282. From men's ignorance of the unspeakable consequence of loving God, and each other, aright; and consequent disobedience of the divine law, all the ills they sustain from the hands of one another arise. Hence it is that the political right is engrossed. Hence it is that the land is engrossed. Hence it is that men are placed in that state of slavery, where they are sold and bought like bales of goods. Hence it is that men are placed in that other state of slavery, where they are often obliged to sell their labour at so reduced a rate, as to place them in a worse situation, than that wherein they may be sold and bought. Hence it is that the masters of the secondary associations enrich themselves by dealing in one or both these kinds of slave labour. Hence it is that among the non-productive classes, some live on taxation and rents levied by virtue of unrighteous laws. Hence it is that others of the non-productive classes live by gains accruing from the profits of the mercantile classes, arising out of dealing in one or both the kinds of slave labour. Hence it is that the most oppressed and impoverished among men fail to Hence, it may be feared, will arise to not a few, final perdition. All, all, all these unspeakable evils arise, it must never be forgotten, from men's practically conducting themselves as though there was no such Being as the Great Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the Universe! All, all, all these unspeakable evils arise from men's ordinarily having less regard for one another, than the wise and good must have for the beasts that perish! 283. Having, it is hoped, made out to the satisfaction of all unprejudiced readers what the rights of men truly are; and that all the loss of good and infliction of evil which they sustain, arise from the unlawful assignment or misapplication of such rights, we may proceed to observe as to the duties of a nation and its legislative and executive; that, at the foundation of a nation, whatever land there is unappropriated in any part of the world, is open to all mankind. The Chinese, the French, the English, the Dutch, or any other, cannot assert any exclusive right. The first cannot say to the second:-We Chinese have greater rights than you Frenchmen-nor can some Chinese say this to other Chinese. Men, of whatever nation, who first possess themselves have an undoubted title. (i. 53.) 284. On the establishment of a new nation, one of its first duties is to appoint a purely democratic government, and this should be maintained throughout all its ages. (i. 48.) 285. When a nation is divided into parties about the formation or maintenance of its government, one can determine against the rest by summoning them to unite with it, as by this means the great electoral assembly may be formed. (i. 48.) 286. Any neglect on the part of one or more than one person to attend such assembly, cannot delay its proceedings. After summoning all, it may lawfully proceed to the discharge of its great duties; as, hereby, no wrong will be done to any one who does not attend. The remedy is to be more attentive at the next convening of the assembly. 287. Whatever the will of the whole nation is with regard to the constitution, that is lawful in the sight of Heaven. Thus, suppose it is determined by its majority, that the whole right of making and executing the laws shall be vested in a single individual. This would, no doubt, be acting most unwisely, and, therefore, highly displeasing to Heaven. It is, however, the will of the nation, and therefore, strictly speaking, lawful before God. 288. The nation can only allow the compact between itself and the makers and executors of the laws to be made for a limited time. To act otherwise, infringes the rights of those who have not attained their majority. To have a right and be debarred from exercising it, is to all practical purposes, equivalent to not having the right. (i. 45.) 289. Simplicity being desirable, there appears to be no objection in the legislative assembly being authorized by the nation to elect from its own body, the person or persons who is or are to be at the head of the executive. The all-important consideration being that the divine law is not infringed; that is, that no man has greater, nor any other man less weight than the rest of the native adult males, in appointing who shall make and execute the laws. It may possibly, also, be more convenient for the chief magistrate to be charged simply with the execution of the laws. In other words, that he be excluded from the power of determining by his sole will, whether any enactment that has passed the legislative, shall or shall not become law. Perhaps, in some peculiar and defined cases, a discretionary power may be vested in him. It is absurd that the chief of the executive should have the power of dissolving a legislative assembly. That this, emanating from a whole nation, should have the power of utterly superseding the chief magistrate, charged simply with the execution of the laws, seems perfectly rational; if the nation thinks fit to confide such a power to it. But that such officer should have the power of dismissing all the members of the legislative, who are collectively superior to him ; and thereby usurp the rights of the whole nation, the masters both of himself and the members of the legislative, is a monstrous anomaly. The executive department, says Paine, is official and is subordinate to the legislative. It is impossible to conceive the idea of two sovereignties, a sovereignty to will and a sovereignty to act. The executive is not invested with the power of deliberating whether it shall act or not. It has no discretionary authority in the case,-for it can act no other thing than what the laws decree, and it is obliged to act conformably thereto.(Princip. of Gov.) 290. Though this chapter is headed Lawful Constitutions, perhaps it would be more accurate to consider that there are only two Constitutions: one the lawful or purely democratic, the other unlawful; whether it is hereditary, as in Russia, or elective from a portion of the people, as in America, or partly elective and partly hereditary, as in Franee. These are only modifications of illegality. In speaking of Lawful Constitutions, then, we must be understood to signify different modifications of the democratic. 291. A nation has power, in reference to such modifications, to determine at what age the youth shall be admissible to the electoral assembly. The nation may in its different ages vary the number of its representatives. It may also determine whe ther it will appoint more than one principal magistrate, and the extent of the power and patronage that shall be lodged in the executive. In a word, it has the sole determination of every thing relating to the legislative and executive. 292. These have simply to execute the trust invested in them by the whole nation. The former to make-the latter to execute the laws; this is the utmost extent of their duty. As from illness, inattention, and other causes, it is scarcely to be expected that all the members of a nation will attend the great electoral assembly, the government therefrom emanating is bound to protect the rights of all those who do not attend it, as much as of those that do. (i. 45.) 293. If during the time the legislative and executive were empowered to act, they passed an improper enactment; for example, that a man who forged a one-pound note should be put to death for it; though such a law would be opposed to the will of Heaven, still it would be the enactment of a lawful body ;-the objection being, not that the legislative had not the right to enact, but that the law was an improper one, the punishment awarded being wholly disproportionate to the offence. 294. The time for which the legislative and executive were delegated to exercise their functions being terminated, their exclusive power is entirely at an end, and the members immediately become private citizens. Neither the whole collectively, nor any one individually, has any right whatever to repeal, alter, make, or execute any law or laws. 295. After what has been said, it can be hardly necessary to advance anything further in support of the doctrines laid down as to the rights of a nation; but, conformably with the mode elsewhere adopted, the following may be adduced. No usage, law, or authority whatever, says Paley, is so binding that it need or ought to be continued, when it may be changed with advantage to the community. The family of the prince, the order of succession, the prerogative of the crown, the form and parts of the legislature; together with the respective powers, office, dura tion, and mutual dependency of the several parts; are only so many laws mutable, like other laws, whenever expediency requires, either by the ordinary act of the legislature, or if the occasion deserves it, by the interposition of the people.-(Mor. Philosophy.) 296 The power of the legislative, says Locke, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed; which being only to make laws and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands. (i. 47.) All power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it; who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of any body, even of their legislators.-(On Gov.) (83.) 297. Government, says Paine, is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his or their own emolument; but is altogether a trust in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. The operation of government is restricted to the making and the administering laws. But it is to a nation that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating constitutions and governments belong; and, consequently, these subjects as matter of investigation, are always before a country as matters of right, and cannot without invading the general rights of the country, be made subjects for prosecution.-(Rights of Man.) 298. The people have a right to reform or change their government when they conceive that their prosperity and happiness require it. They have a right, when they please, to call their public officers to private life, and to fill up vacant places at their own discretion.-(Constitution of Massachusetts.) 299. It is manifest, says Vattel, that a nation has an indisputable right to form, maintain, and perfect its constitution; to regulate at pleasure every thing relating to the government; and that no person can have a just right to hinder it. Government is established only for the sake of the nation, with a view to its safety and happiness. If any nation is dissatisfied with the public administration, it may apply the necessary remedies to reform the government. (Law of Nations.) 300. In whatever way, says Dr. Brown, power may have begun among mankind, it has usually, at least for many ages, in countries that suffer under despotism, been perpetuated by the submission on the part of the slave, to the mere might of its heredi tary or casual possessors. The history of power is therefore the history of that to which men have generally or individually considered it as expedient to submit; but it is not, on that account, necessarily the history of that, to which it was the duty of man to submit. It leaves to the race of men in every age, and in all the varying circumstances of their external and internal condition; to consider the duties of mankind in the same manner as they would have considered them in any former age. The citizen is to obey the laws and to defend them. These two duties relate to the political system that exists. He has still one other great duty, which relates not to things as they are, but to things as they may be. He is not to preserve the present system only; he is to endeavour, if it require or admit of amelioration of any sort, to render it still more extensively beneficial to those who live under it; and still more worthy of the admiration of the world, than with all its excellencies it may yet be. (Lecture 91.) 301. If a government emanating from part of a nation empowered to make and execute the laws for four years, were to enact that the appointment should extend to five years, here we should have an unlawful government altering the constitution. But even a lawful government cannot do this, it being a usurpation of the rights of the nation. 302. Suppose, again, a government emanating from part of a nation, to authorize the abstraction of the land or the unrestricted personal liberty of some ;-here we should have an unlawful government doing, that which not only a lawful government cannot, but a whole nation cannot lawfully; to do these things being the prerogative of God alone. 303. Whenever, therefore, we find a legislative and executive altering a nation's constitution in any manner whatever, such legislative and executive cannot but be acting illegally. If the government is lawfully appointed, though, as we have observed, the whole right of making and executing the laws is in one man; by making any change whatever, he alters the constitution from a legal to an illegal one. Hence we see the absurdity of the French government abolishing hereditary peerages. The constitution, as originally established under Louis Phillip, was either lawful or unlawful. If lawful, the abolition made it unlawful; as any alteration whatever must have had this effect. If unlawful, the only legal act it could do, was wholly to supersede itself. That it was and is unlawful is unquestionable. A government, says Paine, 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. The act by which the English parliament empowered itself to sit for seven years, it might by the self-same authority have |