------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS PAINE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY MONCURE
DANIEL CONWAY
VOLUME II.
1779 - 1792
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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