and support a constitution guarded at all points against tyranny; against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many. Let it be the study, therefore, of lawgivers and philosophers, to enlighten the people's understandings and improve their morals, by good and general education; to enable them to comprehend the scheme of government, and to know upon what points their liberties depend; to dissipate those vulgar prejudices and popular superstitions that oppose themselves to good government; and to teach them that obedience to the laws is as indispensable in them as in lords and kings.

Our author contends, that the honors decreed to tyrannicides, by the Greeks and Romans, were bestowed "out of a noble sense of commonweal interest; knowing that the life of liberty consists in a strict hand and zeal against tyrants and tyranny." But he should have recollected, that in Rome these honors were decreed to senators, for supporting the standing authority of a hereditary senate against single men who aspired to popular favor, but never in any instance in support of such a government as he contends for. In Greece, too, there is no instance of any honors decreed for destroying tyrants in defence of any such government. The government of Athens was as different as possible from that of a single assembly of successive representatives of the people. It is agreed that "persons in power cannot be kept from all occasions of tyranny better than by leaving them liable to account;" but it is denied that persons in power can ever be brought to account, unless by assassination, (which is no account at all,) in a government by a single sovereign assembly. And it is asserted, that this "happiness was never seen yet under the sun, by any law or custom established, save only in those states where all men are brought to taste of subjection as well as rule,” ἄρχειν και ἄρχεσθαι, by a government of three branches, reciprocally dependent on each other.

"In Switzerland the people are free indeed, because all officers and governors in the cantons are questionable by the people in their successive assemblies."

What does he mean? in the aristocratical assemblies? The people have no assemblies, and officers are called to account only in standing councils. In the democratical cantons, there is nothing to account for but milk and cheese. But why should England be forgotten, where all officers are questionable, and

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often have been questioned, by the people in their successive assemblies; and where the judicature in parliament is digested with infinitely more prudence than in any canton in Switzerland, or any other republic in the world?

It is agreed that "freedom is to be preserved no other way in a commonwealth, but by keeping officers and governors in an accountable state;" but it is insisted, that all "standing powers" in the English constitution, as the lords and ministers, who conduct the prerogative of the crown, may at any time be called to account without the least "difficulty, or involving the nation in blood and misery." But it is denied that powerful men, in our author's "Right Constitution," can be called to account, without the utmost difficulty and danger of involving the nation in blood and misery; and, therefore, it is concluded, that the English constitution is infinitely preferable to any succession of the single supreme assemblies of the representatives of the people.

CHAPTER SECOND.

MARCHAMONT NEDHAM.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

OUR author having established his building upon fourteen solid pillars, as he seems to think, proceeds to answer objec

tions.

The first objection is, "that such a government would set on levelling and confusion." By levelling, he understands "levelling all men in point of estates;" "making all things common to all;" "destroying propriety;" "introducing a community of enjoyments among men." This he allows to be an odious thing, "a scandal fastened by the cunning of the common enemy upon this kind of government, which they hate above all others."

We are not then put to the trouble of examining the whimsies of Plato or Xenophon, about a community of goods, wives, and children; nor those of Sir Thomas More, about a community of property only. He asserts that his project is, "so far from introducing a community, that it is the only preservative of propriety in every particular." It is agreed that it would not introduce levelling, nor a community of goods, unless the poor should be more numerous than the rich, and rise for a division. But even this would produce but a temporary level; the new acquisitions would soon be spent, and the inequality become as great as ever; and there must be a perpetual succession of divisions and squanderings, until property became too precarious to be sought, and universal idleness and famine would end it. But the pennniless, though more numerous, would probably never unite; and the principals of the majority would make use of the most artful among them, in stripping, by degrees, the minority, and accumulating for themselves. So that, instead of levelling and community of goods, the inequalities both of power and property would be constantly increasing, until they became as great as in Poland, between the gentlemen and peasants.

But it is denied that this would be a preservative of property; on the contrary, property must become insecure. The ruling party, disposing of all offices, and annexing what salaries and fees they will; laying on all taxes, and distributing them according to their ideas of justice and equality; appropriating the public money to what uses they will; and deciding all causes in the courts of justice by their own judgments; in all these ways, themselves and their partisans will be found continually growing in wealth, and their antagonists, the minor party, growing poorer. These last can have no security of property at all.

This will not be prevented nor alleviated by those handsome words of our author: "It is not in reason to be imagined, that so choice a body as the representatives of a nation should agree to destroy one another in their several rights and interests." A majority would be found to agree to destroy the rights and interests of the minority; and a man's property is equally insecure, whether it is plundered by an arbitrary, lawless minority, or by a domineering decemvirate, triumvirate, or single despot.

"All determinations being carried by common consent, every man's particular interest must needs be fairly provided for against the arbitrary disposition of others."

If common consent means unanimous consent, there might be some plausibility in this. But, as unanimity is impossible, and common consent means the vote of the majority, it is selfevident that the few are at the mercy of the many; and the government of the latter being unbalanced by any equal force, interest, passion, or power, is as real a tyranny as the sovereignty of a hereditary senate, or thirty tyrants, or a single despot. Our author himself confesses this in so many words, when he says, that whatever "placeth every man's right under the will of another is no less than tyranny;" "seating itself in an unlimited, uncontrollable prerogative over others, without their consent," and "is the very bane of property." Are not the property, liberty, and life of every man in the minority under the will of the majority? and may not the majority seat themselves in an unlimited, uncontrollable prerogative over the minority, without their consent?

Our author then runs all over the world in search of examples, and affirms that "a free state, or successive government of the people," &c., expressions which he always explains to mean his

Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, "or supreme representative assembly," the same with M. Turgot's all authority collected into one centre, the nation, "is the only preservative of property, as appears by instances all the world over." This is a species of sophistry, grossly calculated to deceive the most ignorant of the people, that is unworthy of so great and good a cause as that of liberty and republican government. This assertion is so wide from the truth, that there was not in the world, nor had been, one example of such a government, excepting the Long Parliament; for the Italian republics, which resembled it the most, were still better constituted. We know what became of the Long Parliament; Oliver soon found they were self-seekers, and turned them out of the house.

The reader is next led on, through a series of examples, in a very curious strain of popular rant, to show that monarchies, and all standing powers, have been levellers.

"Under monarchs, subjects had nothing that they could call their own; neither lives, nor fortunes, nor wives, nor any thing else that the monarch pleased to command; because the poor people knew no remedy against the levelling will of an unbounded sovereignty." "In France," it is asserted, "the people have nothing of propriety, but all depends upon the royal pleasure, as it did of late here in England."

The truth now almost breaks out, and he almost confesses that he sees it.

"It is very observable, that in kingdoms where the people have enjoyed any thing of liberty and propriety, they have been such kingdoms only, where the frame of government hath been so well tempered, as that the best share of it hath been retained in the people's hands."

If he had said an equal share, instead of the best share, this sentence would have been perfect; but he spoils it in the next breath, by adding, "and by how much the greater influence the people have had therein, so much the more sure and certain they have been in the enjoyment of their propriety."

This is by no means true; on the contrary, wherever the people have had any share in the executive, or more than one third part of the legislative, they have always abused it, and rendered property insecure.

The Arragonians are quoted, as "firm in their liberties and