did the Lords and Commons who happened to be then in and about Westminster represent and act for the individuals not only of the three kingdoms but for all the freeborn and as yet unconquered possessors and proprietors of their own money-purchased, blood- purchased plantations, which, till lately, have been defended with little or no assistance from Great Britain? Were not those who did not vote in or for the new model at liberty upon the principles of the compact to remain in what some call the delectable state of nature, to which by the hypothesis they were reduced, or to join themselves to any other state whose solemn league and covenant they could subscribe? Is it not a first principle of the original compact that all who are bound should bind themselves? Will not common sense without much learning or study dictate obvious answers to all the above questions? And, say the opposers of the original compact and of the natural equality and liberty of mankind, will not those answers infallibly show that the doctrine is a piece of metaphysicaljargon and systematical nonsense?" Perhaps not.

With regard to the fourth opinion, that dominion is founded in property, what is it but playing with words? Dominion in one sense of the term is synonymous with property, so one cannot be called the foundation of the other but as one name may appear to be the foundation or cause of another.

Property cannot be the foundation of dominion as synonymous with government; for on the supposition that property has a precarious existence antecedent to government, and though it is also admitted that the security of property is one end of government but that of little estimation even in the view of a miser when life and liberty of locomotion and further accumulation are placed in competition, it must be a very absurd way of speaking to assert that one end of government is the foundation of government. If the ends of government are to be considered as its foundation, it cannot with truth or propriety be said that government is founded on any one of those ends; and therefore government is not founded on property or its security alone, but at least on something else in conjunction. It is however true in fact and experience, as the great, the incomparable Harrington has most abundantly demonstrated in his Oceana and other divine writings, that empire follows the balance of property. 'Tis also certain that property in fact generally confers power, though the possessor of it may not have much more wit than a mole or a musquash: and this is too often the cause that riches are sought after without the least concern about the right application of them. But is the fault in the riches, or the general law of nature, or the unworthy possessor? It will never follow from all this that government is rightfully founded on property alone. What shall we say then? Is not government founded on grace? No. Nor on force? No. Nor on compact? Nor property? Not altogether on either. Has it any solid foundation, any chief cornerstone but what accident, chance, or confusion may lay one moment and destroy the next? I think it has an everlasting foundation in the unchangeable will of GOD, the author of nature, whose laws never vary. The same omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely good and gracious Creator of the universe who has been pleased to make it necessary that what we call matter should gravitate for the celestial bodies to roll round their axes, dance their orbits, and perform their various revolutions in that beautiful order and concert which we all admire has made it equally necessary that from Adam and Eve to these degenerate days the different sexes should sweetly attract each other, form societies of single families, of which larger bodies and communities are as naturally, mechanically, and necessarily combined as the dew of heaven and the soft distilling rain is collected by the all-enlivening heat of the sun. Government is therefore most evidently founded on the necessities of our nature. It is by no means an arbitrary thing depending merely on compact or human will for its existence.

We come into the world forlorn and helpless; and if left alone and to ourselves at any one period of our lives, we should soon die in want, despair, or distraction. So kind is that hand, though little known or regarded, which feeds the rich and the poor, the blind and the naked, and provides for the safety of infants by the principle of parental love, and for that of men by government! We have a King who neither slumbers nor sleeps, but eternally watches for our good, whose rain falls on the just and on the unjust: yet while they live, move, and have their being in Him, and cannot account for either or for anything else, so stupid and wicked are some men as to deny his existence, blaspheme his most evident government, and disgrace their nature.

Let no man think I am about to commence advocate for despotism because I affirm that government is founded on the necessity of our natures and that an original supreme, sovereign, absolute, and uncontrollable earthly power must exist in and preside over every society, from whose final decisions there can be no appeal but directly to Heaven. It is therefore originally and ultimately in the people. I say this supreme absolute power is originally and ultimately in the people; and they never did in fact freely, nor can they rightfully make an absolute, unlimited renunciation of this divine right.* It is ever in the nature of the thing given in trust and on a condition the performance of which no mortal can dispense with, namely, that the person or persons on whom the sovereignty is conferred by the people shall incessantly consult their good. Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhorred, whether it be in the hands of one or of the few or of the many. And though "in the last age a generation of men sprung up that would flatter princes with an opinion that they have a divine right to absolute power", yet "slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation that 'tis hard to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman,should plead for it," (2) especially at a time when the finest writers of the most polite nations on the continent of Europe are enraptured with the beauties of the civil constitution of Great Britain, and envy her no less for the freedom of her sons than for her immense wealth and military glory.

But let the origin of government be placed where it may, the end of it is manifestly the good of the whole. Salus populi suprema lex esto is of the law of nature and part of that grand charter given the human race (though too many of them are afraid to assert it) by the only monarch in the universe who has a clear and indisputable right to absolute power, because he is the only ONE who is omniscient as well as omnipotent.

It is evidently contrary to the first principles of reason that supreme unlimited power should be in the hands of one man. It is the greatest "idolatry begotten by flattery on the body of pride" that could induce one to think that a single mortal should be able to hold so great a power if ever so well inclined. Hence the origin of deifying princes: it was from the trick of gulling the vulgar into a belief that their tyrants were omniscient, and that it was therefore right that they should be considered as omnipotent. Hence the dii majorum et minorum gentium, the great, the monarchical, the little, provincial, subordinate, and subaltern gods, demigods, and semidemigods, ancient and modern. Thus deities of all kinds were multiplied and increased in abundance, for every devil incarnate who could enslave a people acquired a title to divinity; and thus the "rabble of the skies" was made up of locusts and caterpillars, lions, tigers, and harpies, and other devourers translated from plaguing the earth!(3)

The end of government being the good of mankind points out its great duties: it is above all things to provide for the security, the quiet, and happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. There is no one act which a government can have a right to make that does not tend to the advancement of the security, tranquillity, and prosperity of the people. If life, liberty, and property could be enjoyed in as great perfection in solitude as in society there would be no need of government. But the experience of ages has proved that such is the nature of man, a weak, imperfect being, that the valuable ends of life cannot be obtained without the union and assistance of many. Hence 'tis clear that men cannot live apart or independent of each other. In solitude men would perish, and yet they cannot live together without contests. These contests require some arbitrator to determine them. The necessity of a common, indiffer- ent, and impartial judge makes all men seek one, though few find him in the sovereign power of their respective states or anywhere else in subordination to it.

Government is founded immediately on the necessities of human nature and ultimately on the will of God, the author of nature, who has not left it to men in general to choose whether they will be members of society or not, but at the hazard of their senses if not of their lives. Yet it is left to every man as he comes of age to choose what society he will continue to belong to. Nay, if one has a mind to turn hermit, and after he has been born, nursed, and brought up in the arms of society, and acquired the habits and passions of social life is willing to run the risk of starving alone, which is generally most unavoidable in a state of hermitage, who shall hinder him? I know of no human law founded on the law of nature to restrain him from separating himself from all the species if he can find it in his heart to leave them, unless it should be said it is against the great law of self-preservation: but of this every man will think himself his own judge.

The few hermits and misanthropes that have ever existed show that those states are unnatural. If we were to take out from them those who have made great worldly gain of their godly hermitage and those who have been under the madness of enthusiasm or disappointed hopes in their ambitious projects for the detriment of mankind, perhaps there might not be left ten from Adam to this day.

The form of government is by nature and by right so far left to the individuals of each society that they may alter it from a simple democracy or government of all over all to any other form they please. Such alteration may and ought to be made by express compact. But how seldom this right has been asserted, history will abundantly show. For once that it has been fairly settled by compact, fraud, force, or accident have determined it an hundred times. As the people have gained upon tyrants, these have been obliged to relax only till a fairer opportunity has put it in their power to encroach again.

But if every prince since Nimrod had been a tyrant, it would not prove a right to tyrannize. There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of nature and the grant of GOD Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so if they please.

Government having been proved to be necessary by the law of nature, it makes no difference in the thing to call it from a certain period, civil. This term can only relate to form, to additions to or deviations from the substance of government: this being founded in nature, the superstructures and the whole dministration should be conformed to the law of universal reason. A supreme legislative and a supreme executive power must be placed somewhere in every common-wealth. Where there is no other positive provision or compact to the contrary, those powers remain in the whole body of the people. It is also evident there can be but one best way of depositing those powers; but what that way is, mankind have been disputing in peace and in war more than five thousand years. If we could suppose the individuals of a community met to deliberate whether it were best to keep those powers in their own hands or dispose of them in trust, the following questions would occur: - Whether those two great powers of legislation and execution should remain united? If so, whether in the hands of the many or jointly or severally in the hands of a few, or jointly in some one individual? If both those powers are retained in the hands of the many, where nature seems to have placed them originally, the government is a simple democracy or a government of all over all. This can be administered only by establishing it as a first principle that the votes of the majority shall be taken as the voice of the whole. If those powers are lodged in the hands of a few, the government is an aristocracy or oligarchy.(4) Here too the first principles of a practicable administration is that the majority rules the whole. If those great powers are both lodged in the hands of one man, the government is a simple monarchy, commonly though falsely called absolute if by that term is meant a right to do as one pleases. - Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas belongs not of right to any mortal man.

The same law of nature and of reason is equally obligatory on a democracy, an aristocracy, and a monarchy: whenever the administrators in any of those forms deviate from truth, justice, and equity, they verge towards tyranny, and are to be opposed; and if they prove incorrigible they will be deposed by the people, if the people are not rendered too abject. Deposing the administrators of a simple democracy may sound oddly, but it is done every day and in almost every vote. A, B, and C, for example, make a democracy. Today A and B are for so vile a measure as a standing army. Tomorrow B and C vote it out. This is as really deposing the former administrators as setting up and making a new King is deposing the old one. Democracy in the one case and monarchy in the other still remain; all that is done is to change the administration.

The first principle and great end of government being to provide for the best good of all the people, this can be done only by a supreme legislative and executive ultimately in the people or whole community where GOD has placed it; but the inconveniences, not to say impossibility, attending the consultations and operations of a large body of people have made it necessary to transfer the power of the whole to a few. This necessity gave rise to deputation, proxy, or a right of representation.

A power of legislation without a power of execution in the same or other hands would be futile and vain. On the other hand, a power of execution, supreme or subordinate, without an independent legislature would be perfect despotism.

The difficulties attending an universal congress, especially when society became large, have brought men to consent to a delegation of the power of all: the weak and the wicked have too often been found in the same interest, and in most nations have not only brought these powers jointly into the hands of one or some few of their number, but made them hereditary in the families of despotic nobles and princes. The wiser and more virtuous states have always provided that the representation of the people should be numerous. Nothing but life and liberty are naturally hereditable: this has never been considered by those who have tamely given up both into the hands of a tyrannical oligarchy or despotic monarchy.

The analogy between the natural, or material, as it is called, and the moral world is very obvious; GOD himself appears to us at some times to cause the intervention or combination of a number of simple principles, though never when one will answer the end; gravitation and attraction have place in the revolution of the planets, because the one would fix them to a center and the other would carry them off indefinitely; so in the moral world the first simple principle is equality and the power of the whole. This will answer in small numbers; so will a tolerably virtuous oligarchy or a monarchy. But when the society grows in bulk none of them will answer well singly, and none worse than absolute monarchy. It becomes necessary therefore as numbers increase to have those several powers properly combined, so as from the whole to produce that harmony of government so often talked of and wished for but too seldom found in ancient or modern states. The grand political problem in all ages has been to invent the best combination or distribution of the supreme powers of legislation and execution. Those states have ever made the greatest figure, and have been most durable, in which those powers have not only been separated from each other but placed each in more hands than one or a few. The Romans are the most shining example; but they never had a balance between the Senate and the people, and the want of this is generally agreed by the few who know anything of the matter to have been the cause of their fall. The British constitution in theory and in the present administration of it in general comes nearest the idea of perfection of any that has been reduced to practice; and if the principles of it are adhered to it will, according to the infallible prediction of Harrington, always keep the Britons uppermost in Europe till their only rival nation shall either embrace that perfect model of a commonwealth given us by that author or come as near it as Great Britain is. Then indeed, and not till then, will that rival and our nation either be eternal confederates or contend in greater earnest than they have ever yet done, till one of them shall sink under the power of the other and rise no more.

Great Britain has at present most evidently the advantage and such opportunities of honest wealth and grandeur as perhaps no state ever had before, at least not since the days of Julius Caesar, the destroyer of the Roman glory and grandeur, at a time when but for him and his adherents both might have been rendered immortal.

We have said that the form and mode of government is to be settled by compact, as it was rightfully done by the Convention after the abdication of James II, and assented to by the first representative of the nation chosen afterwards, and by every Parliament and by almost every man ever since but the bigots to the indefeasible power of tyrants, civil and ecclesiastic. There was neither time for nor occasion to call the whole people together. If they had not liked the proceedings it was in their power to control them, as it would be should the supreme legislative or executive powers ever again attempt to enslave them. The people will bear a great deal before they will even murmur against their rulers; but when once they are thoroughly roused and in earnest against those who would be glad to enslave them their power is irresistible.(5)

At the abdication of King James every step was taken that natural justice and equity could require; and all was done that was possible, at least in the wretched state in which he left the nation. Those very noble and worthy patriots, the lords spiritual and temporal of that day, and the principal persons of the commons, advised the prince, who in consequence thereof caused letters to be "written to the lords spiritual and temporal, being Protestants, and other letters to the several counties, cities, universities, boroughs, and Cinque Ports for the choosing such persons to represent them as were of right to be sent to Parliament to meet at Westminster upon the 22d of January 1688 in order to such an establishment as that their religion, laws, and liberties might not again be in danger of being subverted."

See W & M. sess. 1. C. 1.

Upon this, elections were made, and thereupon the said lords spiritual and temporal and commons met and proceeded to assert their rights and liberties, and to the election of the Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging. The kingdom of Scotland agreed in the same choice. These proceedings were drawn into the form of acts of Parliament, and are the basis of the Acts of Union and Succession since made, and which all together are the sure foundation of that indisputable right which his present Majesty has to the crown of Great Britain and the dominions thereto belonging, which right 'tis the greatest folly to doubt of, as well as the blackest treason to deny. The present establishment founded the law of GOD and of nature was began by the Convention with a professed and real view in all parts of the British empire to put the liberties of the people out of the reach of arbitrary power in all times to come.