The question “which of these accounts we ought to receive,” is important in the highest degree. There is no question which more deeply affects the happiness and dignity of man as a citizen of this world.—If the former account is right, the people (that is, the body of independent agents) in every community are their own legislators. All civil authority is properly their authority. Civil governors are only public servants; and their power, being delegated, is by its nature limited.—On the contrary. If the latter account is right, the people have nothing to do with their own government. They are placed by their maker in the situation of cattle on an estate, which the owner has a right to dispose of as he pleases. Civil Governors are a body of masters; and their power is a commission from Heaven held by divine right, and unbounded in its extent.
I have espoused, with some zeal, the first of these accounts; and in the following tracts, endeavoured to explain and defend it. And this is all I have done to give countenance to the charge I have mentioned.—Even the masterly writer who, after a croud of writers infinitely his inferiors, seems to have taken up this accusation against me, often expresses himself as if he had adopted the same idea of government[2]. Such indeed is my opinion of his good sense, and such has been the zeal which he has discovered for the rights of mankind, that I think it scarcely possible his ideas and mine on this subject should be very different. His language, however, sometimes puzzles me; and, particularly, when he intimates that government is an institution of divine authority;[3] when he scouts all discussions of the nature of civil liberty, the foundation of civil rights, and the principles of free government; and when he asserts the competence of our legislature to revive the High-Commission Court and Star-Chamber, and its BOUNDLESS AUTHORITY not only over the people of Britain, but over distant communities who have no voice in it.
But whatever may be Mr. Burke’s sentiments on this subject, he cannot possibly think of the former account of government that “it is a speculation which destroys all authority.”—Both accounts establish an authority. The difference is, that one derives it from the people, and makes it a limited authority; and the other derives it from Heaven; and makes it unlimited.—I have repeatedly declared my admiration of such a constitution of government as our own would be, were the House of Commons a fair representation of the kingdom, and under no undue influence.—The sum of all I have meant to maintain is, “that LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT, as opposed to OPPRESSION and TYRANNY, consists in the dominion of equal laws made with common consent, or of men over themselves; and not in the dominion of communities over communities, or of any men over other men.” Introduction to the second Tract, [p. 9].—How then can it be pretended, that I have aimed at destroying all authority? Does our own constitution destroy all authority? Is the authority of equal laws made with common consent no authority? Must there be no government in a state that governs itself? Or, must an institution, contrived by the united counsels of the members of a community, for restraining licentiousness and gaining security against injury and violence, encourage licentiousness, and give to every one a power to commit what outrages he pleases?
The Archbishop of York, (in a sermon preached before the society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, Feb. 21, 1777,) has taken notice of some loose opinions, as he calls them, which have been lately current on civil liberty; some who mean delinquency having given accounts of it “by which every man’s humour is made to be the rule of his obedience, all the bad passions are let loose, and those dear interests abandoned to outrage for the protection of which we trust in law,” 4to edit. p. 15 and 16. It is not difficult to guess at one of the delinquents intended in these words. In opposition to the horrid sentiments of liberty which they describe, but which in reality no man in his senses ever entertained, the Archbishop defines it to be simply, the supremacy of law, or GOVERNMENT by LAW, without adding to law, as I had done, the words equal and made with common consent;[4] and without opposing a GOVERNMENT by LAW to a GOVERNMENT BY MEN, as others had done.—According to him, therefore, the supremacy of law must be liberty, whatever the law is, or whoever makes it.—In despotic countries government by law is the same with government by the will of one man, which Hooker has called the misery of all men; but, according to this definition, it is liberty.—In England formerly, the law consigned to the flames all who denyed certain established points of faith. Even now, it subjects to fines, imprisonment and banishment all teachers of religion who have not subscribed the doctrinal articles of the church of England; and the good Archbishop, not thinking the law in this case sufficiently rigorous, has proposed putting Protestant Dissenters under the same restraints with the Papists.[5] And should this be done, if done by law, it will be the establishment of liberty.
The truth is, that a government by law is or is not liberty, just as the laws are just or unjust; and as the body of the people do or do not participate in the power of making them. The learned Prelate seems to have thought otherwise, and therefore has given a definition of liberty, which might as well have been given of slavery.
At the conclusion of his sermon, the Archbishop adds words which he calls comfortable, addressed to those who had been patient in tribulation,[6] and intimating that they might rejoice in hope, “a ray of brightness then appearing after a prospect which had been long dark.” And in an account which follows the sermon, from one of the missionaries in the province of New-York, it is said, that “the rebellion would undoubtedly be crushed, and that THEN will be the time for taking steps for the increase of the church in America, by granting it an episcopate.” In conformity to the sentiments of this missionary, the Archbishop also expresses his hope, that the opportunity which such an event will give, for establishing episcopacy among the colonists, will not be lost; and advises, that measures should be thought of for that purpose, and for thereby rescuing the church from the persecution it has long suffered in America.
This is a subject so important, and it has been so much misrepresented, that I cannot help going out of my way to give a brief account of it.