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TABLE OF CONTENTS

XIII The Rights of Man

PART THE FIRST

BEING AN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE'S ATTACK ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

* Editor's Introduction

* Dedication to George Washington

* Preface to the English Edition

* Preface to the French Edition

* Rights of Man

* Miscellaneous Chapter

* Conclusion

XIV The Rights of Man

PART THE SECOND

COMBINING PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE

* French Translator's Preface

* Dedication to M. de la Fayette

* Preface

* Introduction

* Chapter I Of Society and Civilisation

* Chapter II Of the Origin of the Present Old Governments

* Chapter III Of the Old and New Systems of Government

* Chapter IV Of Constitutions

* Chapter V Ways and Means of Improving the Condition of Europe,

Interspersed with Miscellaneous Observations

* Appendix

* Notes

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THE WRITINGS

OF

THOMAS PAINE

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY

VOLUME II.

1779 - 1792

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XIII.

RIGHTS OF MAN.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

WHEN Thomas Paine sailed from America for France, in April, 1787, he

was perhaps as happy a man as any in the world. His most intimate

friend, Jefferson, was Minister at Paris, and his friend Lafayette

was the idol of France. His fame had preceded him, and he at once

became, in Paris, the centre of the same circle of savants and

philosophers that had surrounded Franklin. His main reason for

proceeding at once to Paris was that he might submit to the Academy

of Sciences his invention of an iron bridge, and with its favorable

verdict he came to England, in September. He at once went to his aged

mother at Thetford, leaving with a publisher (Ridgway), his "

Prospects on the Rubicon." He next made arrangements to patent his

bridge, and to construct at Rotherham the large model of it exhibited

on Paddington Green, London. He was welcomed in England by leading

statesmen, such as Lansdowne and Fox, and above all by Edmund Burke,

who for some time had him as a guest at Beaconsfield, and drove him

about in various parts of the country. He had not the slightest

revolutionary purpose, either as regarded England or France. Towards

Louis XVI. he felt only gratitude for the services he had rendered

America, and towards George III. he felt no animosity whatever. His

four months' sojourn in Paris had convinced him that there was

approaching a reform of that country after the American model, except

that the Crown would be preserved, a compromise he approved, provided

the throne should not be hereditary. Events in France travelled more

swiftly than he had anticipated, and Paine was summoned by Lafayette,

Condorcet, and others, as an adviser in the formation of a new

constitution.

Such was the situation immediately preceding the political and

literary duel between Paine and Burke, which in the event turned out

a tremendous war between Royalism and Republicanism in Europe. Paine

was, both in France and in England, the inspirer of moderate

counsels. Samuel Rogers relates that in early life he dined at a

friend's house in London with Thomas Paine, when one of the toasts

given was the " memory of Joshua,"-in allusion to the Hebrew leader's

conquest of the kings of Canaan, and execution of them. Paine

observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. " I 'm of the

Scotch parson's opinion," he said, "when he prayed against Louis

XIV.-`Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don't let him drop!

' " Paine then gave as his toast, " The Republic of the World,"-which

Samuel Rogers, aged twenty-nine, noted as a sublime idea. This was

Paine's faith and hope, and with it he confronted the revolutionary

storms which presently burst over France and England.

Until Burke's arraignment of France in his parliamentary speech

(February 9, I790), Paine had no doubt whatever that he would

sympathize with the movement in France, and wrote to him from that

country as if conveying glad tidings. Burke's " Reflections on the

Revolution in France " appeared November 1, 1790, and Paine at once

set himself to answer it. He was then staying at the Angel Inn,

Islington. The inn has been twice rebuilt since that time, and from

its contents there is preserved only a small image, which perhaps was

meant to represent " Liberty,"-possibly brought from Paris by Paine

as an ornament for his study. From the Angel he removed to a house in

Harding Street, Fetter Lane. Rickman says Part First of " Rights of

Man " was finished at Versailles, but probably this has reference to

the preface only, as I cannot find Paine in France that year until

April 8. The book had been printed by Johnson, in time for the

opening of Parliament, in February ; but this publisher became

frightened after a few copies were out (there is one in the British

Museum), and the work was transferred to J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet

Street, with a preface sent from Paris (not contained in Johnson's

edition, nor in the American editions). The pamphlet, though sold at

the same price as Burke's, three shillings, had a vast circulation,

and Paine gave the proceeds to the Constitutional Societies which

sprang up under his teachings in various parts of the country.

Soon after appeared Burke's " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs."

In this Burke quoted a good deal from " Rights of Man," but replied

to it only with exclamation points, saying that the only answer such

ideas merited was "criminal justice." Paine's Part Second followed,

published February 17, 1792. In Part First Paine had mentioned a

rumor that Burke was a masked pensioner (a charge that will be

noticed in connection with its detailed statement in a further

publication); and as Burke had been formerly arraigned in Parliament,

while Paymaster, for a very questionable proceeding, this charge no

doubt hurt a good deal. Although the government did not follow

Burke's suggestion of a prosecution at that time, there is little

doubt that it was he who induced the prosecution of Part Second.

Before the trial came on, December 18, 1792, Paine was occupying his

seat in the French Convention, and could only be outlawed.

Burke humorously remarked to a friend of Paine and himself, " We hunt

in pairs." The severally representative character and influence of

these two men in the revolutionary era, in France and England,

deserve more adequate study than they have received. While Paine

maintained freedom of discussion, Burke first proposed criminal

prosecution for sentiments by no means libellous (such as Paine's

Part First). While Paine was endeavoring to make the movement in

France peaceful, Burke fomented the league of monarchs against France

which maddened its people, and brought on the Reign of Terror. While

Paine was endeavoring to preserve the French throne ("phantom" though

he believed it), to prevent bloodshed, Burke was secretly writing to

the Queen of France, entreating her not to compromise, and to " trust

to the support of foreign armies " (" Histoire de France depuis

1789." Henri Martin, i., 151). While Burke thus helped to bring the

King and Queen to the guillotine, Paine pleaded for their lives to

the last moment. While Paine maintained the right of mankind to

improve their condition, Burke held that " the awful Author of our

being is the author of our place in the order of existence; and that,

having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactick, not according

to our will, but according to his, he has, in and by that

disposition, virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to

the place assigned us." Paine was a religious believer in eternal

principles; Burke held that " political problems do not primarily

concern truth or falsehood. They relate to good or evil. What in the

result is likely to produce evil is politically false, that which is

productive of good politically is true." Assuming thus the

visionary's right to decide before the result what was " likely to

produce evil," Burke vigorously sought to kindle war against the

French Republic which might have developed itself peacefully, while

Paine was striving for an international Congress in Europe in the

interest of peace. Paine had faith in the people, and believed that,

if allowed to choose representatives, they would select their best

and wisest men; and that while reforming government the people would

remain orderly, as they had generally remained in America during the

transition from British rule to selfgovernment. Burke maintained that

if the existing political order were broken up there would be no

longer a people, but " a number of vague, loose individuals, and

nothing more." " Alas! " he exclaims, " they little know how many a

weary step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a

mass, which has a true personality." For the sake of peace Paine

wished the revolution to be peaceful as the advance of summer ; he

used every endeavor to reconcile English radicals to some modus

vivendi with the existing order, as he was willing to retain Louis

XVI. as head of the executive in France : Burke resisted every

tendency of English statesmanship to reform at home, or to negotiate

with the French Republic, and was mainly responsible for the King's

death and the war that followed between England and France in

February, 1793. Burke became a royal favorite, Paine was outlawed by

a prosecution originally proposed by Burke. While Paine was demanding

religious liberty, Burke was opposing the removal of penal statutes

from Unitarians, on the ground that but for those statutes Paine

might some day set up a church in England. When Burke was retiring on

a large royal pension, Paine was in prison, through the devices of

Burke's confederate, the American Minister in Paris. So the two men,

as Burke said, " hunted in pairs."

So far as Burke attempts to affirm any principle he is fairly quoted

in Paine's work, and nowhere misrepresented. As for Paine's own

ideas, the reader should remember that "Rights of Man" was the

earliest complete statement of republican principles. They were

pronounced to be the fundamental principles of the American Republic

by Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson,-the three Presidents who above

all others represented the republican idea which Paine first allied

with American Independence. Those who suppose that Paine did but

reproduce the principles of Rousseau and Locke will find by careful

study of his well-weighed language that such is not the case. Paine's

political principles were evolved out of his early Quakerism. He was

potential in George Fox. The belief that every human soul was the

child of God, and capable of direct inspiration from the Father of

all, without mediator or priestly intervention, or sacramental

instrumentality, was fatal to all privilege and rank. The universal

Fatherhood implied universal Brotherhood, or human equality. But the

fate of the Quakers proved the necessity of protecting the individual

spirit from oppression by the majority as well as by privileged

classes. For this purpose Paine insisted on surrounding the

individual right with the security of the Declaration of Rights, not

to be invaded by any government; and would reduce government to an

association limited in its operations to the defence of those rights

which the individual is unable, alone, to maintain.

From the preceding chapter it will be seen that Part Second of "

Rights of Man " was begun by Paine in the spring of 1 791. At the

close of that year, or early in 1792, he took up his abode with his

friend Thomas" Clio " Rickman, at No. 7 Upper Marylebone Street.

Rickman was a radical publisher; the house remains still a

book-binding establishment, and seems little changed since Paine

therein revised the proofs of Part Second on a table which Rickman

marked with a plate, and which is now in possession of Mr. Edward

Truelove. As the plate states, Paine wrote on the same table other

works which appeared in England in 1792.

In 1795 D. I. Eaton published an edition of " Rights of Man," with a

preface purporting to have been written by Paine while in Luxembourg

prison. It is manifestly spurious. The genuine English and French

prefaces are given.

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RIGHTS OF MAN

BEING AN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE'S ATTACK ON THE FRENCH

REVOLOUTION

BY

THOMAS PAINE

SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO CONGRESS IN THE

AMERICAN WAR, AND

AUTHOR OF THE WORKS ENTITLED "COMMON SENSE' AND 'A LETTER TO ABBÉ

RAYNAL"

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DEDICATION

George Washington

President Of The United States Of America

Sir,

I present you a small treatise in defence of those principles of

freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so eminently contributed to

establish. That the Rights of Man may become as universal as your

benevolence can wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing

the New World regenerate the Old, is the prayer of

Sir,

Your much obliged, and

  Obedient humble Servant,

    Thomas Paine

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PAINE'S PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was

natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our

acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more

agreeable to me to have had cause to continue in that opinion than to

change it.

At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in the

English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National

Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a short time

before to inform him how prosperously matters were going on. Soon

after this I saw his advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to

publish: As the attack was to be made in a language but little

studied, and less understood in France, and as everything suffers by

translation, I promised some of the friends of the Revolution in that

country that whenever Mr. Burke's Pamphlet came forth, I would answer

it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the

flagrant misrepresentations which Mr. Burke's Pamphlet contains; and

that while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution, and

the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the

world.

I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr.

Burke, as (from the circumstances I am going to mention) I had formed

other expectations.

I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more

have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found

out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the

neighbourhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were

disposed to set honesty about it, or if countries were enlightened

enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had

been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that

time characterised the people of England; but experience and an

acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually shown to

the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe

that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any

two countries than between America and France.

When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the Archbishop of

Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I

became much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a

man of an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments

and my own perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and

the wretched impolicy of two nations, like England and France,

continually worrying each other, to no other end than that of a

mutual increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had

not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our opinions

into writing and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I

should see among the people of England, any disposition to cultivate

a better understanding between the two nations than had hitherto

prevailed, how far I might be authorised to say that the same

disposition prevailed on the part of France? He answered me by letter

in the most unreserved manner, and that not for himself only, but for

the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was declared to be

written.

I put this letter into the, hands of Mr. Burke almost three years

ago, and left it with him, where it still remains; hoping, and at the

same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of

him, that he would find some opportunity of making good use of it,

for the purpose of removing those errors and prejudices which two

neighbouring nations, from the want of knowing each other, had

entertained, to the injury of both.

When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr.

Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it;

instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing

away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy,

as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be

enemies. That there are men in all countries who get their living by

war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it

is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a

country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate prejudices

between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.

With respect to a paragraph in this work alluding to Mr. Burke's

having a pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at

least two months; and as a person is often the last to hear what

concerns him the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke

may have an opportunity of contradicting the rumour, if he thinks

proper.

      Thomas Paine

PAINE'S PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION

The astonishment which the French Revolution has caused throughout

Europe should be considered from two different points of view: first

as it affects foreign peoples, secondly as it affects their

governments.

The cause of the French people is that of all Europe, or rather of

the whole world; but the governments of all those countries are by no

means favorable to it. It is important that we should never lose

sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their

governments; especially not the English people with its government.

The government of England is no friend of the revolution of France.

Of this we have sufficient proofs in the thanks given by that weak

and witless person, the Elector of Hanover, sometimes called the King

of England, to Mr. Burke for the insults heaped on it in his book,

and in the malevolent comments of the English Minister, Pitt, in his

speeches in Parliament.

In spite of the professions of sincerest friendship found in the

official correspondence of the English government with that of

France, its conduct gives the lie to all its declarations, and shows

us clearly that it is not a court to be trusted, but an insane court,

plunging in all the quarrels and intrigues of Europe, in quest of a

war to satisfy its folly and countenance its extravagance.

The English nation, on the contrary, is very favorably disposed

towards the French Revolution, and to the progress of liberty in the

whole world; and this feeling will become more general in England as

the intrigues and artifices of its government are better known, and

the principles of the revolution better understood. The French should

know that most English newspapers are directly in the pay of

government, or, if indirectly connected with it, always under its

orders; and that those papers constantly distort and attack the

revolution in France in order to deceive the nation. But, as it is

impossible long to prevent the prevalence of truth, the daily

falsehoods of those papers no longer have the desired effect.

To be convinced that the voice of truth has been stifled in England,

the world needs only to be told that the government regards and

prosecutes as a libel that which it should protect.*[1] This outrage

on morality is called law, and judges are found wicked enough to

inflict penalties on truth.

The English government presents, just now, a curious phenomenon.

Seeing that the French and English nations are getting rid of the

prejudices and false notions formerly entertained against each other,

and which have cost them so much money, that government seems to be

placarding its need of a foe; for unless it finds one somewhere, no

pretext exists for the enormous revenue and taxation now deemed

necessary.

Therefore it seeks in Russia the enemy it has lost in France, and

appears to say to the universe, or to say to itself. "If nobody will

be so kind as to become my foe, I shall need no more fleets nor

armies, and shall be forced to reduce my taxes. The American war

enabled me to double the taxes; the Dutch business to add more; the

Nootka humbug gave me a pretext for raising three millions sterling

more; but unless I can make an enemy of Russia the harvest from wars

will end. I was the first to incite Turk against Russian, and now I

hope to reap a fresh crop of taxes."

If the miseries of war, and the flood of evils it spreads over a

country, did not check all inclination to mirth, and turn laughter

into grief, the frantic conduct of the government of England would

only excite ridicule. But it is impossible to banish from one's mind

the images of suffering which the contemplation of such vicious

policy presents. To reason with governments, as they have existed for

ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves

that reforms can be expected. There ought not now to exist any doubt

that the peoples of France, England, and America, enlightened and

enlightening each other, shall henceforth be able, not merely to give

the world an example of good government, but by their united

influence enforce its practice.

(Translated from the French)

RIGHTS OF MAN

Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and

irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is

an extraordinary instance. Neither the People of France, nor the

National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of

England, or the English Parliament; and that Mr. Burke should

commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parliament and in

public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners,

nor justified on that of policy.

There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the English

language, with which Mr. Burke has not loaded the French Nation and

the National Assembly. Everything which rancour, prejudice, ignorance

or knowledge could suggest, is poured forth in the copious fury of

near four hundred pages. In the strain and on the plan Mr. Burke was

writing, he might have written on to as many thousands. When the

tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man,

and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

Hitherto Mr. Burke has been mistaken and disappointed in the opinions

he had formed of the affairs of France; but such is the ingenuity of

his hope, or the malignancy of his despair, that it furnishes him

with new pretences to go on. There was a time when it was impossible

to make Mr. Burke believe there would be any Revolution in France.

His opinion then was, that the French had neither spirit to undertake

it nor fortitude to support it; and now that there is one, he seeks

an escape by condemning it.

Not sufficiently content with abusing the National Assembly, a great

part of his work is taken up with abusing Dr. Price (one of the

best-hearted men that lives) and the two societies in England known

by the name of the Revolution Society and the Society for

Constitutional Information.

Dr. Price had preached a sermon on the 4th of November, 1789, being

the anniversary of what is called in England the Revolution, which

took place 1688. Mr. Burke, speaking of this sermon, says: "The

political Divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, that by the

principles of the Revolution, the people of England have acquired

three fundamental rights:

1. To choose our own governors.

2. To cashier them for misconduct.

3. To frame a government for ourselves."

Dr. Price does not say that the right to do these things exists in

this or in that person, or in this or in that description of persons,

but that it exists in the whole; that it is a right resident in the

nation. Mr. Burke, on the contrary, denies that such a right exists

in the nation, either in whole or in part, or that it exists

anywhere; and, what is still more strange and marvellous, he says:

"that the people of England utterly disclaim such a right, and that

they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and

fortunes." That men should take up arms and spend their lives and

fortunes, not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not

rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the

paradoxical genius of Mr. Burke.

The method which Mr. Burke takes to prove that the people of England

have no such rights, and that such rights do not now exist in the

nation, either in whole or in part, or anywhere at all, is of the

same marvellous and monstrous kind with what he has already said; for

his arguments are that the persons, or the generation of persons, in

whom they did exist, are dead, and with them the right is dead also.

To prove this, he quotes a declaration made by Parliament about a

hundred years ago, to William and Mary, in these words: "The Lords

Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of the people

aforesaid" (meaning the people of England then living) "most humbly

and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities, for

Ever." He quotes a clause of another Act of Parliament made in the

same reign, the terms of which he says, "bind us" (meaning the people

of their day), "our heirs and our posterity, to them, their heirs and

posterity, to the end of time."

Mr. Burke conceives his point sufficiently established by producing

those clauses, which he enforces by saying that they exclude the

right of the nation for ever. And not yet content with making such

declarations, repeated over and over again, he farther says, "that if

the people of England possessed such a right before the Revolution"

(which he acknowledges to have been the case, not only in England,

but throughout Europe, at an early period), "yet that the English

Nation did, at the time of the Revolution, most solemnly renounce and

abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their posterity, for ever."

As Mr. Burke occasionally applies the poison drawn from his horrid

principles, not only to the English nation, but to the French

Revolution and the National Assembly, and charges that august,

illuminated and illuminating body of men with the epithet of

usurpers, I shall, sans ceremonie, place another system of principles

in opposition to his.

The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for

themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do, and which

it appeared right should be done. But, in addition to this right,

which they possessed by delegation, they set up another right by

assumption, that of binding and controlling posterity to the end of

time. The case, therefore, divides itself into two parts; the right

which they possessed by delegation, and the right which they set up

by assumption. The first is admitted; but with respect to the second,

I replyThere never did, there never will, and there never can, exist

a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in

any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and

controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever

how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and

therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers

of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power

to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all

cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and

presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and

insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has

any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The

Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more

right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to

control them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people

of the present day have to dispose of, bind or control those who are

to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and

must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require.

It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When

man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having

no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no

longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how

its government shall be organised, or how administered.

I am not contending for nor against any form of government, nor for

nor against any party, here or elsewhere. That which a whole nation

chooses to do it has a right to do. Mr. Burke says, No. Where, then,

does the right exist? I am contending for the rights of the living,

and against their being willed away and controlled and contracted for

by the manuscript assumed authority of the dead, and Mr. Burke is

contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom

of the living. There was a time when kings disposed of their crowns

by will upon their death-beds, and consigned the people, like beasts

of the field, to whatever successor they appointed. This is now so

exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and so monstrous as hardly to

be believed. But the Parliamentary clauses upon which Mr. Burke

builds his political church are of the same nature.

The laws of every country must be analogous to some common principle.

In England no parent or master, nor all the authority of Parliament,

omnipotent as it has called itself, can bind or control the personal

freedom even of an individual beyond the age of twenty-one years. On

what ground of right, then, could the Parliament of 1688, or any

other Parliament, bind all posterity for ever?

Those who have quitted the world, and those who have not yet arrived

at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of mortal

imagination can conceive. What possible obligation, then, can exist

between them- what rule or principle can be laid down that of two

nonentities, the one out of existence and the other not in, and who

never can meet in this world, the one should control the other to the

end of time?

In England it is said that money cannot be taken out of the pockets

of the people without their consent. But who authorised, or who could

authorise, the Parliament of 1688 to control and take away the

freedom of posterity (who were not in existence to give or to

withhold their consent) and limit and confine their right of acting

in certain cases for ever?

A greater absurdity cannot present itself to the understanding of man

than what Mr. Burke offers to his readers. He tells them, and he

tells the world to come, that a certain body of men who existed a

hundred years ago made a law, and that there does not exist in the

nation, nor ever will, nor ever can, a power to alter it. Under how

many subtilties or absurdities has the divine right to govern been

imposed on the credulity of mankind? Mr. Burke has discovered a new

one, and he has shortened his journey to Rome by appealing to the

power of this infallible Parliament of former days, and he produces

what it has done as of divine authority, for that power must

certainly be more than human which no human power to the end of time

can alter.

But Mr. Burke has done some service- not to his cause, but to his

country- by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to

demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the

attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to

excess. It is somewhat extraordinary that the offence for which James

II. was expelled, that of setting up power by assumption, should be

re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that

expelled him. It shows that the Rights of Man were but imperfectly

understood at the Revolution, for certain it is that the right which

that Parliament set up by assumption (for by the delegation it had

not, and could not have it, because none could give it) over the

persons and freedom of posterity for ever was of the same tyrannical

unfounded kind which James attempted to set up over the Parliament

and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is

(for in principle they differ not) that the one was an usurper over

living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better

authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally

null and void, and of no effect.

From what, or from whence, does Mr. Burke prove the right of any

human power to bind posterity for ever? He has produced his clauses,

but he must produce also his proofs that such a right existed, and

show how it existed. If it ever existed it must now exist, for

whatever appertains to the nature of man cannot be annihilated by

man. It is the nature of man to die, and he will continue to die as

long as he continues to be born. But Mr. Burke has set up a sort of

political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever. He must,

therefore, prove that his Adam possessed such a power, or such a

right.

The weaker any cord is, the less will it bear to be stretched, and

the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break

it. Had anyone proposed the overthrow of Mr. Burke's positions, he

would have proceeded as Mr. Burke has done. He would have magnified

the authorities, on purpose to have called the right of them into

question; and the instant the question of right was started, the

authorities must have been given up.

It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive that

although laws made in one generation often continue in force through

succeeding generations, yet they continue to derive their force from

the consent of the living. A law not repealed continues in force, not

because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; and

the non-repealing passes for consent.

But Mr. Burke's clauses have not even this qualification in their

favour. They become null, by attempting to become immortal. The

nature of them precludes consent. They destroy the right which they

might have, by grounding it on a right which they cannot have.

Immortal power is not a human right, and therefore cannot be a right

of Parliament. The Parliament of 1688 might as well have passed an

act to have authorised themselves to live for ever, as to make their

authority live for ever. All, therefore, that can be said of those

clauses is that they are a formality of words, of as much import as

if those who used them had addressed a congratulation to themselves,

and in the oriental style of antiquity had said: O Parliament, live

for ever!

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the

opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and

not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.

That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may

be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases,

who is to decide, the living or the dead?

As almost one hundred pages of Mr. Burke's book are employed upon

these clauses, it will consequently follow that if the clauses

themselves, so far as they set up an assumed usurped dominion over

posterity for ever, are unauthoritative, and in their nature null and

void; that all his voluminous inferences, and declamation drawn

therefrom, or founded thereon, are null and void also; and on this

ground I rest the matter.

We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. Burke's

book has the appearance of being written as instruction to the French

nation; but if I may permit myself the use of an extravagant

metaphor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness

attempting to illuminate light.

While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some

proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I

ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for

distinction's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July,

1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but

remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that

gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring

to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of

the living are lost, "renounced and abdicated for ever," by those who

are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to

the living world, and emphatically says: "Call to mind the sentiments

which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which

take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:- For a

nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be

free, it is sufficient that she wills it." How dry, barren, and

obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labors! and how

ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his

arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating

sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field

of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's

periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.

As I have introduced M. de la Fayette, I will take the liberty of

adding an anecdote respecting his farewell address to the Congress of

America in 1783, and which occurred fresh to my mind, when I saw Mr.

Burke's thundering attack on the French Revolution. M. de la Fayette

went to America at the early period of the war, and continued a

volunteer in her service to the end. His conduct through the whole of

that enterprise is one of the most extraordinary that is to be found

in the history of a young man, scarcely twenty years of age. Situated

in a country that was like the lap of sensual pleasure, and with the

means of enjoying it, how few are there to be found who would

exchange such a scene for the woods and wildernesses of America, and

pass the flowery years of youth in unprofitable danger and hardship!

but such is the fact. When the war ended, and he was on the point of

taking his final departure, he presented himself to Congress, and

contemplating in his affectionate farewell the Revolution he had

seen, expressed himself in these words: "May this great monument

raised to liberty serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an example

to the oppressed!" When this address came to the hands of Dr.

Franklin, who was then in France, he applied to Count Vergennes to

have it inserted in the French Gazette, but never could obtain his

consent. The fact was that Count Vergennes was an aristocratical

despot at home, and dreaded the example of the American Revolution in

France, as certain other persons now dread the example of the French

Revolution in England, and Mr. Burke's tribute of fear (for in this

light his book must be considered) runs parallel with Count

Vergennes' refusal. But to return more particularly to his work.

"We have seen," says Mr. Burke, "the French rebel against a mild and

lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any people

has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most

sanguinary tyrant." This is one among a thousand other instances, in

which Mr. Burke shows that he is ignorant of the springs and

principles of the French Revolution.

It was not against Louis XVI. but against the despotic principles of

the Government, that the nation revolted. These principles had not

their origin in him, but in the original establishment, many

centuries back: and they were become too deeply rooted to be removed,

and the Augean stables of parasites and plunderers too abominably

filthy to be cleansed by anything short of a complete and universal

Revolution. When it becomes necessary to do anything, the whole heart

and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it. That crisis

was then arrived, and there remained no choice but to act with

determined vigor, or not to act at all. The king was known to be the

friend of the nation, and this circumstance was favorable to the

enterprise. Perhaps no man bred up in the style of an absolute king,

ever possessed a heart so little disposed to the exercise of that

species of power as the present King of France. But the principles of

the Government itself still remained the same. The Monarch and the

Monarchy were distinct and separate things; and it was against the

established despotism of the latter, and not against the person or

principles of the former, that the revolt commenced, and the

Revolution has been carried.

Mr. Burke does not attend to the distinction between men and

principles, and, therefore, he does not see that a revolt may take

place against the despotism of the latter, while there lies no charge

of despotism against the former.

The natural moderation of Louis XVI. contributed nothing to alter the

hereditary despotism of the monarchy. All the tyrannies of former

reigns, acted under that hereditary despotism, were still liable to

be revived in the hands of a successor. It was not the respite of a

reign that would satisfy France, enlightened as she was then become.

A casual discontinuance of the practice of despotism, is not a

discontinuance of its principles: the former depends on the virtue of

the individual who is in immediate possession of the power; the

latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation. In the case of

Charles I. and James II. of England, the revolt was against the

personal despotism of the men; whereas in France, it was against the

hereditary despotism of the established Government. But men who can

consign over the rights of posterity for ever on the authority of a

mouldy parchment, like Mr. Burke, are not qualified to judge of this

Revolution. It takes in a field too vast for their views to explore,

and proceeds with a mightiness of reason they cannot keep pace with.

But there are many points of view in which this Revolution may be

considered. When despotism has established itself for ages in a

country, as in France, it is not in the person of the king only that

it resides. It has the appearance of being so in show, and in nominal

authority; but it is not so in practice and in fact. It has its

standard everywhere. Every office and department has its despotism,

founded upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille, and

every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism resident

in the person of the king, divides and sub-divides itself into a

thousand shapes and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by

deputation. This was the case in France; and against this species of

despotism, proceeding on through an endless labyrinth of office till

the source of it is scarcely perceptible, there is no mode of

redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance of duty,

and tyrannies under the pretence of obeying.

When a man reflects on the condition which France was in from the

nature of her government, he will see other causes for revolt than

those which immediately connect themselves with the person or

character of Louis XVI. There were, if I may so express it, a

thousand despotisms to be reformed in France, which had grown up

under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and became so rooted

as to be in a great measure independent of it. Between the Monarchy,

the Parliament, and the Church there was a rivalship of despotism;

besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial

despotism operating everywhere. But Mr. Burke, by considering the

king as the only possible object of a revolt, speaks as if France was

a village, in which everything that passed must be known to its

commanding officer, and no oppression could be acted but what he

could immediately control. Mr. Burke might have been in the Bastille

his whole life, as well under Louis XVI. as Louis XIV., and neither

the one nor the other have known that such a man as Burke existed.

The despotic principles of the government were the same in both

reigns, though the dispositions of the men were as remote as tyranny

and benevolence.

What Mr. Burke considers as a reproach to the French Revolution (that

of bringing it forward under a reign more mild than the preceding

ones) is one of its highest honors. The Revolutions that have taken

place in other European countries, have been excited by personal

hatred. The rage was against the man, and he became the victim. But,

in the instance of France we see a Revolution generated in the

rational contemplation of the Rights of Man, and distinguishing from

the beginning between persons and principles.

But Mr. Burke appears to have no idea of principles when he is

contemplating Governments. "Ten years ago," says he, "I could have

felicitated France on her having a Government, without inquiring what

the nature of that Government was, or how it was administered." Is

this the language of a rational man? Is it the language of a heart

feeling as it ought to feel for the rights and happiness of the human

race? On this ground, Mr. Burke must compliment all the Governments

in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, whether sold

into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are wholly forgotten. It

is power, and not principles, that Mr. Burke venerates; and under

this abominable depravity he is disqualified to judge between them.

Thus much for his opinion as to the occasions of the French

Revolution. I now proceed to other considerations.

I know a place in America called Point-no-Point, because as you

proceed along the shore, gay and flowery as Mr. Burke's language, it

continually recedes and presents itself at a distance before you; but

when you have got as far as you can go, there is no point at all.

Just thus it is with Mr. Burke's three hundred and sixty-six pages.

It is therefore difficult to reply to him. But as the points he

wishes to establish may be inferred from what he abuses, it is in his

paradoxes that we must look for his arguments.

As to the tragic paintings by which Mr. Burke has outraged his own

imagination, and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are

very well calculated for theatrical representation, where facts are

manufactured for the sake of show, and accommodated to produce,

through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping effect. But Mr. Burke

should recollect that he is writing history, and not plays, and that

his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant of

high-toned exclamation.

When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to

be believed that "The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of

Europe is extinguished for ever! that The unbought grace of life (if

anyone knows what it is), the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of

manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!" and all this because

the Quixot age of chivalry nonsense is gone, what opinion can we form

of his judgment, or what regard can we pay to his facts? In the

rhapsody of his imagination he has discovered a world of wind mills,

and his sorrows are that there are no Quixots to attack them. But if

the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should fall (and they

had originally some connection) Mr. Burke, the trumpeter of the

Order, may continue his parody to the end, and finish with

exclaiming: "Othello's occupation's gone!"

Notwithstanding Mr. Burke's horrid paintings, when the French

Revolution is compared with the Revolutions of other countries, the

astonishment will be that it is marked with so few sacrifices; but

this astonishment will cease when we reflect that principles, and not

persons, were the meditated objects of destruction. The mind of the

nation was acted upon by a higher stimulus than what the

consideration of persons could inspire, and sought a higher conquest

than could be produced by the downfall of an enemy. Among the few who

fell there do not appear to be any that were intentionally singled

out. They all of them had their fate in the circumstances of the

moment, and were not pursued with that long, cold-blooded unabated

revenge which pursued the unfortunate Scotch in the affair of 1745.

Through the whole of Mr. Burke's book I do not observe that the

Bastille is mentioned more than once, and that with a kind of

implication as if he were sorry it was pulled down, and wished it

were built up again. "We have rebuilt Newgate," says he, "and

tenanted the mansion; and we have prisons almost as strong as the

Bastille for those who dare to libel the queens of France."*[2] As to

what a madman like the person called Lord George Gordon might say,

and to whom Newgate is rather a bedlam than a prison, it is unworthy

a rational consideration. It was a madman that libelled, and that is

sufficient apology; and it afforded an opportunity for confining him,

which was the thing that was wished for. But certain it is that Mr.

Burke, who does not call himself a madman (whatever other people may

do), has libelled in the most unprovoked manner, and in the grossest

style of the most vulgar abuse, the whole representative authority of

France, and yet Mr. Burke takes his seat in the British House of

Commons! From his violence and his grief, his silence on some points

and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr.

Burke is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of

the Pope and the Bastille, are pulled down.

Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection that I

can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered

out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most

miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his

talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than

he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching

his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his

imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him

from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the

genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be

a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of

misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon.

As Mr. Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille

(and his silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his

readers with refections on supposed facts distorted into real

falsehoods, I will give, since he has not, some account of the

circumstances which preceded that transaction. They will serve to

show that less mischief could scarcely have accompanied such an event

when considered with the treacherous and hostile aggravations of the

enemies of the Revolution.

The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous scene than

what the city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille,

and for two days before and after, nor perceive the possibility of

its quieting so soon. At a distance this transaction has appeared

only as an act of heroism standing on itself, and the close political

connection it had with the Revolution is lost in the brilliancy of

the achievement. But we are to consider it as the strength of the

parties brought man to man, and contending for the issue. The

Bastille was to be either the prize or the prison of the assailants.

The downfall of it included the idea of the downfall of despotism,

and this compounded image was become as figuratively united as

Bunyan's Doubting Castle and Giant Despair.

The National Assembly, before and at the time of taking the Bastille,

was sitting at Versailles, twelve miles distant from Paris. About a

week before the rising of the Partisans, and their taking the

Bastille, it was discovered that a plot was forming, at the head of

which was the Count D'Artois, the king's youngest brother, for

demolishing the National Assembly, seizing its members, and thereby

crushing, by a coup de main, all hopes and prospects of forming a

free government. For the sake of humanity, as well as freedom, it is

well this plan did not succeed. Examples are. not wanting to show how

dreadfully vindictive and cruel are all old governments, when they

are successful against what they call a revolt.

This plan must have been some time in contemplation; because, in

order to carry it into execution, it was necessary to collect a large

military force round Paris, and cut off the communication between

that city and the National Assembly at Versailles. The troops

destined for this service were chiefly the foreign troops in the pay

of France, and who, for this particular purpose, were drawn from the

distant provinces where they were then stationed. When they were

collected to the amount of between twenty-five and thirty thousand,

it was judged time to put the plan into execution. The ministry who

were then in office, and who were friendly to the Revolution, were

instantly dismissed and a new ministry formed of those who had

concerted the project, among whom was Count de Broglio, and to his

share was given the command of those troops. The character of this

man as described to me in a letter which I communicated to Mr. Burke

before he began to write his book, and from an authority which Mr.

Burke well knows was good, was that of "a high-flying aristocrat,

cool, and capable of every mischief."

While these matters were agitating, the National Assembly stood in

the most perilous and critical situation that a body of men can be

supposed to act in. They were the devoted victims, and they knew it.

They had the hearts and wishes of their country on their side, but

military authority they had none. The guards of Broglio surrounded

the hall where the Assembly sat, ready, at the word of command, to

seize their persons, as had been done the year before to the

Parliament of Paris. Had the National Assembly deserted their trust,

or had they exhibited signs of weakness or fear, their enemies had

been encouraged and their country depressed. When the situation they

stood in, the cause they were engaged in, and the crisis then ready

to burst, which should determine their personal and political fate

and that of their country, and probably of Europe, are taken into one

view, none but a heart callous with prejudice or corrupted by

dependence can avoid interesting itself in their success.

The Archbishop of Vienne was at this time President of the National

Assembly- a person too old to undergo the scene that a few days or a

few hours might bring forth. A man of more activity and bolder

fortitude was necessary, and the National Assembly chose (under the

form of a Vice-President, for the Presidency still resided in the

Archbishop) M. de la Fayette; and this is the only instance of a

Vice-President being chosen. It was at the moment that this storm was

pending (July 11th) that a declaration of rights was brought forward

by M. de la Fayette, and is the same which is alluded to earlier. It

was hastily drawn up, and makes only a part of the more extensive

declaration of rights agreed upon and adopted afterwards by the

National Assembly. The particular reason for bringing it forward at

this moment (M. de la Fayette has since informed me) was that, if the

National Assembly should fall in the threatened destruction that then

surrounded it, some trace of its principles might have the chance of

surviving the wreck.

Everything now was drawing to a crisis. The event was freedom or

slavery. On one side, an army of nearly thirty thousand men; on the

other, an unarmed body of citizens- for the citizens of Paris, on

whom the National Assembly must then immediately depend, were as

unarmed and as undisciplined as the citizens of London are now. The

French guards had given strong symptoms of their being attached to

the national cause; but their numbers were small, not a tenth part of

the force that Broglio commanded, and their officers were in the

interest of Broglio.

Matters being now ripe for execution, the new ministry made their

appearance in office. The reader will carry in his mind that the

Bastille was taken the 14th July; the point of time I am now speaking

of is the 12th. Immediately on the news of the change of ministry

reaching Paris, in the afternoon, all the playhouses and places of

entertainment, shops and houses, were shut up. The change of ministry

was considered as the prelude of hostilities, and the opinion was

rightly founded.

The foreign troops began to advance towards the city. The Prince de

Lambesc, who commanded a body of German cavalry, approached by the

Place of Louis Xv., which connects itself with some of the streets.

In his march, he insulted and struck an old man with a sword. The

French are remarkable for their respect to old age; and the insolence

with which it appeared to be done, uniting with the general

fermentation they were in, produced a powerful effect, and a cry of

"To arms! to arms!" spread itself in a moment over the city.

Arms they had none, nor scarcely anyone who knew the use of them; but

desperate resolution, when every hope is at stake, supplies, for a

while, the want of arms. Near where the Prince de Lambesc was drawn

up, were large piles of stones collected for building the new bridge,

and with these the people attacked the cavalry. A party of French

guards upon hearing the firing, rushed from their quarters and joined

the people; and night coming on, the cavalry retreated.

The streets of Paris, being narrow, are favourable for defence, and

the loftiness of the houses, consisting of many stories, from which

great annoyance might be given, secured them against nocturnal

enterprises; and the night was spent in providing themselves with

every sort of weapon they could make or procure: guns, swords,

blacksmiths' hammers, carpenters' axes, iron crows, pikes, halberts,

pitchforks, spits, clubs, etc., etc. The incredible numbers in which

they assembled the next morning, and the still more incredible

resolution they exhibited, embarrassed and astonished their enemies.

Little did the new ministry expect such a salute. Accustomed to

slavery themselves, they had no idea that liberty was capable of such

inspiration, or that a body of unarmed citizens would dare to face

the military force of thirty thousand men. Every moment of this day

was employed in collecting arms, concerting plans, and arranging

themselves into the best order which such an instantaneous movement

could afford. Broglio continued lying round the city, but made no

further advances this day, and the succeeding night passed with as

much tranquility as such a scene could possibly produce.

But defence only was not the object of the citizens. They had a cause

at stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery. They

every moment expected an attack, or to hear of one made on the

National Assembly; and in such a situation, the most prompt measures

are sometimes the best. The object that now presented itself was the

Bastille; and the eclat of carrying such a fortress in the face of

such an army, could not fail to strike terror into the new ministry,

who had scarcely yet had time to meet. By some intercepted

correspondence this morning, it was discovered that the Mayor of

Paris, M. Defflesselles, who appeared to be in the interest of the

citizens, was betraying them; and from this discovery, there remained

no doubt that Broglio would reinforce the Bastille the ensuing

evening. It was therefore necessary to attack it that day; but before

this could be done, it was first necessary to procure a better supply

of arms than they were then possessed of.

There was, adjoining to the city a large magazine of arms deposited

at the Hospital of the Invalids, which the citizens summoned to

surrender; and as the place was neither defensible, nor attempted

much defence, they soon succeeded. Thus supplied, they marched to

attack the Bastille; a vast mixed multitude of all ages, and of all

degrees, armed with all sorts of weapons. Imagination would fail in

describing to itself the appearance of such a procession, and of the

anxiety of the events which a few hours or a few minutes might

produce. What plans the ministry were forming, were as unknown to the

people within the city, as what the citizens were doing was unknown

to the ministry; and what movements Broglio might make for the

support or relief of the place, were to the citizens equally as

unknown. All was mystery and hazard.

That the Bastille was attacked with an enthusiasm of heroism, such

only as the highest animation of liberty could inspire, and carried

in the space of a few hours, is an event which the world is fully

possessed of. I am not undertaking the detail of the attack, but

bringing into view the conspiracy against the nation which provoked

it, and which fell with the Bastille. The prison to which the new

ministry were dooming the National Assembly, in addition to its being

the high altar and castle of despotism, became the proper object to

begin with. This enterprise broke up the new ministry, who began now

to fly from the ruin they had prepared for others. The troops of

Broglio dispersed, and himself fled also.

Mr. Burke has spoken a great deal about plots, but he has never once

spoken of this plot against the National Assembly, and the liberties

of the nation; and that he might not, he has passed over all the

circumstances that might throw it in his way. The exiles who have

fled from France, whose case he so much interests himself in, and

from whom he has had his lesson, fled in consequence of the

miscarriage of this plot. No plot was formed against them; they were

plotting against others; and those who fell, met, not unjustly, the

punishment they were preparing to execute. But will Mr. Burke say

that if this plot, contrived with the subtilty of an ambuscade, had

succeeded, the successful party would have restrained their wrath so

soon? Let the history of all governments answer the question.

Whom has the National Assembly brought to the scaffold? None. They

were themselves the devoted victims of this plot, and they have not

retaliated; why, then, are they charged with revenge they have not

acted? In the tremendous breaking forth of a whole people, in which

all degrees, tempers and characters are confounded, delivering

themselves, by a miracle of exertion, from the destruction meditated

against them, is it to be expected that nothing will happen? When men

are sore with the sense of oppressions, and menaced with the

prospects of new ones, is the calmness of philosophy or the palsy of

insensibility to be looked for? Mr. Burke exclaims against outrage;

yet the greatest is that which himself has committed. His book is a

volume of outrage, not apologised for by the impulse of a moment, but

cherished through a space of ten months; yet Mr. Burke had no

provocation- no life, no interest, at stake.

More of the citizens fell in this struggle than of their opponents:

but four or five persons were seized by the populace, and instantly

put to death; the Governor of the Bastille, and the Mayor of Paris,

who was detected in the act of betraying them; and afterwards Foulon,

one of the new ministry, and Berthier, his son-in-law, who had

accepted the office of intendant of Paris. Their heads were stuck

upon spikes, and carried about the city; and it is upon this mode of

punishment that Mr. Burke builds a great part of his tragic scene.

Let us therefore examine how men came by the idea of punishing in

this manner.

They learn it from the governments they live under; and retaliate the

punishments they have been accustomed to behold. The heads stuck upon

spikes, which remained for years upon Temple Bar, differed nothing in

the horror of the scene from those carried about upon spikes at

Paris; yet this was done by the English Government. It may perhaps be

said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he

is dead; but it signifies much to the living; it either tortures

their feelings or hardens their hearts, and in either case it

instructs them how to punish when power falls into their hands.

Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is

their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. In England the

punishment in certain cases is by hanging, drawing and quartering;

the heart of the sufferer is cut out and held up to the view of the

populace. In France, under the former Government, the punishments

were not less barbarous. Who does not remember the execution of

Damien, torn to pieces by horses? The effect of those cruel

spectacles exhibited to the populace is to destroy tenderness or

excite revenge; and by the base and false idea of governing men by

terror, instead of reason, they become precedents. It is over the

lowest class of mankind that government by terror is intended to

operate, and it is on them that it operates to the worst effect. They

have sense enough to feel they are the objects aimed at; and they

inflict in their turn the examples of terror they have been

instructed to practise.

There is in all European countries a large class of people of that

description, which in England is called the "mob." Of this class were

those who committed the burnings and devastations in London in 1780,

and of this class were those who carried the heads on iron spikes in

Paris. Foulon and Berthier were taken up in the country, and sent to

Paris, to undergo their examination at the Hotel de Ville; for the

National Assembly, immediately on the new ministry coming into

office, passed a decree, which they communicated to the King and

Cabinet, that they (the National Assembly) would hold the ministry,

of which Foulon was one, responsible for the measures they were

advising and pursuing; but the mob, incensed at the appearance of

Foulon and Berthier, tore them from their conductors before they were

carried to the Hotel de Ville, and executed them on the spot. Why

then does Mr. Burke charge outrages of this kind on a whole people?

As well may he charge the riots and outrages of 1780 on all the

people of London, or those in Ireland on all his countrymen.

But everything we see or hear offensive to our feelings and

derogatory to the human character should lead to other reflections

than those of reproach. Even the beings who commit them have some

claim to our consideration. How then is it that such vast classes of

mankind as are distinguished by the appellation of the vulgar, or the

ignorant mob, are so numerous in all old countries? The instant we

ask ourselves this question, reflection feels an answer. They rise,

as an unavoidable consequence, out of the ill construction of all old

governments in Europe, England included with the rest. It is by

distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly debased,

till the whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are

degradedly thrown into the back-ground of the human picture, to bring

forward, with greater glare, the puppet-show of state and

aristocracy. In the commencement of a revolution, those men are

rather the followers of the camp than of the standard of liberty, and

have yet to be instructed how to reverence it.

I give to Mr. Burke all his theatrical exaggerations for facts, and I

then ask him if they do not establish the certainty of what I here

lay down? Admitting them to be true, they show the necessity of the

French Revolution, as much as any one thing he could have asserted.

These outrages were not the effect of the principles of the

Revolution, but of the degraded mind that existed before the

Revolution, and which the Revolution is calculated to reform. Place

them then to their proper cause, and take the reproach of them to

your own side.

It is the honour of the National Assembly and the city of Paris that,

during such a tremendous scene of arms and confusion, beyond the

control of all authority, they have been able, by the influence of

example and exhortation, to restrain so much. Never were more pains

taken to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to make them see that

their interest consisted in their virtue, and not in their revenge,

than have been displayed in the Revolution of France. I now proceed

to make some remarks on Mr. Burke's account of the expedition to

Versailles, October the 5th and 6th.

I can consider Mr. Burke's book in scarcely any other light than a

dramatic performance; and he must, I think, have considered it in the

same light himself, by the poetical liberties he has taken of

omitting some facts, distorting others, and making the whole

machinery bend to produce a stage effect. Of this kind is his account

of the expedition to Versailles. He begins this account by omitting

the only facts which as causes are known to be true; everything

beyond these is conjecture, even in Paris; and he then works up a

tale accommodated to his own passions and prejudices.

It is to be observed throughout Mr. Burke's book that he never speaks

of plots against the Revolution; and it is from those plots that all

the mischiefs have arisen. It suits his purpose to exhibit the

consequences without their causes. It is one of the arts of the drama

to do so. If the crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings,

stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the audience would be

inclined to approve where it was intended they should commiserate.

After all the investigations that have been made into this intricate

affair (the expedition to Versailles), it still remains enveloped in

all that kind of mystery which ever accompanies events produced more

from a concurrence of awkward circumstances than from fixed design.

While the characters of men are forming, as is always the case in

revolutions, there is a reciprocal suspicion, and a disposition to

misinterpret each other; and even parties directly opposite in

principle will sometimes concur in pushing forward the same movement

with very different views, and with the hopes of its producing very

different consequences. A great deal of this may be discovered in

this embarrassed affair, and yet the issue of the whole was what

nobody had in view.

The only things certainly known are that considerable uneasiness was

at this time excited at Paris by the delay of the King in not

sanctioning and forwarding the decrees of the National Assembly,

particularly that of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the

decrees of the fourth of August, which contained the foundation

principles on which the constitution was to be erected. The kindest,

and perhaps the fairest conjecture upon this matter is, that some of

the ministers intended to make remarks and observations upon certain

parts of them before they were finally sanctioned and sent to the

provinces; but be this as it may, the enemies of the Revolution

derived hope from the delay, and the friends of the Revolution

uneasiness.

During this state of suspense, the Garde du Corps, which was composed

as such regiments generally are, of persons much connected with the

Court, gave an entertainment at Versailles (October 1) to some

foreign regiments then arrived; and when the entertainment was at the

height, on a signal given, the Garde du Corps tore the national

cockade from their hats, trampled it under foot, and replaced it with

a counter-cockade prepared for the purpose. An indignity of this kind

amounted to defiance. It was like declaring war; and if men will give

challenges they must expect consequences. But all this Mr. Burke has

carefully kept out of sight. He begins his account by saying:

"History will record that on the morning of the 6th October, 1789,

the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm,

dismay, and slaughter, lay down under the pledged security of public

faith to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled

melancholy repose." This is neither the sober style of history, nor

the intention of it. It leaves everything to be guessed at and

mistaken. One would at least think there had been a battle; and a

battle there probably would have been had it not been for the

moderating prudence of those whom Mr. Burke involves in his censures.

By his keeping the Garde du Corps out of sight Mr. Burke has afforded

himself the dramatic licence of putting the King and Queen in their

places, as if the object of the expedition was against them. But to

return to my accountThis conduct of the Garde du Corps, as might well

be expected, alarmed and enraged the Partisans. The colors of the

cause, and the cause itself, were become too united to mistake the

intention of the insult, and the Partisans were determined to call

the Garde du Corps to an account. There was certainly nothing of the

cowardice of assassination in marching in the face of the day to

demand satisfaction, if such a phrase may be used, of a body of armed

men who had voluntarily given defiance. But the circumstance which

serves to throw this affair into embarrassment is, that the enemies

of the Revolution appear to have encouraged it as well as its

friends. The one hoped to prevent a civil war by checking it in time,

and the other to make one. The hopes of those opposed to the

Revolution rested in making the King of their party, and getting him

from Versailles to Metz, where they expected to collect a force and

set up a standard. We have, therefore, two different objects

presenting themselves at the same time, and to be accomplished by the

same means: the one to chastise the Garde du Corps, which was the

object of the Partisans; the other to render the confusion of such a

scene an inducement to the King to set off for Metz.

On the 5th of October a very numerous body of women, and men in the

disguise of women, collected around the Hotel de Ville or town-hall

at Paris, and set off for Versailles. Their professed object was the

Garde du Corps; but prudent men readily recollect that mischief is

more easily begun than ended; and this impressed itself with the more

force from the suspicions already stated, and the irregularity of

such a cavalcade. As soon, therefore, as a sufficient force could be

collected, M. de la Fayette, by orders from the civil authority of

Paris, set off after them at the head of twenty thousand of the Paris

militia. The Revolution could derive no benefit from confusion, and

its opposers might. By an amiable and spirited manner of address he

had hitherto been fortunate in calming disquietudes, and in this he

was extraordinarily successful; to frustrate, therefore, the hopes of

those who might seek to improve this scene into a sort of justifiable

necessity for the King's quitting Versailles and withdrawing to Metz,

and to prevent at the same time the consequences that might ensue

between the Garde du Corps and this phalanx of men and women, he

forwarded expresses to the King, that he was on his march to

Versailles, by the orders of the civil authority of Paris, for the

purpose of peace and protection, expressing at the same time the

necessity of restraining the Garde du Corps from firing upon the

people.*[3]

He arrived at Versailles between ten and eleven at night. The Garde

du Corps was drawn up, and the people had arrived some time before,

but everything had remained suspended. Wisdom and policy now

consisted in changing a scene of danger into a happy event. M. de la

Fayette became the mediator between the enraged parties; and the

King, to remove the uneasiness which had arisen from the delay

already stated, sent for the President of the National Assembly, and

signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and such other parts of

the constitution as were in readiness.

It was now about one in the morning. Everything appeared to be

composed, and a general congratulation took place. By the beat of a

drum a proclamation was made that the citizens of Versailles would

give the hospitality of their houses to their fellow-citizens of

Paris. Those who could not be accommodated in this manner remained in

the streets, or took up their quarters in the churches; and at two

o'clock the King and Queen retired.

In this state matters passed till the break of day, when a fresh

disturbance arose from the censurable conduct of some of both

parties, for such characters there will be in all such scenes. One of

the Garde du Corps appeared at one of the windows of the palace, and

the people who had remained during the night in the streets accosted

him with reviling and provocative language. Instead of retiring, as

in such a case prudence would have dictated, he presented his musket,

fired, and killed one of the Paris militia. The peace being thus

broken, the people rushed into the palace in quest of the offender.

They attacked the quarters of the Garde du Corps within the palace,

and pursued them throughout the avenues of it, and to the apartments

of the King. On this tumult, not the Queen only, as Mr. Burke has

represented it, but every person in the palace, was awakened and

alarmed; and M. de la Fayette had a second time to interpose between

the parties, the event of which was that the Garde du Corps put on

the national cockade, and the matter ended as by oblivion, after the

loss of two or three lives.

During the latter part of the time in which this confusion was

acting, the King and Queen were in public at the balcony, and neither

of them concealed for safety's sake, as Mr. Burke insinuates. Matters

being thus appeased, and tranquility restored, a general acclamation

broke forth of Le Roi a Paris- Le Roi a Paris- The King to Paris. It

was the shout of peace, and immediately accepted on the part of the

King. By this measure all future projects of trapanning the King to

Metz, and setting up the standard of opposition to the constitution,

were prevented, and the suspicions extinguished. The King and his

family reached Paris in the evening, and were congratulated on their

arrival by M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, in the name of the

citizens. Mr. Burke, who throughout his book confounds things,

persons, and principles, as in his remarks on M. Bailly's address,

confounded time also. He censures M. Bailly for calling it "un bon

jour," a good day. Mr. Burke should have informed himself that this

scene took up the space of two days, the day on which it began with

every appearance of danger and mischief, and the day on which it

terminated without the mischiefs that threatened; and that it is to

this peaceful termination that M. Bailly alludes, and to the arrival

of the King at Paris. Not less than three hundred thousand persons

arranged themselves in the procession from Versailles to Paris, and

not an act of molestation was committed during the whole march.

Mr. Burke on the authority of M. Lally Tollendal, a deserter from the

National Assembly, says that on entering Paris, the people shouted

"Tous les eveques a la lanterne." All Bishops to be hanged at the

lanthorn or lamp-posts. It is surprising that nobody could hear this

but Lally Tollendal, and that nobody should believe it but Mr. Burke.

It has not the least connection with any part of the transaction, and

is totally foreign to every circumstance of it. The Bishops had never

been introduced before into any scene of Mr. Burke's drama: why then

are they, all at once, and altogether, tout a coup, et tous ensemble,

introduced now? Mr. Burke brings forward his Bishops and his

lanthorn-like figures in a magic lanthorn, and raises his scenes by

contrast instead of connection. But it serves to show, with the rest

of his book what little credit ought to be given where even

probability is set at defiance, for the purpose of defaming; and with

this reflection, instead of a soliloquy in praise of chivalry, as Mr.

Burke has done, I close the account of the expedition to

Versailles.*[4]

I have now to follow Mr. Burke through a pathless wilderness of

rhapsodies, and a sort of descant upon governments, in which he

asserts whatever he pleases, on the presumption of its being

believed, without offering either evidence or reasons for so doing.

Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts,

principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted,

or denied. Mr. Burke with his usual outrage, abused the Declaration

of the Rights of Man, published by the National Assembly of France,

as the basis on which the constitution of France is built. This he

calls "paltry and blurred sheets of paper about the rights of man."

Does Mr. Burke mean to deny that man has any rights? If he does, then

he must mean that there are no such things as rights anywhere, and

that he has none himself; for who is there in the world but man? But

if Mr. Burke means to admit that man has rights, the question then

will be: What are those rights, and how man came by them originally?

The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity,

respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into

antiquity. They do not go the whole way. They stop in some of the

intermediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, and produce

what was then done, as a rule for the present day. This is no

authority at all. If we travel still farther into antiquity, we shall

find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing; and if

antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be

produced, successively contradicting each other; but if we proceed

on, we shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when

man came from the hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was

his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him. But of

titles I shall speak hereafter.

We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of his rights.

As to the manner in which the world has been governed from that day

to this, it is no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper

use of the errors or the improvements which the history of it

presents. Those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago, were

then moderns, as we are now. They had their ancients, and those

ancients had others, and we also shall be ancients in our turn. If

the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the

people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as

well take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who

lived an hundred or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions

of antiquity, by proving everything, establish nothing. It is

authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine

origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our enquiries find

a resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute about the

rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the

creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred,

and it is to this same source of authority that we must now refer.

Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion,

yet it may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced

to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man?

I will answer the question. Because there have been upstart

governments, thrusting themselves between, and presumptuously working

to un-make man.

If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the

mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first

generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no

succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can

set any up. The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights

of man (for it has its origin from the Maker of man) relates, not

only to the living individuals, but to generations of men succeeding

each other. Every generation is equal in rights to generations which

preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in

rights with his contemporary.

Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account,

whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary

in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in

establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men

are all of one degree, and consequently that all men are born equal,

and with equal natural right, in the same manner as if posterity had

been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being

the only mode by which the former is carried forward; and

consequently every child born into the world must be considered as

deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was

to the first man that existed, and his natural right in it is of the

same kind.

The Mosaic account of the creation, whether taken as divine authority

or merely historical, is full to this point, the unity or equality of

man. The expression admits of no controversy. "And God said, Let us

make man in our own image. In the image of God created he him; male

and female created he them." The distinction of sexes is pointed out,

but no other distinction is even implied. If this be not divine

authority, it is at least historical authority, and shows that the

equality of man, so far from being a modern doctrine, is the oldest

upon record.

It is also to be observed that all the religions known in the world

are founded, so far as they relate to man, on the unity of man, as

being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever

state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad

are the only distinctions. Nay, even the laws of governments are

obliged to slide into this principle, by making degrees to consist in

crimes and not in persons.

It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the highest advantage

to cultivate. By considering man in this light, and by instructing

him to consider himself in this light, it places him in a close

connection with all his duties, whether to his Creator or to the

creation, of which he is a part; and it is only when he forgets his

origin, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, his birth and family,

that he becomes dissolute. It is not among the least of the evils of

the present existing governments in all parts of Europe that man,

considered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance from his Maker,

and the artificial chasm filled up with a succession of barriers, or

sort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote

Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and

his Maker. Putting himself in the character of a herald, he says: "We

fear God- we look with awe to kings- with affection to Parliaments

with duty to magistrates- with reverence to priests, and with respect

to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgotten to put in "'chivalry." He has

also forgotten to put in Peter.

The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which

he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and

simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every

man must feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be

done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be

respected: if not, they will be despised; and with regard to those to

whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can

know nothing of them.

Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural

rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and

to show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into

society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights

than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His

natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. But in

order to pursue this distinction with more precision, it will be

necessary to mark the different qualities of natural and civil

rights.

A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which

appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the

intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights

of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which

are not injurious to the natural rights of others. Civil rights are

those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of

society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right

pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his

individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of

this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.

From this short review it will be easy to distinguish between that

class of natural rights which man retains after entering into society

and those which he throws into the common stock as a member of

society.

The natural rights which he retains are all those in which the Power

to execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among

this class, as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights,

or rights of the mind; consequently religion is one of those rights.

The natural rights which are not retained, are all those in which,

though the right is perfect in the individual, the power to execute

them is defective. They answer not his purpose. A man, by natural

right, has a right to judge in his own cause; and so far as the right

of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it. But what availeth

it him to judge, if he has not power to redress? He therefore

deposits this right in the common stock of society, and takes the ann

of society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition to

his own. Society grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in

society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right.

From these premisses two or three certain conclusions will follow:

First, That every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in

other words, is a natural right exchanged.

Secondly, That civil power properly considered as such is made up of

the aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which

becomes defective in the individual in point of power, and answers

not his purpose, but when collected to a focus becomes competent to

the Purpose of every one.

Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural

rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to

invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and

in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.

We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural individual to

a member of society, and shown, or endeavoured to show, the quality

of the natural rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for

civil rights. Let us now apply these principles to governments.

In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to

distinguish the governments which have arisen out of society, or out

of the social compact, from those which have not; but to place this

in a clearer light than what a single glance may afford, it will be

proper to take a review of the several sources from which governments

have arisen and on which they have been founded.

They may be all comprehended under three heads.

First, Superstition.

Secondly, Power.

Thirdly, The common interest of society and the common rights of man.

The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors,

and the third of reason.

When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to

hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up

the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under

the government of superstition. The oracles were consulted, and

whatever they were made to say became the law; and this sort of

government lasted as long as this sort of superstition lasted.

After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government, like that

of William the Conqueror, was founded in power, and the sword assumed

the name of a sceptre. Governments thus established last as long as

the power to support them lasts; but that they might avail themselves

of every engine in their favor, they united fraud to force, and set

up an idol which they called Divine Right, and which, in imitation of

the Pope, who affects to be spiritual and temporal, and in

contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion, twisted

itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called Church and

State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became

quartered on one another, and the wondering cheated multitude

worshipped the invention.

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for

Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the

honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the

attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all

knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are

thus imposed upon.

We have now to review the governments which arise out of society, in

contradistinction to those which arose out of superstition and

conquest.

It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the

principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact between

those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true,

because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must

have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time

when governments did not exist, and consequently there could

originally exist no governors to form such a compact with.

The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in

his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with

each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in

which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on

which they have a right to exist.

To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought

to be, we must trace it to its origin. In doing this we shall easily

discover that governments must have arisen either out of the people

or over the people. Mr. Burke has made no distinction. He

investigates nothing to its source, and therefore he confounds

everything; but he has signified his intention of undertaking, at

some future opportunity, a comparison between the constitution of

England and France. As he thus renders it a subject of controversy by

throwing the gauntlet, I take him upon his own ground. It is in high

challenges that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept

it with the more readiness because it affords me, at the same time,

an opportunity of pursuing the subject with respect to governments

arising out of society.

But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a

Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must

fix also a standard signification to it.

A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not

an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in

a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent

to a government, and a government is only the creature of a

constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its

government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the

body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by

article; and which contains the principles on which the government

shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the

powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of

Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the

powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in

fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil

government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it

shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what

the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of

judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither

can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and

the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If he cannot,

we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about,

no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and

consequently that the people have yet a constitution to form.

Mr. Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have already

advanced- namely, that governments arise either out of the people or

over the people. The English Government is one of those which arose

out of a conquest, and not out of society, and consequently it arose

over the people; and though it has been much modified from the

opportunity of circumstances since the time of William the Conqueror,

the country has never yet regenerated itself, and is therefore

without a constitution.

I readily perceive the reason why Mr. Burke declined going into the

comparison between the English and French constitutions, because he

could not but perceive, when he sat down to the task, that no such a

thing as a constitution existed on his side the question. His book is

certainly bulky enough to have contained all he could say on this

subject, and it would have been the best manner in which people could

have judged of their separate merits. Why then has he declined the

only thing that was worth while to write upon? It was the strongest

ground he could take, if the advantages were on his side, but the

weakest if they were not; and his declining to take it is either a

sign that he could not possess it or could not maintain it.

Mr. Burke said, in a speech last winter in Parliament, "that when the

National Assembly first met in three Orders (the Tiers Etat, the

Clergy, and the Noblesse), France had then a good constitution." This

shows, among numerous other instances, that Mr. Burke does not

understand what a constitution is. The persons so met were not a

constitution, but a convention, to make a constitution.

The present National Assembly of France is, strictly speaking, the

personal social compact. The members of it are the delegates of the

nation in its original character; future assemblies will be the

delegates of the nation in its organised character. The authority of

the present Assembly is different from what the authority of future

Assemblies will be. The authority of the present one is to form a

constitution; the authority of future assemblies will be to legislate

according to the principles and forms prescribed in that

constitution; and if experience should hereafter show that

alterations, amendments, or additions are necessary, the constitution

will point out the mode by which such things shall be done, and not

leave it to the discretionary power of the future government.

A government on the principles on which constitutional governments

arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of

altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make

itself what it pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows

there is no constitution. The act by which the English Parliament

empowered itself to sit seven years, shows there is no constitution

in England. It might, by the same self-authority, have sat any great

number of years, or for life. The bill which the present Mr. Pitt

brought into Parliament some years ago, to reform Parliament, was on

the same erroneous principle. The right of reform is in the nation in

its original character, and the constitutional method would be by a

general convention elected for the purpose. There is, moreover, a

paradox in the idea of vitiated bodies reforming themselves.

From these preliminaries I proceed to draw some comparisons. I have

already spoken of the declaration of rights; and as I mean to be as

concise as possible, I shall proceed to other parts of the French

Constitution.

The constitution of France says that every man who pays a tax of

sixty sous per annum (2s. 6d. English) is an elector. What article

will Mr. Burke place against this? Can anything be more limited, and

at the same time more capricious, than the qualification of electors

is in England? Limited- because not one man in an hundred (I speak

much within compass) is admitted to vote. Capricious- because the

lowest character that can be supposed to exist, and who has not so

much as the visible means of an honest livelihood, is an elector in

some places: while in other places, the man who pays very large

taxes, and has a known fair character, and the farmer who rents to

the amount of three or four hundred pounds a year, with a property on

that farm to three or four times that amount, is not admitted to be

an elector. Everything is out of nature, as Mr. Burke says on another

occasion, in this strange chaos, and all sorts of follies are blended

with all sorts of crimes. William the Conqueror and his descendants

parcelled out the country in this manner, and bribed some parts of it

by what they call charters to hold the other parts of it the better

subjected to their will. This is the reason why so many of those

charters abound in Cornwall; the people were averse to the Government

established at the Conquest, and the towns were garrisoned and bribed

to enslave the country. All the old charters are the badges of this

conquest, and it is from this source that the capriciousness of

election arises.

The French Constitution says that the number of representatives for

any place shall be in a ratio to the number of taxable inhabitants or

electors. What article will Mr. Burke place against this? The county

of York, which contains nearly a million of souls, sends two county

members; and so does the county of Rutland, which contains not an

hundredth part of that number. The old town of Sarum, which contains

not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester,

which contains upward of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to

send any. Is there any principle in these things? It is admitted that

all this is altered, but there is much to be done yet, before we have

a fair representation of the people. Is there anything by which you

can trace the marks of freedom, or discover those of wisdom? No

wonder then Mr. Burke has declined the comparison, and endeavored to

lead his readers from the point by a wild, unsystematical display of

paradoxical rhapsodies.

The French Constitution says that the National Assembly shall be

elected every two years. What article will Mr. Burke place against

this? Why, that the nation has no right at all in the case; that the

government is perfectly arbitrary with respect to this point; and he

can quote for his authority the precedent of a former Parliament.

The French Constitution says there shall be no game laws, that the

farmer on whose lands wild game shall be found (for it is by the

produce of his lands they are fed) shall have a right to what he can

take; that there shall be no monopolies of any kind- that all trades

shall be free and every man free to follow any occupation by which he

can procure an honest livelihood, and in any place, town, or city

throughout the nation. What will Mr. Burke say to this? In England,

game is made the property of those at whose expense it is not fed;

and with respect to monopolies, the country is cut up into

monopolies. Every chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in

itself, and the qualification of electors proceeds out of those

chartered monopolies. Is this freedom? Is this what Mr. Burke means

by a constitution?

In these chartered monopolies, a man coming from another part of the

country is hunted from them as if he were a foreign enemy. An

Englishman is not free of his own country; every one of those places

presents a barrier in his way, and tells him he is not a freeman-

that he has no rights. Within these monopolies are other monopolies.

In a city, such for instance as Bath, which contains between twenty

and thirty thousand inhabitants, the right of electing

representatives to Parliament is monopolised by about thirty-one

persons. And within these monopolies are still others. A man even of

the same town, whose parents were not in circumstances to give him an

occupation, is debarred, in many cases, from the natural right of

acquiring one, be his genius or industry what it may.

Are these things examples to hold out to a country regenerating

itself from slavery, like France? Certainly they are not, and certain

am I, that when the people of England come to reflect upon them they

will, like France, annihilate those badges of ancient oppression,

those traces of a conquered nation. Had Mr. Burke possessed talents

similar to the author of "On the Wealth of Nations." he would have

comprehended all the parts which enter into, and, by assemblage, form

a constitution. He would have reasoned from minutiae to magnitude. It

is not from his prejudices only, but from the disorderly cast of his

genius, that he is unfitted for the subject he writes upon. Even his

genius is without a constitution. It is a genius at random, and not a

genius constituted. But he must say something. He has therefore

mounted in the air like a balloon, to draw the eyes of the multitude

from the ground they stand upon.

Much is to be learned from the French Constitution. Conquest and

tyranny transplanted themselves with William the Conqueror from

Normandy into England, and the country is yet disfigured with the

marks. May, then, the example of all France contribute to regenerate

the freedom which a province of it destroyed!

The French Constitution says that to preserve the national

representation from being corrupt, no member of the National Assembly

shall be an officer of the government, a placeman or a pensioner.

What will Mr. Burke place against this? I will whisper his answer:

Loaves and Fishes. Ah! this government of loaves and fishes has more

mischief in it than people have yet reflected on. The National

Assembly has made the discovery, and it holds out the example to the

world. Had governments agreed to quarrel on purpose to fleece their

countries by taxes, they could not have succeeded better than they

have done.

Everything in the English government appears to me the reverse of

what it ought to be, and of what it is said to be. The Parliament,

imperfectly and capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless

supposed to hold the national purse in trust for the nation; but in

the manner in which an English Parliament is constructed it is like a

man being both mortgagor and mortgagee, and in the case of

misapplication of trust it is the criminal sitting in judgment upon

himself. If those who vote the supplies are the same persons who

receive the supplies when voted, and are to account for the

expenditure of those supplies to those who voted them, it is

themselves accountable to themselves, and the Comedy of Errors

concludes with the pantomime of Hush. Neither the Ministerial party

nor the Opposition will touch upon this case. The national purse is

the common hack which each mounts upon. It is like what the country

people call "Ride and tie- you ride a little way, and then I."*[5]

They order these things better in France.

The French Constitution says that the right of war and peace is in

the nation. Where else should it reside but in those who are to pay

the expense?

In England this right is said to reside in a metaphor shown at the

Tower for sixpence or a shilling a piece: so are the lions; and it

would be a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any

inanimate metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the

absurdity of worshipping Aaron's molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's

golden image; but why do men continue to practise themselves the

absurdities they despise in others?

It may with reason be said that in the manner the English nation is

represented it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the

Crown or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those

who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in

all countries. It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it

is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without

taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditure. In reviewing the

history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a

bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would

declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars

were raised to carry on taxes.

Mr. Burke, as a member of the House of Commons, is a part of the

English Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war,

he abuses the French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He

holds up the English Government as a model, in all its parts, to

France; but he should first know the remarks which the French make

upon it. They contend in favor of their own, that the portion of

liberty enjoyed in England is just enough to enslave a country more

productively than by despotism, and that as the real object of all

despotism is revenue, a government so formed obtains more than it

could do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom,

and is, therefore on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They

account also for the readiness which always appears in such

governments for engaging in wars by remarking on the different

motives which produced them. In despotic governments wars are the

effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the

means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.

The French Constitution, therefore, to provide against both these

evils, has taken away the power of declaring war from kings and

ministers, and placed the right where the expense must fall.

When the question of the right of war and peace was agitating in the

National Assembly, the people of England appeared to be much

interested in the event, and highly to applaud the decision. As a

principle it applies as much to one country as another. William the

Conqueror, as a conqueror, held this power of war and peace in

himself, and his descendants have ever since claimed it under him as

a right.

Although Mr. Burke has asserted the right of the Parliament at the

Revolution to bind and control the nation and posterity for ever, he

denies at the same time that the Parliament or the nation had any

right to alter what he calls the succession of the crown in anything

but in part, or by a sort of modification. By his taking this ground

he throws the case back to the Norman Conquest, and by thus running a

line of succession springing from William the Conqueror to the

present day, he makes it necessary to enquire who and what William

the Conqueror was, and where he came from, and into the origin,

history and nature of what are called prerogatives. Everything must

have had a beginning, and the fog of time and antiquity should be

penetrated to discover it. Let, then, Mr. Burke bring forward his

William of Normandy, for it is to this origin that his argument goes.

It also unfortunately happens, in running this line of succession,

that another line parallel thereto presents itself, which is that if

the succession runs in the line of the conquest, the nation runs in

the line of being conquered, and it ought to rescue itself from this

reproach.

But it will perhaps be said that though the power of declaring war

descends in the heritage of the conquest, it is held in check by the

right of Parliament to withhold the supplies. It will always happen

when a thing is originally wrong that amendments do not make it

right, and it often happens that they do as much mischief one way as

good the other, and such is the case here, for if the one rashly

declares war as a matter of right, and the other peremptorily

withholds the supplies as a matter of right, the remedy becomes as

bad, or worse, than the disease. The one forces the nation to a

combat, and the other ties its hands; but the more probable issue is

that the contest will end in a collusion between the parties, and be

made a screen to both.

On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First,

the right of declaring it: secondly, the right of declaring it:

secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of

conducting it after it is declared. The French Constitution places

the right where the expense must fall, and this union can only be in

the nation. The mode of conducting it after it is declared, it

consigns to the executive department. Were this the case in all

countries, we should hear but little more of wars.

Before I proceed to consider other parts of the French Constitution,

and by way of relieving the fatigue of argument, I will introduce an

anecdote which I had from Dr. Franklin.

While the Doctor resided in France as Minister from America, during

the war, he had numerous proposals made to him by projectors of every

country and of every kind, who wished to go to the land that floweth

with milk and honey, America; and among the rest, there was one who

offered himself to be king. He introduced his proposal to the Doctor

by letter, which is now in the hands of M. Beaumarchais, of Paris-

stating, first, that as the Americans had dismissed or sent away*[6]

their King, that they would want another. Secondly, that himself was

a Norman. Thirdly, that he was of a more ancient family than the

Dukes of Normandy, and of a more honorable descent, his line having

never been bastardised. Fourthly, that there was already a precedent

in England of kings coming out of Normandy, and on these grounds he

rested his offer, enjoining that the Doctor would forward it to

America. But as the Doctor neither did this, nor yet sent him an

answer, the projector wrote a second letter, in which he did not, it

is true, threaten to go over and conquer America, but only with great

dignity proposed that if his offer was not accepted, an

acknowledgment of about L30,000 might be made to him for his

generosity! Now, as all arguments respecting succession must

necessarily connect that succession with some beginning, Mr. Burke's

arguments on this subject go to show that there is no English origin

of kings, and that they are descendants of the Norman line in right

of the Conquest. It may, therefore, be of service to his doctrine to

make this story known, and to inform him, that in case of that

natural extinction to which all mortality is subject, Kings may again

be had from Normandy, on more reasonable terms than William the

Conqueror; and consequently, that the good people of England, at the

revolution of 1688, might have done much better, had such a generous

Norman as this known their wants, and they had known his. The

chivalric character which Mr. Burke so much admires, is certainly

much easier to make a bargain with than a hard dealing Dutchman. But

to return to the matters of the constitutionThe French Constitution

says, There shall be no titles; and, of consequence, all that class

of equivocal generation which in some countries is called

"aristocracy" and in others "nobility," is done away, and the peer is

exalted into the Man.

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is

perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the

human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the

diminutive of man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of

women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon

like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer,

of some antiquity, says: "When I was a child, I thought as a child;

but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the folly of

titles has fallen. It has outgrown the baby clothes of Count and

Duke, and breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled, it has

exalted. It has put down the dwarf, to set up the man. The punyism of

a senseless word like Duke, Count or Earl has ceased to please. Even

those who possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they

outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of

man, thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gewgaws

that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the

magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives

immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the

envied life of man.

Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not

a greater wonder that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they?

What is their worth, and "what is their amount?" When we think or

speak of a Judge or a General, we associate with it the ideas of

office and character; we think of gravity in one and bravery in the

other; but when we use the word merely as a title, no ideas associate

with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam there is not such an

animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect any certain ideas

with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or

folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal.

What respect then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and

which means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to

centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle

even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript.

But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in

contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is

common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse

than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take

themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species

of imaginary consequence has visibly declined in every part of

Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of reason continues

to rise. There was a time when the lowest class of what are called

nobility was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man

in armour riding throughout Christendom in quest of adventures was

more stared at than a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly

fall, and it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles

will follow its fate. The patriots of France have discovered in good

time that rank and dignity in society must take a new ground. The old

one has fallen through. It must now take the substantial ground of

character, instead of the chimerical ground of titles; and they have

brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a burnt-offering

to Reason.

If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles they would

not have been worth a serious and formal destruction, such as the

National Assembly have decreed them; and this makes it necessary to

enquire farther into the nature and character of aristocracy.

That, then, which is called aristocracy in some countries and

nobility in others arose out of the governments founded upon

conquest. It was originally a military order for the purpose of

supporting military government (for such were all governments founded

in conquest); and to keep up a succession of this order for the

purpose for which it was established, all the younger branches of

those families were disinherited and the law of primogenitureship set

up.

The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in this

law. It is the law against every other law of nature, and Nature

herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and

aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in

a family of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never more

than one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown

to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the

unnatural repast.

As everything which is out of nature in man affects, more or less,

the interest of society, so does this. All the children which the

aristocracy disowns (which are all except the eldest) are, in

general, cast like orphans on a parish, to be provided for by the

public, but at a greater charge. Unnecessary offices and places in

governments and courts are created at the expense of the public to

maintain them.

With what kind of parental reflections can the father or mother

contemplate their younger offspring? By nature they are children, and

by marriage they are heirs; but by aristocracy they are bastards and

orphans. They are the flesh and blood of their parents in the one

line, and nothing akin to them in the other. To restore, therefore,

parents to their children, and children to their parentsrelations to

each other, and man to society- and to exterminate the monster

aristocracy, root and branch- the French Constitution has destroyed

the law of Primogenitureship. Here then lies the monster; and Mr.

Burke, if he pleases, may write its epitaph.

Hitherto we have considered aristocracy chiefly in one point of view.

We have now to consider it in another. But whether we view it before

or behind, or sideways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it

is still a monster.

In France aristocracy had one feature less in its countenance than

what it has in some other countries. It did not compose a body of

hereditary legislators. It was not "'a corporation of aristocracy,

for such I have heard M. de la Fayette describe an English House of

Peers. Let us then examine the grounds upon which the French

Constitution has resolved against having such a House in France.

Because, in the first place, as is already mentioned, aristocracy is

kept up by family tyranny and injustice.

Secondly. Because there is an unnatural unfitness in an aristocracy

to be legislators for a nation. Their ideas of distributive justice

are corrupted at the very source. They begin life by trampling on all

their younger brothers and sisters, and relations of every kind, and

are taught and educated so to do. With what ideas of justice or

honour can that man enter a house of legislation, who absorbs in his

own person the inheritance of a whole family of children or doles out

to them some pitiful portion with the insolence of a gift?

Thirdly. Because the idea of hereditary legislators is as

inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and

as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man;

and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet laureate.

Fourthly. Because a body of men, holding themselves accountable to

nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.

Fifthly. Because it is continuing the uncivilised principle of

governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having

property in man, and governing him by personal right.

Sixthly. Because aristocracy has a tendency to deteriorate the human

species. By the universal economy of nature it is known, and by the

instance of the Jews it is proved, that the human species has a

tendency to degenerate, in any small number of persons, when

separated from the general stock of society, and inter-marrying

constantly with each other. It defeats even its pretended end, and

becomes in time the opposite of what is noble in man. Mr. Burke talks

of nobility; let him show what it is. The greatest characters the

world have known have arisen on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has

not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. The

artificial Noble shrinks into a dwarf before the Noble of Nature; and

in the few instances of those (for there are some in all countries)

in whom nature, as by a miracle, has survived in aristocracy, Those

Men Despise It.- But it is time to proceed to a new subject.

The French Constitution has reformed the condition of the clergy. It

has raised the income of the lower and middle classes, and taken from

the higher. None are now less than twelve hundred livres (fifty

pounds sterling), nor any higher than two or three thousand pounds.

What will Mr. Burke place against this? Hear what he says.

He says: "That the people of England can see without pain or

grudging, an archbishop precede a duke; they can see a Bishop of

Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester in possession of L10,000 a-year;

and cannot see why it is in worse hands than estates to a like

amount, in the hands of this earl or that squire." And Mr. Burke

offers this as an example to France.

As to the first part, whether the archbishop precedes the duke, or

the duke the bishop, it is, I believe, to the people in general,

somewhat like Sternhold and Hopkins, or Hopkins and Sternhold; you

may put which you please first; and as I confess that I do not

understand the merits of this case, I will not contest it with Mr.

Burke.

But with respect to the latter, I have something to say. Mr. Burke

has not put the case right. The comparison is out of order, by being

put between the bishop and the earl or the squire. It ought to be put

between the bishop and the curate, and then it will stand thus:- "The

people of England can see without pain or grudging, a Bishop of

Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester, in possession of ten thousand

pounds a-year, and a curate on thirty or forty pounds a-year, or

less." No, sir, they certainly do not see those things without great

pain or grudging. It is a case that applies itself to every man's

sense of justice, and is one among many that calls aloud for a

constitution.

In France the cry of "the church! the church!" was repeated as often

as in Mr. Burke's book, and as loudly as when the Dissenters' Bill

was before the English Parliament; but the generality of the French

clergy were not to be deceived by this cry any longer. They knew that

whatever the pretence might be, it was they who were one of the

principal objects of it. It was the cry of the high beneficed clergy,

to prevent any regulation of income taking place between those of ten

thousand pounds a-year and the parish priest. They therefore joined

their case to those of every other oppressed class of men, and by

this union obtained redress.

The French Constitution has abolished tythes, that source of

perpetual discontent between the tythe-holder and the parishioner.

When land is held on tythe, it is in the condition of an estate held

between two parties; the one receiving one-tenth, and the other

nine-tenths of the produce: and consequently, on principles of

equity, if the estate can be improved, and made to produce by that

improvement double or treble what it did before, or in any other

ratio, the expense of such improvement ought to be borne in like

proportion between the parties who are to share the produce. But this

is not the case in tythes: the farmer bears the whole expense, and

the tythe-holder takes a tenth of the improvement, in addition to the

original tenth, and by this means gets the value of two-tenths

instead of one. This is another case that calls for a constitution.

The French Constitution hath abolished or renounced Toleration and

Intolerance also, and hath established Universal Right Of Conscience.

Toleration is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the counterfeit

of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of

withholding Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it. The

one is the Pope armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the Pope

selling or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and

the latter is church and traffic.

But Toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man worships

not himself, but his Maker; and the liberty of conscience which he

claims is not for the service of himself, but of his God. In this

case, therefore, we must necessarily have the associated idea of two

things; the mortal who renders the worship, and the Immortal Being

who is worshipped. Toleration, therefore, places itself, not between

man and man, nor between church and church, nor between one

denomination of religion and another, but between God and man;

between the being who worships, and the Being who is worshipped; and

by the same act of assumed authority which it tolerates man to pay

his worship, it presumptuously and blasphemously sets itself up to

tolerate the Almighty to receive it.

Were a bill brought into any Parliament, entitled, "An Act to

tolerate or grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a

Jew or Turk," or "to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it," all

men would startle and call it blasphemy. There would be an uproar.

The presumption of toleration in religious matters would then present

itself unmasked; but the presumption is not the less because the name

of "Man" only appears to those laws, for the associated idea of the

worshipper and the worshipped cannot be separated. Who then art thou,

vain dust and ashes! by whatever name thou art called, whether a

King, a Bishop, a Church, or a State, a Parliament, or anything else,

that obtrudest thine insignificance between the soul of man and its

Maker? Mind thine own concerns. If he believes not as thou believest,

it is a proof that thou believest not as he believes, and there is no

earthly power can determine between you.

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every

one is left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a

religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other's

religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and

therefore all the world is right, or all the world is wrong. But with

respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing

itself from the universal family of mankind to the Divine object of

all adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his

heart; and though those fruits may differ from each other like the

fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.

A Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester, or the archbishop who

heads the dukes, will not refuse a tythe-sheaf of wheat because it is

not a cock of hay, nor a cock of hay because it is not a sheaf of

wheat; nor a pig, because it is neither one nor the other; but these

same persons, under the figure of an established church, will not

permit their Maker to receive the varied tythes of man's devotion.

One of the continual choruses of Mr. Burke's book is "Church and

State." He does not mean some one particular church, or some one

particular state, but any church and state; and he uses the term as a

general figure to hold forth the political doctrine of always uniting

the church with the state in every country, and he censures the

National Assembly for not having done this in France. Let us bestow a

few thoughts on this subject.

All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and united with

principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first

by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or

immoral. Like everything else, they had their beginning; and they

proceeded by persuasion, exhortation, and example. How then is it

that they lose their native mildness, and become morose and

intolerant?

It proceeds from the connection which Mr. Burke recommends. By

engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable

only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called the

Church established by Law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to

any parent mother, on whom it is begotten, and whom in time it kicks

out and destroys.

The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion

originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between

the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from

the same heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of

this strange animal in England afterwards, that renewed rancour and

irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people called

Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original

feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature

of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the

law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original

benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good

character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the

same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from

there being no law-establishment in America.

If also we view this matter in a temporal sense, we shall see the ill

effects it has had on the prosperity of nations. The union of church

and state has impoverished Spain. The revoking the edict of Nantes

drove the silk manufacture from that country into England; and church

and state are now driving the cotton manufacture from England to

America and France. Let then Mr. Burke continue to preach his

antipolitical doctrine of Church and State. It will do some good. The

National Assembly will not follow his advice, but will benefit by his

folly. It was by observing the ill effects of it in England, that

America has been warned against it; and it is by experiencing them in

France, that the National Assembly have abolished it, and, like

America, have established Universal Right Of Conscience, And

Universal Right Of Citizenship.*[7]

I will here cease the comparison with respect to the principles of

the French Constitution, and conclude this part of the subject with a

few observations on the organisation of the formal parts of the

French and English governments.

The executive power in each country is in the hands of a person

styled the King; but the French Constitution distinguishes between

the King and the Sovereign: It considers the station of King as

official, and places Sovereignty in the nation.

The representatives of the nation, who compose the National Assembly,

and who are the legislative power, originate in and from the people

by election, as an inherent right in the people.- In England it is

otherwise; and this arises from the original establishment of what is

called its monarchy; for, as by the conquest all the rights of the

people or the nation were absorbed into the hands of the Conqueror,

and who added the title of King to that of Conqueror, those same

matters which in France are now held as rights in the people, or in

the nation, are held in England as grants from what is called the

crown. The Parliament in England, in both its branches, was erected

by patents from the descendants of the Conqueror. The House of

Commons did not originate as a matter of right in the people to

delegate or elect, but as a grant or boon.

By the French Constitution the nation is always named before the

king. The third article of the declaration of rights says: "The

nation is essentially the source (or fountain) of all sovereignty."

Mr. Burke argues that in England a king is the fountain- that he is

the fountain of all honour. But as this idea is evidently descended

from the conquest I shall make no other remark upon it, than that it

is the nature of conquest to turn everything upside down; and as Mr.

Burke will not be refused the privilege of speaking twice, and as

there are but two parts in the figure, the fountain and the spout, he

will be right the second time.

The French Constitution puts the legislative before the executive,

the law before the king; la loi, le roi. This also is in the natural

order of things, because laws must have existence before they can

have execution.

A king in France does not, in addressing himself to the National

Assembly, say, "My Assembly," similar to the phrase used in England

of my "Parliament"; neither can he use it consistently with the

constitution, nor could it be admitted. There may be propriety in the

use of it in England, because as is before mentioned, both Houses of

Parliament originated from what is called the crown by patent or

boon- and not from the inherent rights of the people, as the National

Assembly does in France, and whose name designates its origin.

The President of the National Assembly does not ask the King to grant

to the Assembly liberty of speech, as is the case with the English

House of Commons. The constitutional dignity of the National Assembly

cannot debase itself. Speech is, in the first place, one of the

natural rights of man always retained; and with respect to the

National Assembly the use of it is their duty, and the nation is

their authority. They were elected by the greatest body of men

exercising the right of election the European world ever saw. They

sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the vassal

representatives of aristocratical ones. Feeling the proper dignity of

their character they support it. Their Parliamentary language,

whether for or against a question, is free, bold and manly, and

extends to all the parts and circumstances of the case. If any matter

or subject respecting the executive department or the person who

presides in it (the king) comes before them it is debated on with the

spirit of men, and in the language of gentlemen; and their answer or

their address is returned in the same style. They stand not aloof

with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe

of sycophantic insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no

extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled

character of man.

Let us now look to the other side of the question. In the addresses

of the English Parliaments to their kings we see neither the intrepid

spirit of the old Parliaments of France, nor the serene dignity of

the present National Assembly; neither do we see in them anything of

the style of English manners, which border somewhat on bluntness.

Since then they are neither of foreign extraction, nor naturally of

English production, their origin must be sought for elsewhere, and

that origin is the Norman Conquest. They are evidently of the

vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the prostrate

distance that exists in no other condition of men than between the

conqueror and the conquered. That this vassalage idea and style of

speaking was not got rid of even at the Revolution of 1688, is

evident from the declaration of Parliament to William and Mary in

these words: "We do most humbly and faithfully submit ourselves, our

heirs and posterities, for ever." Submission is wholly a vassalage

term, repugnant to the dignity of freedom, and an echo of the

language used at the Conquest.

As the estimation of all things is given by comparison, the

Revolution of 1688, however from circumstances it may have been

exalted beyond its value, will find its level. It is already on the

wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of reason, and the luminous

revolutions of America and France. In less than another century it

will go, as well as Mr. Burke's labours, "to the family vault of all

the Capulets." Mankind will then scarcely believe that a country

calling itself free would send to Holland for a man, and clothe him

with power on purpose to put themselves in fear of him, and give him

almost a million sterling a year for leave to submit themselves and

their posterity, like bondmen and bondwomen, for ever.

But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have had the

opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances,

there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as

courtiers. But they well know, that if it were seen by others, as it

is seen by them, the juggle could not be kept up; they are in the

condition of men who get their living by a show, and to whom the

folly of that show is so familiar that they ridicule it; but were the

audience to be made as wise in this respect as themselves, there

would be an end to the show and the profits with it. The difference

between a republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is that

the one opposes monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other

laughs at it, knowing it to be nothing.

As I used sometimes to correspond with Mr. Burke believing him then

to be a man of sounder principles than his book shows him to be, I

wrote to him last winter from Paris, and gave him an account how

prosperously matters were going on. Among other subjects in that

letter, I referred to the happy situation the National Assembly were

placed in; that they had taken ground on which their moral duty and

their political interest were united. They have not to hold out a

language which they do not themselves believe, for the fraudulent

purpose of making others believe it. Their station requires no

artifice to support it, and can only be maintained by enlightening

mankind. It is not their interest to cherish ignorance, but to dispel

it. They are not in the case of a ministerial or an opposition party

in England, who, though they are opposed, are still united to keep up

the common mystery. The National Assembly must throw open a magazine

of light. It must show man the proper character of man; and the

nearer it can bring him to that standard, the stronger the National

Assembly becomes.

In contemplating the French Constitution, we see in it a rational

order of things. The principles harmonise with the forms, and both

with their origin. It may perhaps be said as an excuse for bad forms,

that they are nothing more than forms; but this is a mistake. Forms

grow out of principles, and operate to continue the principles they

grow from. It is impossible to practise a bad form on anything but a

bad principle. It cannot be ingrafted on a good one; and wherever the

forms in any government are bad, it is a certain indication that the

principles are bad also.

I will here finally close this subject. I began it by remarking that

Mr. Burke had voluntarily declined going into a comparison of the

English and French Constitutions. He apologises (in page 241) for not

doing it, by saying that he had not time. Mr. Burke's book was

upwards of eight months in hand, and is extended to a volume of three

hundred and sixty-six pages. As his omission does injury to his

cause, his apology makes it worse; and men on the English side of the

water will begin to consider, whether there is not some radical

defect in what is called the English constitution, that made it

necessary for Mr. Burke to suppress the comparison, to avoid bringing

it into view.

As Mr. Burke has not written on constitutions so neither has he

written on the French Revolution. He gives no account of its

commencement or its progress. He only expresses his wonder. "It

looks," says he, "to me, as if I were in a great crisis, not of the

affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than

Europe. All circumstances taken together, the French Revolution is

the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world."

As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at

wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke's

astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the

French Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from

a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental

revolution priorily existing in France. The mind of the nation had

changed beforehand, and the new order of things has naturally

followed the new order of thoughts. I will here, as concisely as I

can, trace out the growth of the French Revolution, and mark the

circumstances that have contributed to produce it.

The despotism of Louis XIV., united with the gaiety of his Court, and

the gaudy ostentation of his character, had so humbled, and at the

same time so fascinated the mind of France, that the people appeared

to have lost all sense of their own dignity, in contemplating that of

their Grand Monarch; and the whole reign of Louis XV., remarkable

only for weakness and effeminacy, made no other alteration than that

of spreading a sort of lethargy over the nation, from which it showed

no disposition to rise.

The only signs which appeared to the spirit of Liberty during those

periods, are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers.

Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as

a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being

obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind

often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more

than he has expressed.

Voltaire, who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism,

took another line. His forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the

superstitions which priest-craft, united with state-craft, had

interwoven with governments. It was not from the purity of his

principles, or his love of mankind (for satire and philanthropy are

not naturally concordant), but from his strong capacity of seeing

folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose

it, that he made those attacks. They were, however, as formidable as

if the motive had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks rather than

the esteem of mankind.

On the contrary, we find in the writings of Rousseau, and the Abbe

Raynal, a loveliness of sentiment in favour of liberty, that excites

respect, and elevates the human faculties; but having raised this

animation, they do not direct its operation, and leave the mind in

love with an object, without describing the means of possessing it.

The writings of Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those authors,

are of the serious kind; but they laboured under the same

disadvantage with Montesquieu; their writings abound with moral

maxims of government, but are rather directed to economise and reform

the administration of the government, than the government itself.

But all those writings and many others had their weight; and by the

different manner in which they treated the subject of government,

Montesquieu by his judgment and knowledge of laws, Voltaire by his

wit, Rousseau and Raynal by their animation, and Quesnay and Turgot

by their moral maxims and systems of economy, readers of every class

met with something to their taste, and a spirit of political inquiry

began to diffuse itself through the nation at the time the dispute

between England and the then colonies of America broke out.

In the war which France afterwards engaged in, it is very well known

that the nation appeared to be before-hand with the French ministry.

Each of them had its view; but those views were directed to different

objects; the one sought liberty, and the other retaliation on

England. The French officers and soldiers who after this went to

America, were eventually placed in the school of Freedom, and learned

the practice as well as the principles of it by heart.

As it was impossible to separate the military events which took place

in America from the principles of the American Revolution, the

publication of those events in France necessarily connected

themselves with the principles which produced them. Many of the facts

were in themselves principles; such as the declaration of American

Independence, and the treaty of alliance between France and America,

which recognised the natural rights of man, and justified resistance

to oppression.

The then Minister of France, Count Vergennes, was not the friend of

America; and it is both justice and gratitude to say, that it was the

Queen of France who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French

Court. Count Vergennes was the personal and social friend of Dr.

Franklin; and the Doctor had obtained, by his sensible gracefulness,

a sort of influence over him; but with respect to principles Count

Vergennes was a despot.

The situation of Dr. Franklin, as Minister from America to France,

should be taken into the chain of circumstances. The diplomatic

character is of itself the narrowest sphere of society that man can

act in. It forbids intercourse by the reciprocity of suspicion; and a

diplomatic is a sort of unconnected atom, continually repelling and

repelled. But this was not the case with Dr. Franklin. He was not the

diplomatic of a Court, but of Man. His character as a philosopher had

been long established, and his circle of society in France was

universal.

Count Vergennes resisted for a considerable time the publication in

France of American constitutions, translated into the French

language: but even in this he was obliged to give way to public

opinion, and a sort of propriety in admitting to appear what he had

undertaken to defend. The American constitutions were to liberty what

a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and

practically construct them into syntax.

The peculiar situation of the then Marquis de la Fayette is another

link in the great chain. He served in America as an American officer

under a commission of Congress, and by the universality of his

acquaintance was in close friendship with the civil government of

America, as well as with the military line. He spoke the language of

the country, entered into the discussions on the principles of

government, and was always a welcome friend at any election.

When the war closed, a vast reinforcement to the cause of Liberty

spread itself over France, by the return of the French officers and

soldiers. A knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory;

and all that was wanting to give it real existence was opportunity.

Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose,

but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur,

and this was the case in France.

M. Neckar was displaced in May, 1781; and by the ill-management of

the finances afterwards, and particularly during the extravagant

administration of M. Calonne, the revenue of France, which was nearly

twenty-four millions sterling per year, was become unequal to the

expenditure, not because the revenue had decreased, but because the

expenses had increased; and this was a circumstance which the nation

laid hold of to bring forward a Revolution. The English Minister, Mr.

Pitt, has frequently alluded to the state of the French finances in

his budgets, without understanding the subject. Had the French

Parliaments been as ready to register edicts for new taxes as an

English Parliament is to grant them, there had been no derangement in

the finances, nor yet any Revolution; but this will better explain

itself as I proceed.

It will be necessary here to show how taxes were formerly raised in

France. The King, or rather the Court or Ministry acting under the

use of that name, framed the edicts for taxes at their own

discretion, and sent them to the Parliaments to be registered; for

until they were registered by the Parliaments they were not

operative. Disputes had long existed between. the Court and the

Parliaments with respect to the extent of the Parliament's authority

on this head. The Court insisted that the authority of Parliaments

went no farther than to remonstrate or show reasons against the tax,

reserving to itself the right of determining whether the reasons were

well or ill-founded; and in consequence thereof, either to withdraw

the edict as a matter of choice, or to order it to be unregistered as

a matter of authority. The Parliaments on their part insisted that

they had not only a right to remonstrate, but to reject; and on this

ground they were always supported by the nation.

But to return to the order of my narrative. M. Calonne wanted money:

and as he knew the sturdy disposition of the Parliaments with respect

to new taxes, he ingeniously sought either to approach them by a more

gentle means than that of direct authority, or to get over their

heads by a manoeuvre; and for this purpose he revived the project of

assembling a body of men from the several provinces, under the style

of an "Assembly of the Notables," or men of note, who met in 1787,

and who were either to recommend taxes to the Parliaments, or to act

as a Parliament themselves. An Assembly under this name had been

called in 1617.

As we are to view this as the first practical step towards the

Revolution, it will be proper to enter into some particulars

respecting it. The Assembly of the Notables has in some places been

mistaken for the States-General, but was wholly a different body, the

States-General being always by election. The persons who composed the

Assembly of the Notables were all nominated by the king, and

consisted of one hundred and forty members. But as M. Calonne could

not depend upon a majority of this Assembly in his favour, he very

ingeniously arranged them in such a manner as to make forty-four a

majority of one hundred and forty; to effect this he disposed of them

into seven separate committees, of twenty members each. Every general

question was to be decided, not by a majority of persons, but by a

majority of committee, and as eleven votes would make a majority in a

committee, and four committees a majority of seven, M. Calonne had

good reason to conclude that as forty-four would determine any

general question he could not be outvoted. But all his plans deceived

him, and in the event became his overthrow.

The then Marquis de la Fayette was placed in the second committee, of

which the Count D'Artois was president, and as money matters were the

object, it naturally brought into view every circumstance connected

with it. M. de la Fayette made a verbal charge against Calonne for

selling crown lands to the amount of two millions of livres, in a

manner that appeared to be unknown to the king. The Count D'Artois

(as if to intimidate, for the Bastille was then in being) asked the

Marquis if he would render the charge in writing? He replied that he

would. The Count D'Artois did not demand it, but brought a message

from the king to that purport. M. de la Fayette then delivered in his

charge in writing, to be given to the king, undertaking to support

it. No farther proceedings were had upon this affair, but M. Calonne

was soon after dismissed by the king and set off to England.

As M. de la Fayette, from the experience of what he had seen in

America, was better acquainted with the science of civil government

than the generality of the members who composed the Assembly of the

Notables could then be, the brunt of the business fell considerably

to his share. The plan of those who had a constitution in view was to

contend with the Court on the ground of taxes, and some of them

openly professed their object. Disputes frequently arose between

Count D'Artois and M. de la Fayette upon various subjects. With

respect to the arrears already incurred the latter proposed to remedy

them by accommodating the expenses to the revenue instead of the

revenue to the expenses; and as objects of reform he proposed to

abolish the Bastille and all the State prisons throughout the nation

(the keeping of which was attended with great expense), and to

suppress Lettres de Cachet; but those matters were not then much

attended to, and with respect to Lettres de Cachet, a majority of the

Nobles appeared to be in favour of them.

On the subject of supplying the Treasury by new taxes the Assembly

declined taking the matter on themselves, concurring in the opinion

that they had not authority. In a debate on this subject M. de la

Fayette said that raising money by taxes could only be done by a

National Assembly, freely elected by the people, and acting as their

representatives. Do you mean, said the Count D'Artois, the

States-General? M. de la Fayette replied that he did. Will you, said

the Count D'Artois, sign what you say to be given to the king? The

other replied that he would not only do this but that he would go

farther, and say that the effectual mode would be for the king to

agree to the establishment of a constitution.

As one of the plans had thus failed, that of getting the Assembly to

act as a Parliament, the other came into view, that of recommending.

On this subject the Assembly agreed to recommend two new taxes to be

unregistered by the Parliament: the one a stamp-tax and the other a

territorial tax, or sort of land-tax. The two have been estimated at

about five millions sterling per annum. We have now to turn our

attention to the Parliaments, on whom the business was again

devolving.

The Archbishop of Thoulouse (since Archbishop of Sens, and now a

Cardinal), was appointed to the administration of the finances soon

after the dismission of Calonne. He was also made Prime Minister, an

office that did not always exist in France. When this office did not

exist, the chief of each of the principal departments transacted

business immediately with the King, but when a Prime Minister was

appointed they did business only with him. The Archbishop arrived to

more state authority than any minister since the Duke de Choiseul,

and the nation was strongly disposed in his favour; but by a line of

conduct scarcely to be accounted for he perverted every opportunity,

turned out a despot, and sunk into disgrace, and a Cardinal.

The Assembly of the Notables having broken up, the minister sent the

edicts for the two new taxes recommended by the Assembly to the

Parliaments to be unregistered. They of course came first before the

Parliament of Paris, who returned for answer: "that with such a

revenue as the nation then supported the name of taxes ought not to

be mentioned but for the purpose of reducing them"; and threw both

the edicts out.*[8] On this refusal the Parliament was ordered to

Versailles, where, in the usual form, the King held what under the

old government was called a Bed of justice; and the two edicts were

unregistered in presence of the Parliament by an order of State, in

the manner mentioned, earlier. On this the Parliament immediately

returned to Paris, renewed their session in form, and ordered the

enregistering to be struck out, declaring that everything done at

Versailles was illegal. All the members of the Parliament were then

served with Lettres de Cachet, and exiled to Troyes; but as they

continued as inflexible in exile as before, and as vengeance did not

supply the place of taxes, they were after a short time recalled to

Paris.

The edicts were again tendered to them, and the Count D'Artois

undertook to act as representative of the King. For this purpose he

came from Versailles to Paris, in a train of procession; and the

Parliament were assembled to receive him. But show and parade had

lost their influence in France; and whatever ideas of importance he

might set off with, he had to return with those of mortification and

disappointment. On alighting from his carriage to ascend the steps of

the Parliament House, the crowd (which was numerously collected)

threw out trite expressions, saying: "This is Monsieur D'Artois, who

wants more of our money to spend." The marked disapprobation which he

saw impressed him with apprehensions, and the word Aux armes! (To

arms!) was given out by the officer of the guard who attended him. It

was so loudly vociferated, that it echoed through the avenues of the

house, and produced a temporary confusion. I was then standing in one

of the apartments through which he had to pass, and could not avoid

reflecting how wretched was the condition of a disrespected man.

He endeavoured to impress the Parliament by great words, and opened

his authority by saying, "The King, our Lord and Master." The

Parliament received him very coolly, and with their usual

determination not to register the taxes: and in this manner the

interview ended.

After this a new subject took place: In the various debates and

contests which arose between the Court and the Parliaments on the

subject of taxes, the Parliament of Paris at last declared that

although it had been customary for Parliaments to enregister edicts

for taxes as a matter of convenience, the right belonged only to the

States-General; and that, therefore, the Parliament could no longer

with propriety continue to debate on what it had not authority to

act. The King after this came to Paris and held a meeting with the

Parliament, in which he continued from ten in the morning till about

six in the evening, and, in a manner that appeared to proceed from

him as if unconsulted upon with the Cabinet or Ministry, gave his

word to the Parliament that the States-General should be convened.

But after this another scene arose, on a ground different from all

the former. The Minister and the Cabinet were averse to calling the

States-General. They well knew that if the States-General were

assembled, themselves must fall; and as the King had not mentioned

any time, they hit on a project calculated to elude, without

appearing to oppose.

For this purpose, the Court set about making a sort of constitution

itself. It was principally the work of M. Lamoignon, the Keeper of

the Seals, who afterwards shot himself. This new arrangement

consisted in establishing a body under the name of a Cour Pleniere,

or Full Court, in which were invested all the powers that the

Government might have occasion to make use of. The persons composing

this Court were to be nominated by the King; the contended right of

taxation was given up on the part of the King, and a new criminal

code of laws and law proceedings was substituted in the room of the

former. The thing, in many points, contained better principles than

those upon which the Government had hitherto been administered; but

with respect to the Cour Pleniere, it was no other than a medium

through which despotism was to pass, without appearing to act

directly from itself.

The Cabinet had high expectations from their new contrivance. The

people who were to compose the Cour Pleniere were already nominated;

and as it was necessary to carry a fair appearance, many of the best

characters in the nation were appointed among the number. It was to

commence on May 8, 1788; but an opposition arose to it on two

groundsthe one as to principle, the other as to form.

On the ground of Principle it was contended that Government had not a

right to alter itself, and that if the practice was once admitted it

would grow into a principle and be made a precedent for any future

alterations the Government might wish to establish: that the right of

altering the Government was a national right, and not a right of

Government. And on the ground of form it was contended that the Cour

Pleniere was nothing more than a larger Cabinet.

The then Duke de la Rochefoucault, Luxembourg, De Noailles, and many

others, refused to accept the nomination, and strenuously opposed the

whole plan. When the edict for establishing this new court was sent

to the Parliaments to be unregistered and put into execution, they

resisted also. The Parliament of Paris not only refused, but denied

the authority; and the contest renewed itself between the Parliament

and the Cabinet more strongly than ever. While the Parliament were

sitting in debate on this subject, the Ministry ordered a regiment of

soldiers to surround the House and form a blockade. The members sent

out for beds and provisions, and lived as in a besieged citadel: and

as this had no effect, the commanding officer was ordered to enter

the Parliament House and seize them, which he did, and some of the

principal members were shut up in different prisons. About the same

time a deputation of persons arrived from the province of Brittany to

remonstrate against the establishment of the Cour Pleniere, and those

the archbishop sent to the Bastille. But the spirit of the nation was

not to be overcome, and it was so fully sensible of the strong ground

it had taken- that of withholding taxes- that it contented itself

with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which effectually

overthrew all the plans at that time formed against it. The project

of the Cour Pleniere was at last obliged to be given up, and the

Prime Minister not long afterwards followed its fate, and M. Neckar

was recalled into office.

The attempt to establish the Cour Pleniere had an effect upon the

nation which itself did not perceive. It was a sort of new form of

government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and

to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity. It was

Government dethroning Government; and the old one, by attempting to

make a new one, made a chasm.

The failure of this scheme renewed the subject of convening the

State-General; and this gave rise to a new series of politics. There

was no settled form for convening the States-General: all that it

positively meant was a deputation from what was then called the

Clergy, the Noblesse, and the Commons; but their numbers or their

proportions had not been always the same. They had been convened only

on extraordinary occasions, the last of which was in 1614; their

numbers were then in equal proportions, and they voted by orders.

It could not well escape the sagacity of M. Neckar, that the mode of

1614 would answer neither the purpose of the then government nor of

the nation. As matters were at that time circumstanced it would have

been too contentious to agree upon anything. The debates would have

been endless upon privileges and exemptions, in which neither the

wants of the Government nor the wishes of the nation for a

Constitution would have been attended to. But as he did not choose to

take the decision upon himself, he summoned again the Assembly of the

Notables and referred it to them. This body was in general interested

in the decision, being chiefly of aristocracy and high-paid clergy,

and they decided in favor of the mode of 1614. This decision was

against the sense of the Nation, and also against the wishes of the

Court; for the aristocracy opposed itself to both and contended for

privileges independent of either. The subject was then taken up by

the Parliament, who recommended that the number of the Commons should

be equal to the other two: and they should all sit in one house and

vote in one body. The number finally determined on was 1,200; 600 to

be chosen by the Commons (and this was less than their proportion

ought to have been when their worth and consequence is considered on

a national scale), 300 by the Clergy, and 300 by the Aristocracy; but

with respect to the mode of assembling themselves, whether together

or apart, or the manner in which they should vote, those matters were

referred.*[9]

The election that followed was not a contested election, but an

animated one. The candidates were not men, but principles. Societies

were formed in Paris, and committees of correspondence and

communication established throughout the nation, for the purpose of

enlightening the people, and explaining to them the principles of

civil government; and so orderly was the election conducted, that it

did not give rise even to the rumour of tumult.

The States-General were to meet at Versailles in April 1789, but did

not assemble till May. They situated themselves in three separate

chambers, or rather the Clergy and Aristocracy withdrew each into a

separate chamber. The majority of the Aristocracy claimed what they

called the privilege of voting as a separate body, and of giving

their consent or their negative in that manner; and many of the

bishops and the high-beneficed clergy claimed the same privilege on

the part of their Order.

The Tiers Etat (as they were then called) disowned any knowledge of

artificial orders and artificial privileges; and they were not only

resolute on this point, but somewhat disdainful. They began to

consider the Aristocracy as a kind of fungus growing out of the

corruption of society, that could not be admitted even as a branch of

it; and from the disposition the Aristocracy had shown by upholding

Lettres de Cachet, and in sundry other instances, it was manifest

that no constitution could be formed by admitting men in any other

character than as National Men.

After various altercations on this head, the Tiers Etat or Commons

(as they were then called) declared themselves (on a motion made for

that purpose by the Abbe Sieyes) "The Representative Of The Nation;

and that the two Orders could be considered but as deputies of

corporations, and could only have a deliberate voice when they

assembled in a national character with the national representatives."

This proceeding extinguished the style of Etats Generaux, or

States-General, and erected it into the style it now bears, that of

L'Assemblee Nationale, or National Assembly.

This motion was not made in a precipitate manner. It was the result

of cool deliberation, and concerned between the national

representatives and the patriotic members of the two chambers, who

saw into the folly, mischief, and injustice of artificial privileged

distinctions. It was become evident, that no constitution, worthy of

being called by that name, could be established on anything less than

a national ground. The Aristocracy had hitherto opposed the despotism

of the Court, and affected the language of patriotism; but it opposed

it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King John) and it now

opposed the nation from the same motives.

On carrying this motion, the national representatives, as had been

concerted, sent an invitation to the two chambers, to unite with them

in a national character, and proceed to business. A majority of the

clergy, chiefly of the parish priests, withdrew from the clerical

chamber, and joined the nation; and forty-five from the other chamber

joined in like manner. There is a sort of secret history belonging to

this last circumstance, which is necessary to its explanation; it was

not judged prudent that all the patriotic members of the chamber

styling itself the Nobles, should quit it at once; and in consequence

of this arrangement, they drew off by degrees, always leaving some,

as well to reason the case, as to watch the suspected. In a little

time the numbers increased from forty-five to eighty, and soon after

to a greater number; which, with the majority of the clergy, and the

whole of the national representatives, put the malcontents in a very

diminutive condition.

The King, who, very different from the general class called by that

name, is a man of a good heart, showed himself disposed to recommend

a union of the three chambers, on the ground the National Assembly

had taken; but the malcontents exerted themselves to prevent it, and

began now to have another project in view. Their numbers consisted of

a majority of the aristocratical chamber, and the minority of the

clerical chamber, chiefly of bishops and high-beneficed clergy; and

these men were determined to put everything to issue, as well by

strength as by stratagem. They had no objection to a constitution;

but it must be such a one as themselves should dictate, and suited to

their own views and particular situations. On the other hand, the

Nation disowned knowing anything of them but as citizens, and was

determined to shut out all such up-start pretensions. The more

aristocracy appeared, the more it was despised; there was a visible

imbecility and want of intellects in the majority, a sort of je ne