PART IX. 119 120 Saxon and Norman principles contrasted. Law of Nature the standard of reasoning. Means of unanimity. Intention the essence of criminality. The Triennial Act of 1790 preeminently reprehensible. 166. Such then, as we have stated, we conceive to be the proper nature of HIGH TREASON and the true LAW OF THE LAND; such has been the perversion of that law by undermining Statutes, which had their origin in the period of feudal violence and brutality, when to the crime of treason (as then new-fangled and misapplied) was assigned a punishment too disgusting and horrible for modern eyes or ears; and such also was the modest wisdom, the honest and noble practice of our Saxon ancestors, for perpetuating the national liberty and sovereignty; of the inheritance and benefit of which, the aggrieved nation have now been more or less deprived ever since the delicious and life-preserving cup of Saxon freedom was so deeply drugged with the deadly poison at the "Norman entrance;" entailing on the patriots of our country the painful labour, by which, from that day to this, a period of nearly seven centuries and a half, they have toiled, and have bled, for recovering the nation's rights, and "redeeming" it into a state of liberty.* 167. How then shall we, as Friends of Parliamentary Reform according to the constitution, and how shall all who may unite their efforts with ours for completing this redemption, make a right application of the doctrines we trust we have established, in practically conducting the work of this Reform? 168. It is an old legal maxim, that no man must think himself wiser than the LAW OF THE LAND, which is the gathered wisdom of ages. How infinitely less, then, must any man think himself wiser than God the author of the LAW of NATURE! In the eternal truths of that Law, he who is Wisdom and Goodness, hath, for the guidance 119 Hist. and Polit. Disc. by Bacon, I. 71. 120 See Sec. 30, of his rational and moral creatures laid down unerring rules of conduct, so as that nought can justify a deviation from those truths and rules, but ignorance of their existence. A sense of obligation, inherent in our nature, to conform to those rules, is what we call conscience acting according to conscience is wisdom and virtue-the contrary, folly and vice; for in the LAW OF NATURE lies the root of all reason, all wisdom, all morality. 169. If, therefore, by our reason we arrive at a knowledge of that in which the civil part of political liberty consists, this knowledge must bring with it a moral obligation, a dictate of conscience, thereby to regulate our conduct as Reformisls. We have shewn that the civil part of political liberty consists in A DULY PROPORTIONED REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENTS OF A CONSTITUTIONAL DURATION, and that this duration cannot exceed ONE year.* 170. How incapable of illuminating his mind at the source of intellectual light, how blind to the form and pressure of the times, how utterly void of true wisdom and statesmanship, how influenced by interest or ambition, how warped to the crookedness of party politics, how infatuated by prejudice, how bewildered by a confusion of ideas, or how intoxicated by some chimera of EXPEDIENCY (the political ignis faluus that has led so many astray!), must those be who either insensible to self-evident truth, or in contempt of their own conviction, can propose a partial disfranchisement of Boroughs, a mere addition of county members, with a return to triennial parliaments, or any othe rfeeble half measure-sure Apple of Discord and certain cause of defeat! instead of a simple, a dignified demand of RIGHTS, which, although lying in the compass of a nut-shell, yet in the science of representation, are all the human mind understands by FREEDOM; and which simple demand of RIGHTS, as the generative egg of NATIONAL UNION and NATIONAL ENTHUSIASM, would promise our country all the happiness freedom has to confer! 171. Inasmuch as national liberty and national sovereignty are convertible terms, it must be self-evident, that whatever has at any time, been intentionally done for betraying, undermining, or violating the nation's liberty, has been HIGH TREASON. Almost the entire conduct of many of our kings, from the accession of the first to that of the third William, as perpetually invading public right, was an uniform perpetration of HIGH TREASON against the nation and its constitution. On the same premises as lead to this conclusion, it would seem manifest that, had as suitable an allegiance and fidelity to the sovereignty of the Nation, as to the inferior sovereignty of its Executive Magistrale, prevailed, that is, had it in the same manner been held up to public notice and reverence, by being in the same manner guarded and fenced around by written law against the HIGH TREASON of attempting its destruction, as surely ought to have been done, and we are to hope will yet be done, then in such case none could doubt that even statutes 121 See Sect. 63. 109. and others referred to in the Index on Annual Parliaments. 121 122 123 of bad times intentionally enacted, and all overt acts of statesmen in tentionally done for abridging public liberty, were unquestionably HIGH TREASON: that all use of Borough Property with intention to control the freedom of election is HIGH TREASON; that all bribery in open boroughs, the act itself proving the intention, is HIGH TREASON; that all aristocratic combination in counties with intention to defeat the freeholders' exercise of their sovereignty by their suffrage is likewise HIGH TREASON. 172. But if there ever were a deliberate slab to public liberty and the national sovereignty more flagitious than ordinary, a Treason against the constitution pre-eminently criminal, it was that of the triennial act of 1694, enacted by a corrupt parliament chosen the year after the revolution, but who, so soon forgetful of that event, in contempt of the proposition left on the Journals of the Convention, for preventing theloo long continuance of the same parliament," against the earnest remonstrances of the honest Dr. Samuel Johnson, and in defiance of the protest of the Lord Devonshire and other peers, in support of the principle of the constitution, passed a decree for taking away the liberty of the nation, for two parts in three of human life in all time to come, the first act of the kind on English record! 173. And, when parliaments of "too long continuance" have proved the scourge and curse of our country, is a return to parliaments of three years' duration, which, while we had them, were offensively corrupt, and crowned their perfidy by consiguing the nation to parlia ments for seven years, is this, forsooth, one of the nostrums now recommended for the cure of corruption? How faint the impression made on some minds by the criminal stab to the constitution, of which the authors of the triennial act were guilty! How mentally blind, not to see what a deluge of crimes and of evils poured in upon our country through that profligate act! How infatuated by presumption are those who tender the nation their conceit of a fancied expediency, as better than principle!-their extraordinary proposal, that it shall accept in payment that which is sixty-six per cent. less than what is due to it of right! and this, after their arguments have been a thousand times refuted, they persist in calling expedient. As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a thorough-bred child of expediency returneth to his dogma! If, indeed, these men were Atheists who scoff at a Moral Law, we could understand them; but for mortal worms who acknowledge a Deity, to talk of dispensing with his moral code, and 122 Had the CONSTITUTION in former times been thus protected, Dudley and Empson, instead of having had bad Statutes to plead in their defence, might have been impeached on good Statutes violated; instead of having been made victims to popular vengeance contrary to law, would have suffered according to law, for their notorious Treasons against the Nation. Lord Bacon observes that their principal working was upon penal laws, not cousidering whether compli auce with the law were possible or impossible, or the law itself were in use or obsolete, and that they had ever a rabble of spies, and promoters, and Jurors at command, so as they could have any thing found as they pleased. See Ra pin, I. 686. Hall, 57. See also Sect. 189. 123 In his Es. concerning Parl. at a certainty. thus to set themselves up as wiser than GoD, is particularly perverse and reprehensible. Do such men fancy themselves lawgivers? 174. Should a too-potent invader conquer and ravage our country, against our utmost resistance, we should have no immediate remedy, and in the end might stand excused for submission until an opportunity offered for throwing off the yoke: should we, however, propose and aid his invasion, or connive at his entrance or operations, we should, doubtless, be TRAITORS-And so, should a too-potent Faction force upon us a triennial parliament, we might be obliged for a while to submit but he who should propose a triennial parliament, or who should aid, or who should consent to it, would, if our reasoning have a constitutional foundation, as certainly be guilty of Treason; and even the not resisting it to the utmost must be misprison of Treason. To desire that the nuisance of a waggon-load of treason may not be wholly removed, but that a cart-load of it should remain, is a whimsical idea to get into the mind of a REFORMIST! . 175. As political morality is but a branch of general morality, our doctrine might receive various illustrations, were we to step into other departments of morals. In the consideration of crimes against common honesty, against decency, against our very nature, what should we think of the legislative wisdom, or the moral sensibility of the REFORMIST, who, instead of calling to his aid all the influences of probity, of honour, of decency, of reason and religion, and the strength of the law for eradicating a pestilent vice, or preventing its shewing its head, should propose to compromise with dishonesty or corruption, and should encourage depravity by meeting it half-way; or who, while pretending to oppose the career of vice, should furnish the very means by which it should shortly again level all obstacles, and triumph in the face of day over virtue and decency? 176. Must not such a conduct be imputed either to a want of capacity for the high office of legislation, or to a fear of too much offending the sinners; or even to a fellow-feeling, through a partiality for the sin itself? What sort of expediency should we call that which proposed to make a new blot in the statute book, by introducing there a new compromise with iniquity, sanctioned by King, Lords, and Commons? Let us then hope that no half measure will stand in the way of radical reform; which is the same as expressing a hope that when the grievance of the septennial act shall be got rid of, no statute of King, Lords, and Commons, shall in future ever expose the nation for two years in every three to the lust of Tyranny! 177. Having endeavoured to place in a clear light the nature of Treason, and knowing that by Treason, Usurpers have frequently seated themselves on thrones, as well as on the high seats of ruling oligarchs, where, in the work of Treason against the rights and happiness of nations, their machinations have been incessant, it is fit we take into consideration what are the means by which any people can free themselves from such oppression. To go at once into the pith of the argument, we will suppose it asked, "In what 66 cases is it just and lawful to resist the exercise of power?" The answer is obvious: "In all cases in which power is unjustly and "unlawfully exercised." For sure there cannot be a greater absur dity, than to affirm that "the people have a remedy in resistance, “when their Prince attempts to enslave them; but that they have "none when their representatives sell themselves and them."* How else could the machine of national policy be kept in order, and made to do its work for the good of the people, which is the end and object of all authority? Resistance, therefore, is not only a right, but a duty. 178. In an age like the present, if the nation be true to itself, truth is the only weapon of resistance we need to use; for truth, when by any nation duly attended to, will ever prove omnipotent. We take it to be self-evident, that, were things in a right train, that is, were the Nation, the Parliament, and the King, each in full possession of their own proper sovereignty, an unjust and unlawful exercise of power would be an unimaginable case. Error, indeed, might occur; but its occurrences would of course produce its correction. It is intention that constitutes criminality in the unlawful exercise of power. In the case supposed, a case to which, we trust, RADICAL REFORM is conducting us, there could not be an unjust and unlawful exercise of power. "When complaints are freely heard," says Milton, "deeply consi "dered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil li"berty attained, that wise men look for."* Such a "bound" it is the object of a RADICAL REFORM of parliament to establish. 179. It is when some great deviation from the principles of our polity have taken place, it is when some high prerogative of the nation, of parliament, or of the king, have been violated, abridged, or destroyed, that resistance in its serious forms, according to circumstances and proportioned to the exigency, is most necessary. 180. Touching any abridgment of the power of parliament, we have at present no case to put. That power is at least in full plumage. Some think it soars too high. But how stands it with the power of the King? Is it all in his own possession, and does it give him independence? It is the intendment of the Constitution, that the Crown shall have its reliance for revenue on the Sovereign Nation, a nation proverbial for its generosity, speaking through an assembly truly representing its majesty, its greatness, and all its virtues; a nation which, having no object but its own good and its own dignity, and secure as it would then be of a faithful application of its resources, is ever ready to give and grant with the utmost liberality, and, to a patriot king, with profusion. 181. But instead of this, in the present state of what is called representation, is it not manifest that, for every shilling of revenue the king is dependent on a seal-selling Faction of corrupt traffickers in rotten Boroughs? Is this the proper condition of an English King? Is not this a thing to be resisted? Or were it less an object of resistance, were a prince on the throne so misled as to truckle to the vile usurpers? so unadvised and infatuated as to make the faction partners in his throne, partakers in his majesty, and sharers in his 124 Bolinbr. on Stud. of Hist. Let. V. last page but two. |