Their reasonings would be just, and their proofs from history would be convincing, if their premises were true; if the British Parliament were really an assembly of three Orders, either personally, or by representation, deliberating apart, each having a veto on the decisions of the other two. And I apprehend that most of my countrymen, who have not had occasion to canvas the subject with much attention, suppose this to be really the British Constitution: for, in the ordinary table conversations on the subject, they seldom go farther, and talk with great complacence of the balance of hostile powers, of the King as the umpire of differences, and of the peace and prosperity that results from the whole.
But I cannot help thinking that this is a misconception, almost in every circumstance. I do not know any opposite interests in the State, except the general one of the governor and the governed, the king and the subject.—If there is an umpire in our constitution, it is the house of Lords—but this is not as a representation of the persons of birth, but as a court of hereditary magistrates: the Peers do not meet to defend their own privileges as citizens, but either as the counsellors of the King, or as judges in the last resort. The privileges for which we see them sometimes contend, are not the privileges of the high-born, of the great vassals of the Crown, but the privileges of the House of Lords, of the supreme Court of Judicature, or of the King's Council. In all the nations on the Continent, the different Orders, as they are called, of the State, are corporations, bodies politic, which have jurisdiction within themselves, and rights which they can maintain at their own hand, and privileges which mark them most distinctly, and produce such a complete separation between the different Orders, that they can no more mix than oil and water. Yet the great president Montesquieu says, that the Peerage of England is a body of Nobility; and he uses the term body in the strict sense now mentioned, as synonymous to corporation. He has repeatedly used this term to denote the second order of Frenchmen, persons of noble birth, or ennobled, (that is, vested in the privileges and distinctions of the nobly born,) united by law, and having authority to maintain their privileges. The history of France, nay of our own country, shows us that this body may enjoy all its distinctions of nobility, and that the Great Barons may enjoy the prerogatives of their baronies, although the authority of the Crown is almost annihilated.—We have no cogent reason, therefore, for thinking that they will be constantly careful to support the authority of the Crown; and much less to believe that they will, at the same time, watch over the liberties of the people. In the election of their representatives, (for the whole body of the gentlemen must appear by representation,) we must not expect that they will select such of their own number as will take care of those two essential objects of our constitution.—Equally jealous of the authority of the Crown and of the encroachments of all those who are not gentlemen, and even fearful of the assumptions of the Great Barons, the powerful individuals of their own order, they will always choose such representatives as will defend their own rights in the first place. Such persons are by no means fit for maintaining the proper authority of the Crown, and keeping the representatives of the lower classes within proper bounds.
But this is not the nature of our House of Lords in the present day. It was so formerly in a great measure, and had the same effects as in other countries. But since the Revolution, the Peers of Great-Britain have no important privileges which relate merely or chiefly to birth. These all refer to their functions as Magistrates of the Supreme Court. The King can, at any time, place in this House any eminent person whom he thinks worthy of the office of hereditary magistrate. The Peers are noble—that is, remarkable, illustrious; but are not necessarily, nor in every instance, persons of high birth. This House therefore is not, in any sort, the representative of what is called in France the Noblesse—a particular cast of the nation;—nor is it a junction of the proprietors of the great fees of the Crown, as such;—for many, very many, of the greatest baronies are in the hands of those we call Commoners.—They sit as the King's Counsellors, or as Judges.—Therefore the members of our Upper House are not swayed by the prejudices of any class of the citizens. They are hereditary magistrates, created by the Sovereign, for his counsel, to defend his prerogatives, to hold the balance between the throne and the people. The greatest part of the Nobility (in the continental sense of the word) are not called into this House, but they may be members of the Lower House, which we call the Commons; nay the sons and the brothers of the Peers are in the same situation. The Peers therefore cannot be hostile or indifferent to the liberty, the rights, or the happiness of the Commons, without being the enemies of their own families.
Nor is our House of Commons at all similar to the Third Estate of any of the neighbouring kingdoms. They are not the representatives of the ignobly born, or of any class of citizens. The members are the proper representatives of the whole nation, and consist of persons of every class, persons of the highest birth, persons of great fortune, persons of education, of knowledge, of talents.
Thus the causes of dissension which refer to the distinctive rights or prerogatives of the different classes of citizens are removed, because in each House there are many individuals selected from all the classes.
A Peer, having attained the highest honours of the state, must be an enemy to every revolution. Revolution must certainly degrade him, whether it places an absolute monarch, or a democratic junto, on the throne.
The Sovereign naturally looks for the support of the Upper House, and in every measure agreeable to the constitution, and to the public weal, exerts his influence on the House of Commons. Here the character of the monarch and his choice of ministers must appear, as in any other constitution; but with much less chance of danger to political liberty.—The great engine of monarchy in Europe, has been the jarring privileges of the different Orders; and the Sovereign, by siding with one of them, obtained accessions of prerogative and power.—It was thus that, under the House of Tudor, our constitution advanced with hasty strides to absolute monarchy; and would have attained it, had James the First been as able as he was willing to secure what he firmly believed to be the divine rights of his Crown.
I do not recollect hearing the lower ranks of the State venting much of their discontents against the Peers, and they seem to perceive pretty clearly the advantages arising from their prerogatives. They seem to look up to them as the first who will protect them against the agents of sovereignty. They know that a man may rise from the lowest station to the peerage, and that in that exaltation he remains connected with themselves by the dearest ties; and the House of Commons take no offence at the creation of new Peers, because their privileges as a Court, and their private rights, are not affected by it. Accordingly, the House has always opposed every project of limiting the King's prerogative in this respect.
How unlike is all this to the constitution consisting of the pure representatives of the Privileged Orders of the Continental States. The self-conceited constitutionalists of France saw something in the British Parliament which did not fall in with their own hasty notions, and prided themselves in not copying from us. This would have indicated great poverty of invention in a nation accustomed to consider itself as the teacher of mankind. The most sensible of them, however, wished to have a constitution which they called an improvement of ours: and this was the simple plan of a representation of the two or three Orders of the State. Their Upper House should contain the representatives of 100,000 noblesse. The Princes of the Blood and Great Barons should sit in it of their own right, and the rest by deputies. The Lower House, or Tiers Etat, should consist of deputies from those ignobly born; such as merchants, persons in the lower offices of the law, artisans, peasants, and a small number of freeholders. Surely it needs no deep reflection to teach us what sort of deliberations would occupy such a house. It would be a most useful occupation however, to peruse the history of France, and of other nations, and see what really did occupy the Tiers Etat thus constructed, and what were their proceedings, their decisions, and the steps which they took to make them effectual. I have no doubt but that this study would cure most of our advocates for general eligibility, and for general suffrage. I have lately read Velley and Villaret's History of France, (by the bye, the Abbé Barruel has shewn that the Club d'Holbach managed the publication of this History after the first eight or ten volumes, and slipped into it many things suited to their impious project,) and the accounts of the troublesome reigns of John, and Charles his successor, by authors who wrote long before the Revolution; and they filled me with horror. The only instance that I met with of any thing like moderation in the claims and disputes of the different Orders of their States General, and of patriotism, or regard for the general interests of the State, is in their meetings during the minority of Charles VIII.