Essays and Reviews


Legitimacy and Revolutionism
by Orestes A. Brownson

WE take, in our political essays, unwearied pains to make ourselves understood, and to guard against being misapprehended; but, tlit-oucrii our own fault or that of our readers, our success has i@areiv corresponded to our efforts. On all sides, from all quarters, we are chai-o,(-,d with bein(y hostile to liberty and favorable to despotisili,-th(- enemy of the people, and.the friend of their ol)press(@rs. We could smile at this ridiculous charge, were it not that some honest souls ire found who appear to believe it, and some moon-struck scribblers make it -the occasion of excitiDg unjust prejudices against our friends, and of placing them. as well as ourselves, in a false position before the public. Tnj'ustice to us personally is of no moment, and demand-, of us no ,tttei@tit)ii; but Wilell, Owing to our peculiar position, it can ]laidlv fail to work injustice to others, we are bound to notice and to @-epel it.

The age in which we live is an age of theoretical, and, to a great extent, of practical anarchy. Its ideas and movements are marked by impatience of restraint, denial of law, and contempt of authority. We have seen this, and have felt it our duty to protest against it, and to do what we could, in our limited sphere, to recall men to a sense of the necessity of government, and to ibe fact of their moral obligation to uphold the supremacy of 387 [SW. This is our offence. Yet one would naturally suppose that peop@e of ordinary intelligence, somewhat acquainted with our pas@ histoi@v, might, without much difficulty, believe that in this our @-notive been to serve the cause of freedom, not that of despotism. We, in fact, have done it, because liberty is iinpos- sible without order, order is impossible without government, and (yovei@i,,nierit @ii any worthy sense of the term is impossible without a settled conviction on the part of the people of its legitimacy, ,iiicl of their obligation in conscience to obey it. Nothing de-gerving the name of government can be founded on the sense of the agreeable or of the useful. Governi-nent-,, so ctlled, which appeal to notliiiio, Iiicliei-, more catholie, and more stable, are mere creatui-es of passion or caprice, and must follow the lead of popular C,)Ilv and excess, instead of resti-ainin- them, and directing the general ictivitN, to the public oood. They are not governments, but mere instruments for the private gain or aggrandizement of the .idroit and schei-niiig few who contrive to possess themselves ol tlieii- iiiaiiaement. It is philosophically and historically dethat the permanence and stability of government, and its wi@@ and just idininistratioii for the coi-nmon weal,-tbe only legitimate end of its institution,-are impracticable, unless the (,ovei-nrnent is held to rest on the universal and unalterable sense of duty, under the protection of reli(Y-ion.

This truth, though, in fict, t very commonplace truth, our age overlooks, or, if it does not overlook, it r@lects. Hence the daii(ter with which liberty in our t,,mes is thre.,itoti@@(l. We ba%,e believed it, therefore, not improper to (riiard against this danger, and in order to do so, we have traced government back to its source, and to the foundation of its authorit . We have found y it, origin, not in the people, but in God, from whom is all power; and we have concluded from this its divine right, within its legitimate province, to our allegiance. It has, since it derives its authority from God, a divine right to command, and, if so, we must be bound in conscience to obev it. Then it rests, not on the sense of the agreeable or of the Useful, to fluctuate as these fluctuate, but on the sense of duty,-and not i-nerely duty to ouf 388 country or to mankind, but duty to God,-a duty founded in the unalterable relations of i-nati to his Maker. This raises polit.cal allegiance and obedience to the law to the rank of moral -iirtue, and declares their violation to be a sin against God, to ivbom we belong, all we have, and all we are. Hence, in its IC,clitimate province, even civil government becomes sacred and inviolable; and therefore we assert, on the one hand, our duty to obey it, and, on the other, deny, the right of revolution, what Lafayette calls 11 the sacred right of insurrection."

Here, in general terms, is the doctrine we have endeavored to inculcate. That it is hostile to the political atheism now so rife, we concede. We are Christians, and do not understand the possibility of being Christians, and yet atheists in politics. We have but one set of principles, and these are determined by our religion. We cannot adopt one set of principles in our religion and a contradictory et in our politics, saying " Good Lord" in the one, and " Good Devil" i a the other. We are too far beIiind the a(re for that. But that this doctrine is hostile to liberty or favorable to despotism, we do not concede,-iiav positively deny. In setting it foi,th, we have dwelt on that phase of it directly opposed to the dadoei-ous tendencies of the age, because it was not necessary to guard against tendencies from which we have nothing to apprehend, and 'because we presumed that our readers would of themselves see that it bad another phase equally opposed to the opposite class of tendencies. But for the bundj@edth time in out- short life we have learned that the writer who presui-nes any thing on the intelligence or discrimination of the bulk of readers presumes too much, and will assuredly be disappointed. The doctrine protects the government against radicals, rebels, and revolutionists; but it protects, also, the people against tyrant-, and oppressors. The fears of our politicians on this last point, whether real or affected, do little credit to their sagacity. The monsters which aff-right them a little more light would enable them to see are as harmless as the charred stump or deca@ ino- log which the benighted traveller mistakes for bear or panther. 389

When we assert the doctrine of legitii-ntey, we are understood 'o assert passive obedience and nonresistance to tyrants; but needs it any extraordinary intellectual power and cultivation to perceive that legitimacy, while it smites the rebel or the revolutionist, must equally sinite the tyrant or usurper ? If the doctrine asserts the right of legitimate, it must deny the right of illegitimate government ; if it denies the right to disobey the legitimate authority, it must also deny the right of illegitimate ai.itboi-ity to command ; if it disarms the subject before the legal ,authority, it must equally disarm the illegal authority before the subject. How, then, from the fact that we are forbidden to resist or to subvert legitimate government, the legal constitution of the state, conclude that we are forbidden to resist or to depose the tyrant ? TyraDn@, oppression, is never legal, and therefore no tyrant or oppressor ever is or can be the legitimate sovereign. To resist him is not to resist the ]estimate authority, and therefore demands for its justification no assertion of the revolutionary principle. Tlow is it, then, that you do not see that the doctrine of legitii-nacy gives a legal right to resist whatever is illegal, and therefore lays a solid foundation for liberty I

People, we know, are prejudiced against the doctrine which asserts the divine origin and i,io;lit of government, but it is because they misapprehend the doctrine, and because they identify liberty with democracy. The doctrine, undoubtedly, does assert t'li(, sacredness, inviolability, and legitimacy of every actual polltical constitution, whatever its form, and that the monarchical or aristocratic order, where it is the established order, is as legitiiiiat(@ is the democratic. ]3ut, if liberty and democracy are one "lid the same tliinr, since the monarchical order is that which is :,,ettiall. the established order in most states, liberty in most states is precluded, and the people are and must be slaves. Yet is it true that liberty ind democracy are identical or convertible terms ? Democracy, whose expression is universal suffrage, idtrusts every citizen with a share in the administration of the government, which is and can be Jone by no other politiew 390 order @ But the elective, fi,@inchi-,e is L trust, not a right, and therefore to withhold it is not to withhold freedom. Liberty is .ii the possession and exercise of our natural right-. We have none of us anv natural riobt to govern ; for under the law of nature all men are equals, and no one has the right to exercise authority over others. The franchise is a municipal grant, and depends on the will of the political ,overeign.. Liberty, unless the question be between nation and nation, is not a predicate of the Government, but of the subject, and of the subject not in his quality of a constituent element of the sovereignty, but in his quality of subject. As subject he may be free, without being intrusted with authority to govern, and therefore may be free under other forms of government than the democratic.

In fact, democratic politicians D--,Ver attain to the conception of liberty. The basis of their tbeor3, of government is despotism. They make the right to govern a natural right, tnd differ from the confessedly despotic politicians only in claiming for every man what these claim for only one. They make government a. personal right, incident to manhood, inalienable, and inamissible, -not a solemn trust which the trustee is bound to hold and exercise according to law, and for -,vbieli he is accountable. Hence it is that democracy always sooner or later terminates in despotism or autocracy. We deny that government is ever a personal right, whether of the one, the few, or the many, and therefore deny that a man has a nat@ral right to a share in the administration. He only has the right to whom the power is delegated by the competent authority, and he holds it, not as a personal right, but as a trust. Consequently, we do not concede that the establishment of the democratic is at all essential to tl)e establishment or maintenance of liberty. He is free, en,iovs his libertv, who is secured in the possession and enjoyment c@f all his natural rights; ind this is done wherever the legitimate itutboiit@ governs, and governs according to the principles of justice. We are aware of no form of government that cannot so govern, or which cannot also govern otherwise, if it choose.

We are republicans, because republicanism is here the estab- 391 lish@ ordei@, but we confess that we do not embrace, and iievei have embraced, as essential to liberty, or even a,-, conipatib'ic with liberty, the popular democratic doctrine of the countrv. We beo- leave to introduce here some remarks on Democracy .which we wrote in 1837, and published in the first number of Tlte Boston Quarterly Ret,iew, Janu.Ary, 1838.

T)emocracy......... is sometimes asserted to be the sovereicyntv of the people. If this be a true account of it, it is in@i(@felisible. The sovereignty of the people is not a truth. Sovei-eio,nty is that which is hi(yhest, ultimate; which has not onlv the physical force to make itself obeyed, but the moral ri(ylit command whatever it pleases. The right to command involves tl-ie cori-esdondinz dutv of obedience. What the sovereign mav command, it is the duty of the subject to do.

Are the people the Iii(rhest? Are they ultimate ? And are we, bound in conscience to obey whatever it may be their good l@ieztslire to ordain ? If so, where is individual libertv ? If so, the people, taken collectively, are the absolute master of every man taken individually. Every man, as a man, then, is an absolute slave. Wliatevet- the ;people, in their collective capacity, may demand of him, lie must feel himself bound in conscience to give. No matter bow intolerable the burdens imposed, painftil and Deedless the sacrifices required, lie cannot refuse obedience without ineurrido, the guilt of disloyalty ; and lie must subiiiit in quiet, in silence, without even the moral right to feel that lie is wronged.

" Now this, in theory at least, is absolutism. Whether it be a democracy, or any other form of government, if it be absolute there is and tfiei-e can be no individual libertv. Under a monarchy, the monarch is the state. 'L'-Etat,r'est moi,' said Louis the Fourteenth, and be expressed the whole monarchical tlic-orv. The -,,tite being absolute, and the Yfionarch beino- the state, the monarch has the right to command what he will, and exact obedience in the name of duty, loyalty. ITence absolutism, despotism. Under an aristocracy, tfie n'obility are the state, and conseqtienly, as the state is absolute, the nobility are also absolute. Whatever they command is bindino-. If they reqii't-e the many to be 'liewers of wood and drawers of water' to them, then 'liewers of wood and drawers of water' to thorn the many must feel it tlie-ii- duty to be. Here, for the many, ig absolutism as much as undei- a inon-,irchv. Every body sees this, 392

"Well, is it less so under a democracy, where the people, it their tssociated capacity, are held to be absolute ? 'I'he people are the state, and the state is absolute; the people may there. fore do whatever thev please. IS Dot this freedom ? Yes, for the state; but what is it for the individual? There are no kings, no Debilities, it is true; but the people may exercise all the power over the individual that kings or nobilities may; and consequently every man, taken sinff , is, under a democracy, if Illy the tate be absolute, -is' i-nuch the slave of the state, as under the most absolute monarchy or aristocracy.

But this is not the end of the chapter. Under a democratic form of (,Overnt)ietit, all questions which come up for the decisiori of authority must be decided bv t maiority of voices. 'rhe sovereignty which is asserted for the people must, then, be traiisfei-red to the i-iiliii majority. If the people are sovereign, then the majority ire sovereign ; and if sovereign, the majoritv have, as Miss Martineau lays it down, the absolute right to govern. If the majority have the absolute rioht to govern, it is the absolutc duty of the minority to obey. We who chance to be in the minority are then completely disfranchised. 'vVe are wholly at the i-iier@y of the majority. We hold our property, our wives and children, and our lives even, at its sovereign will and pleas- ure. It may do by us and ours a-, it pleases. If it take ii into its head to malke a new and arbitrary division of property, how- ever unjust it may seem, we shall not only be impotent to resist, but we shall not even have the right of the wretched to com- plain. Conscience will be DO -shield. The authority of the ab- solute sovereign extends to spiritual matters, as well as to tem- T)oral. -rhe creed the majority is pleased to impose, the minor- ity must in all ineekdess and submission receive; and the form of religious worship the majority is good enough to prescribe, the minority must make it a matter of conscience to observe. Whatever has been done under the most absolute monarchy or the most lawless aristocracy ina be re6nacted under a pure demy ocracy, and what is worse, legitimately too, if it be once laid down in principle that the majority has the absolute rioht to govern.

The majority will always have the physical power to coerce the minority into submission ; but this is a matter of no moment, in comparison with the doctrine which gives them the ri(yht to do it. We have very little fear of the physical force of number,,i, when we can oppose to it [,he moral force of right. T@.e doctrine in question deprives us of this moral force. By 393 giving absolute sovei-eiyiitv to the intjotitv, it declare,; what ever the majority does"is'i-i,rlit, that the @il@lority can do no wrono, It li,)-ititiizttp,-, every possible act for wl,@ieli the sanction of , mttjoi-itv of voices can be obtained. Whatever the 1-nl@iority intv exact it i-; just to give. Truth, justice, wisdom, vit-tue, call effect no barriers to.,tay its pro@i- ss ; for these are the crea- tioll,, of its will, iii(i i-n.,tv be made or uninade by its breath. is obedience to it-; decrees, and injustice is resistance to its cotni-nat)('Is. is not ci@,lme before the civil tribunal o,[!iy, but all) int@)j-o conscieiiti(e. Now this is what we protest a-,;aiii,,,t. It is not tiie j)livsical force of the mtjority that we but tli doctrine that legitimates each and every act the iii,@oritv may choose to perform; and therefore teaclies them to look f@r no sttiidai-d of i,i(rht and wron(r beyond their own will...........

"The effects of this doctrine, so far as believed and acted on, cannot b too (Haiti(, tlv del)i-ecat(,(I. It creates a multitude of (It@ititio,oo,Lic,,i, I)i,etE,tidiii,,y t Nvoi-l(l of love for the, dear people, Ltudin,y the _@yiiifyi n their sovereignty, and with iiiock Iiiiiiiilitv tli ir readiness ever to bow to ,Ile of the majority. It tend,, to make public men lax in t',eir iiioril-, hypocritical in tli(@ir conduct; and it paves the way ;),!loss bribery and corruption. It generates a habit of apI)ealiii(e, on iieariv all ocei,-,ions, from truth and justice, wisdom and virtue, to the force of numbers, and virtually sinks the man in the brute. It destroys manliness of character, independence of tliotio-lit and action, and makes one weak, vacillatin,(,r,-a time-server and a coward. It perverts in4juiry from its legitimate objects, and asks, when it concerns a candidate for offide, not, Who is the most honest, the most capable? but, Who will command th@ most votes ? and when it concerns a measure of policy, not, What is just? What is for the public good? but, What can the majority be induced to support ?

"Now, as men, a,; friends to good morals, we cannot assent to a doctrine which not only has this tendency, but which de clares this tendency legitimate. That it does have this tendency needs not to be proved. Every body knows it, and not a few lament it. Not long since it was granreiv @ii-,)-ued by a leading politician, in a Foui@tli of July oration, that Massachusetts ought to give Mr. Van Buren her votes for the Presidency, because, if she did not, she would array herself acltinst her sister States, and be compelled to stand alone, as the orator said with a sneer, 'in solitary Yrandeur.' In the access of his party fever, it did n 394 not occur to biiyi that Massaclius tt,; was in dutv bounce, wlieth or her sister State4-, were with her or against her, to oppdse Mr Van Buren, if she di-,liked him as a man, or distrusted his principles as a politician or a statesman. Many good reasons, doubtless, might have been alle(yed why Massachusetts ouoht to have voted for Mr. Van Buren, but the orator would have been puzzled to select one less conclusive, or more directly in the face and eyes of all sound i-norals, than the one he adduced. The man who deserves to be called a statesman never appeals to low or demoralizing motives, and he scorns to Zarry even a good measure by unworthy means. There is within every man, who can lay any claim to correct moral feelinly. that which looks Nvith contempt on the puny creature who maC@ the opinions of the majority his rule of action. Ile who wants the moral cotirao,p- to stand up 'in solitary grandeur,' like Socrates in the face of the Thirty Tyrants, and demand that i@i(ylit be respected, that justice be done, is -unfit to be called a statesman, or even a man. A man has no business with what the majority think, will, say, do, or will approve; if he will be a man, ti)d maintain the rilits and dionity of manhood, Iii- sole business is to inquire what truth and justice, wisdom and virtue, demand at his hands, and to do it, whether the world be with him or against IiirD,-to do it, whether he stand alone ' in solitary grandeui-,'or be liuzzaed by the crowd, loaded with honors, held up as one whom the youdo, must aspire to imitate, or be sneered at as singular, branded as a 'seditious fellow.' or crucified between two thieves. Away, then, with your demoralizing and debasino,, notion of appealing to a majority of voices! Dare be a man, dare be yourself, to speak- and act according to your own solemn convictions, and in obedience to the voice of God calling out to you from the depths of your own beino-. Professions of freedom, of love of liberty, -of devotion to her cause, are inere wind, when there wants,the power to- live and to di(- in defence of what one's own heart tells him is just and true. A free government is a mockery, a solemn farce, where every man feels himself bound to consult and to conform to the opinions and will of an irresponsible majority. Free mind,;, free hearts, free souls, are the materials, and the only materials, out of which free governments are constructed. And is 'be free in rn;nd, heart, soul, body, or limb, he who feels himself bound to the triumphal car of the majority, to be dragged whitber its drivers pl@e' Is be the man to speak out the lessons of truth an(i wisdom when most they are needed, to stand bv the right when 395 Rii are gone out of the way, to Plead for the wronged and downtrodden when all are dumb, he who onvns the absolute right of the mtloi,ilv to govern?

So@-crel@o'nty is not in the will of the pe,)ple, nor in the will of the majority. Every man feels that the people are not ulti- Ynate, are not the hioliest, that they (lo not inakp, the right or the wroii(,, and that the people as a state, as well as the people as individuals, are under law, accountable to a higher authority than theirs. What is this Higher than the people? The king? Not be whom men dignify w@th the royal title. Every man, by the fact that he is a man, is an accountable being. Every man feels that he owes allegiance to some authority above him. The man whom men call a king, is a man, and, inasmuch as he is a man, he must be an accountable being, must himself be under law, and therefore cannot be the highest, the ultimate, and of course not the true sovereign. His will is not in itself law. Then be is not in himself t@e sovereign. Whatever authority be may possess is derived, and tnat from which he derives his authority, and not be, in the last analysis, is the true sovereign. If he derive it from the people, then the people, not he, is the sovei-ei@)-n ; if from God, then God, not he, is the sovereign.

Are the aristocracy the sovereign? If so, annihilate the aristocracy, and men will be loosed f@om all restraint, released from all obligation, and there will be for them neither right Dor wronfr. Nobody can admit that right and wrong owe their existei,.ce to the aristocracy. Moreover, the aristocracy are men, -,iiia, as men, they are in the same predicardent with all other men. They are themselves under law, accountable, and therefor(,@ not sovereign in their own right. If we say thev are above, the people, tlie)T are placed there by some power -wbich is also above them, and that, not they is the sovereign.

But if neither people, nor kings, nor aristocracy are sovereigii, who or what is . What is the answer which every man, ,%vlien lie reflects as a moralist. zives to the question, Why ought I tA) do this or that particular hing? Doe@ he say, Because the commands it,-the aristocracy enjoin it,-the people or,Iaill it,@tlie majority wills it? No. He says, if he be true to his higher convictions, Because it is right, because it is just. Every man feels that lie has a right to do whatever is just, and that it is his dutv to do it. Whatever he feels to be just he feels to be legitimate, to be law, to be morally obligatory. Whatever is uii ' just be feels to be illegitimate, to be without obligation, and to be that which it is not disloyalty to resist. The 398 :@bs,)Iutist, he who contends, for uti(jualifie(I submission on the part of the people to the monarch, thunders, therefore, in the ears of the absolute monarch himself, that lie is bound to be in-,' ; ai)(i the aristocrat assures his order that its highest nobility is derived from its obedience to justice ; and does not the dernocrat, too, even while be proclaims the sovereignty of the people, tell this same sovereiy@i i)eol)le to be just? In all this, witness is borne to an authority above the individual, above k;n , iiobilities, and people, and to the fact, too, that the absoI-ate sovereign is justice. Justice, is then, the sovereign, the sovereign of sovereigns, the king of kings, lord of lords, the supreme law of the people, and of the individual.

"This doctrine teaches that the people, as a state, are as much bound to be just as is the individual By bounding the state by justice, we declare it limited, we deny it-, absolute sovereignty, @ind therefore save the individual from absolute slavery. The individual may on this ground arrest the action of the state, by ;illc@ii@ that it is proceeding unjustly; and the minority has a moral force with which to oppose the physical force of the majoritv. By this there is laid in the state the foundation of liberty I;I)ei@ty is acknowledged as a i-io.,ht, whether -it be possessed as a fact or not,.

"A more formal refutation of the sovereignty of the people, or N-itidicatioii of the sovereignty of justice, is not Deeded. In point of fact, there are none who mean to set up the sovereignty of the people above the sovereio-i)tv of ;ustice. -kll, we believe, when the question is presented as; we have presented it, will and do admit that justice is supreme, though very few seem to have been twai-e of the consequences which result from such an admission. The sovereignty of justice, in all cases whatsoever, is what we understand by the doctrine of democracy. True democi-acy is not merely the denial of the absolute sovereignty of the king, and that of the nobility, and the assertion of that of the people; but it is properly the denial of the absolute sovereignty of the state, whatever the form of government adopted as the agent of the state, and the @,,sertioii of the absolute soverei(ynty of justice...........

So@,erei@nty may be taken either absolutely or relatively. When taken absolutely, as we, have thus far taken it, and as it ought always to be @aken, especially in a free government, it means, as we have defined it, the big@est, that which is ultimate, which lia,,; the right to command what it will, and which to resist is er'me. Thus defined, it is certain that neither people, nof 397 kings, nor aristocracies, are sovereign, for they are all under law, and accountable to an authority which is not tlieirs, but wl)ich is above them and independent of them.

11 When taken relatively, as it usually is by writers on governmeiit, it means the state, or the hiohe,@t civil or political power ol the state. The state, we have ge,-ii, is not absolute. It is not an independent sovereign. It is not, then, in strictness, a sovereign at t]]. Its enactments are not in and of themselves !-tws, and cannot be laws, unless they receive the signature of .q.hsolute justice. If that signature be witheld, they are null and void from the beginning. Nevertheless, social o@der, which is the indispeiis@t3le condition of the very existence of the coinn-iuiii@v, demands the creation of a government, and that the government should be clothed with the authority necessary for the maintenance of order. That portion of sovereignty necessai-y for this end, and, if vou please, foi- the promotion of the common weal, justice delegates to the state. This portion of del(,(Tate(I sovereiantv is wl)at is commonly meant by sovereignty. This sovereignty is Necessarily limited to certtin specific objects, and can be n@ greater than is Deeded for those objects. If the ,tat(,, stretch its authority beyond those objects, it becomes a ustiri,,er, and the individual is not bound t@ obey, but itiay lawfully resist it, as he may lawfully resist any species of injustice,-L,tkincr care, however, that the manner of his resistance be neither unjust in itself, nor inconsistent with social order. For instance, the state assumes the authority to allow a man to be seized and held a-, property; the man may undoubedetly assert his liberty, his ri hts as a man, and endeavour to regain them ; but be may not, in doing this, deny or infringe any of the just rights of him who may have deemed himself his master or owner."-pp. 37-45.

When we wrote this, we had the reputation of being one of the stancliest friends of liberty and the most ultra radicals in the country,-a fact which we commend to those of our former friend.;; who are now so ready to represent us as having gone over to the side of despotism. We should not now call the doctrine of the extract Democracy, as we did when we wrote it, nor should we use certain locutions, to @ detected here and there in the extrac@ dictated by an erroneous theol(,gy; but the doc. trine itself is our present doctrine, as clearly and as energetically 398 expressed as we could now express it. it seems to is to contaif an unanswerable refutation of the popular democratic principle, and a triumphal vindication of the sovereirnty of justice,therefore, of the @iviiie oi,iuiii and right of govenrnrnent; for justice, in the sense the writer uses it, is identical with God, who alone is absolute, immutable, eternal, and sovereign Justice.

The purpose of the writer was evidently to obtain a solid foundation for individual freedom. If he, III order to do this, found and proved it necessary to assert the divine orioin and right of government, to rise above the sovereignty of kings, of nobles, and even of the people, to the eternal and undei-ived sovereignty of God, King of kings, ind Lord of lords, how should we suspect ourselves of being hostile to liberty, when asserting the same doctrine in defence of the rights of government ? Having for years proved the doctrine to be favorable to liberty, how could we believe the public would be so unjust to us as to accuse as of favorincf despotism, because we undertook to prove it equa]13- favorable to civil government ? Whv are we to be classed as hostile to freedom, because we defend In the interests of authority the doctrine which we have uniformly asserted as the only solid foundation of freedom ? Whether we are right or wrong in the doctrine itself, or in its application, would it be any remarkable stretch of charity to give us credit for believing ourselves no less favorable to liberty in bringing the doctrine out in defence of authority, than we were in bringing it out in defence of the rights of the subject ? Are liberty and authority iiecessaiily ideoml)atible one with the other? Or is it a blunder to derive both from the same source, and to suppose that what e,@tablishes the legitimacy of authority must needs establish also the legitimacy of liberty ?

But is the doctrine of the divine origin and right of goverrinent hostile to liberty ? If government derives its existence and its right from God, it can have no power but such as God delegates to it. But God is just, justice itself, and therefore can deleo,ate to the government no power to do what is not just. G)nsequently, whcdever a government exercises an unjust power 399 or its powers unjustly, it exceeds its delegated powers, and is an usurper, a tvrant, and as such forfeits its right to command. It,acts are lawless, because contrary to justice, and do not bind the subject, because he can be bound only by the law. If thev do not bind, they are null, and the attempt to enforce obedience to them may be resisted. Is it difficult, then, to understand, that, while the doctrine wer@- the obligation in conscience of obedience to legitimate authority, to the government as long as it does not command tiiy tbitiy unjust, it condemns all illegal an. thority, and deprives the government of its.right to exact obedience the moment it ceases to be just? What is there in this hostile to liberty? Ts my liberty abridoed when I am required to obev justice? If so, be good enough to tell me whence I obtain the, right to do wrong.

Modern politicians assert, in opposition to the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty of the people. The will of the people is -,%itb them the ultimate authority. Is it they or we who are the, truest friends of liberty ? Liberty cannot be conceived without justice, and wberever there is justice there is liberty. Liberty, then, must be secured just in proportion as we secure the reign of justice. This is done in proportion to the guaranties we have ,that the will which rules shall be a just will. Is there any one who will venture to institute a comparison between the will of the people and the will of God? No one? Then who can pretend that the doctrine which makes the will of the people the sovereign is as favorable to liberty as the doctrine which makes the wil I of God the sovereign? The will of God is always just, because the Divine will is never separable from the Divine reason ; but the will of the people may be, and often is, unjust, for it is separable from that reason, the only fountain of justice. We make the government a government of law, because we found it on will and reason ; these modern politicians make it one of mere will, for tliev have no assurance that the will of the people will always be inili-med by reason. By what right, then, do they who maintain the very essence of despotism charge us with being hostile to liberty? Wherefore should we not, as we 400 do denounce them as the etieinies, Day, the assassins of liberty,men who salute her, and at the sii-ne instant smite her under the ,ifth rib ?

But, it is gravely argued, if you deny the popular origin and right of government, you are a monarchist or an aristocrat, We deny the conclusion. If people would pay,,t little attention to what we actually say, before conjuring up their objections, they would, perhaps, reason less illogically. We raise no question between the sovereignty of kings, and nobles and that of the people. What we deny ig the huinan origin and right of government. We deny all undelegated sovereignty on earth, whether predicated of the king, the nobility, or the people, The question we are discussid(r lies a little deeper and a little farther back than our modern politicians are aware. They are political atheists, and i-ecooilize for the state no power above the people; we are Christians, and hold that all power, that is, all leo,al authority, is from God; therefore we deny that kings, nobiliti(,,s, or the eople have anv authority in their own right, and maintain that the state itself, however constituted, has onlv a delegated authority, and no underived-sovereionty. Thev pfae the people back of the state, and mainttin that it derives all its powers from the people, and therefore bound to do their will; ,ve tell them that the people themselves are not ultimate-bave no power to delegates except the power which Almicrhty God delegates to them, and this Dower they, as trustees, are bound to exercise according to his will, and are, therefore, not free to exerciso- it according to their own. They are desirous mainly of getting rid of kings and nobles, and, to do so, they assert the sovei-eignty of the popular will ; we wish to get rid of despotism and to guard against all unjust government, and we assert the sovei-ei nty of God over kings, nobles, and people, as well as over simple private consciences. Is this intelligible ? Who, then, is the party hostile to liberty

But, reply these same politicians, we do not mean to deny the sovereignty of God; we only mean that the authority he delegates is delegated to the people, and not to the king or the 401 nobility. If bv peoplc, you ut.-lerstand the people as the nation with its political faculties and organs, and not the people as mere isolated individuals, who disputes you? Who denies that kings and nobilities bold their powers, if not from, at least for, the people, and forfeit them the moment they refuse to exercise them for the comnion good of the people? What are you dreaming of? Do you suppose all men have lost their senses because you have lost yours? . Who born and brought up under a republ;c, who acquainted with and embracing the teacbi,-2gs of Catholic theol@, ans, is likely to hold the slavish doctrine, that, the people are for the government, not the government for the people? Do you -suppose that the republican and Catholic advocate the divine right of kings, and passive obedience,-the invention of Protestant divines, set forth and defended by that pedanticScotchman,theso-calledEnglishSolomon? Wbotliat has meditated on the saying of our Blessed Lord, "Let him that would be greatest among you be your servant," can hold that a prince receives power, or ])as any riffht to power, but for the public good ? We do not deny the responsibility of kinffs and nobles to the nation, or that the nation may, under certain circui-nstances, and observing certain forms, call them to an account of their stewardship. But if this removes your objections to our doctrine, it by no means removes ours to yours. We complain of you, not because you make princes responsible to the people, that is, to the nation, but because you leave the people irresponsible, and make them subject to no law but their own will. You simply transfer the despotism from the one or the few to the many, and deny liberty by restinc, in the arbi-. trary will of the people. You stop with the people, and, f you do not deny, you at least fail to assert, the sovereignty of God; you tell them their will is sovereign, without adding that they have only a delegated sovereignty, and are bound to exercise it in strict accordance with and in obedience to the will of God. Here is vour original sin. On your ground, no provision'is made for liberty, none for resistance to tyranny, without resorting to the revolutionary principle, the pretended right to resist 402 Legitimate government, a contradiction in terms, and alike lios tile to liberty and to authority. On our ground, the right'to resist tyranny or oppression is secured without detriment to. legitimate government; because the prince who transgresses his authority and betravs his trust forfeits his riobt-,, and having h iost his ri(y ts, be ceases to be sacred and inviolable.

But we are told, once, more, that practically it can make no difference whether we say the will of God is sovereign, or the will of the people; for the will of the people is the true expresslon of the will of God, according to the maxim, Vox pol.)uli, vox Dei. We deny it. The will of God is eternal and iinmutable justice, which the will of the people is not. The people may and do often actually do wrong. We have no more confidence in the assertion, "The people can do no wrong," than we have in its brother fiction, "The king can do no wrong." The people must be taken either as individuals or as the state. As individuals, they certainly are ineitber infalliblcnor impeccable. As the state, they are only the aggregate of individuals. And are we to be told, that from an aggregation of fall@bles, we can obtain infallibility ? Show us a promise f'roi-n Almighty God, made to the people in one capacikv or the other, that be will preserve them from error and injustice, befoi-e you talk to us of their infallibility. The people in their collective capacity, that is, the state popularly constituted, never surpass the general average of the wisdom and virtue of the same people taken individually; and as this falls infinitely below infallibility, let us bear.no more of the infallibility of the people. For very sbame's sake, after denying, as most of you do, the possibility of an infallible Church immediately constituted and assisted by Irfinite Wisdom, do not stultify yourselves by coming forward now to assert the infallibility of the people. If the people are infallible, what need of constitutions to protect minorities, and of contrivances for the security of individual liberty, which even we in our land of universal suffrage find to be in. dispensable ?

But we return to our original position. All power is of God, 403 By him kings reign and Frinces decree just things. Government is a sacred trust from him, to be exercised according to his will, for the public good. The government which he in his providence has instituted for a people, and which confines itself to its delegated powers, for the true end of government, is legitimate government, whatever its form, and cannot be resisted without sin. But tb- government which is arbitrarily imposed upon a peoiie, or which betrays its trust, or usurps powers seriously to the injury -of its subjects, is illegitimate, and has no claim to our allegiance. Such a government may be lawfully resisted, and sometimes to resist it becomes an imperative duty.

But who is to decide whether the actual government has transcended its powers, and whether the case has occurred when we are permitted or bound to resist it? This is a grave question, because, if the fact of illegitimacy be not established by some competent authority, they who resist run the hazard of resisting legitimate government, and of ruining both their own souls and their country. Evidently the individnal is not to decide for himself by his own private judgment; for that would leave every one free to resist the government whenever he should choose, which would be whenever it should command any thing not to his liking. If be bad the right thus to resist, the gover-ninent would have no right to coerce his obedience, and there would be an end of all government. Evidently, again, not the people, for we must take the people either as the state, or as outside of the state. Outside of the-state they are simple individuals, and, as we have seen, have not, and cannot have, the right to decide. As the state, they have no faculties and no organs but the government which is to be judged, and therefore can neither form nor express a judgment. Who, then ? Evidedtly the power wbos@ function it is to declare the law of God. Since the government derives its authority from God, and is amenable to his law, evidently it can be tried only under that law, and before a court which has authority to declare it, and pronounce judgment accordingly. 404 But what sha4l be done in case there be no such court of competent jurisdiction? We reject the supposition. Almigbtv God could never give a law without instituting a court to declare it, and to judge of its infractions. We, as Catholics, know wli@it and where that court is, and therefore cannot be embarrassed by the question. If there are nations who have no such court. or who refuse to recognize the one Almighty God has established, that is their affair, not ours, and they, not we, are responsible for the embarrassments to which they are subjected. They, uii-doubtedly, are obliged either to assert passive obedience ar@d nonresistance, or to deny the legitimacy of any government by asserting the right of revolution ; that is, they have no alternative but anarchy or despotism, as their history proves. But this is not our fault. We are not aware that we are obliged to exclude God and his Church from our politics in order to accommodate ourselves to those who blaspheme the one and revile the other. We are Dot aware that we are @bl@ged to renounce our reason, and reject the lessons of experience, because, if we admit them, they prove that AliniL):btv God has made his Church essential to the maintenance of civil authority on the one hand, and of civil libertv on the otliei-,-because they prove that the state can succeed no better than the individual, without religion. We have never supposed that a man could be a Christian an(' exclude God from tl,.e state, and we have no disposition to coricede, or to undertake to prove, that be can be. If the Church is necessary -s a teacher of pietv and niorals, she i-nust be neecssary to decide the moral questions which arise between prince and prince, and between prince and subject, and to inaidtain the contrary is only to contradict one's self. Politics are notliiiic_,, but a branch of general ethics, and ethics are simply practical theology. If there is any recognized authority in tbeblo_zy, that autboi@ity must have jurisdiction of every ethical question, that is, every question which involves considerations of right and wr(n,,),, in whatever department of life they i-nav arise. You niav fl--i@+ against this as you please, but you cannot change the tin nature of things. It is useless as well as bard to kick against the 405 I'he question of resistance, presents a case of cor,scien ce, a inorai question, and as such belongs by its very nature co the spiritual or4ier, and then necessarily falls under the jurisdiction of the Ik@@ritimttte representative of that order. All the great principles of l,olitics and ltw are ethical, and treated as such by both Catholic ,itid Protestant theologians. How, then, can we dispense Nvitli the ,i@)-enev of the Church in politics, any more than in private morals or in faitli itself? And are we to forego civil government, are we to submit passsively to tyrants, or to rush into anarchy, because the madness or blindness of others leaves them Do. other alternative ? Alust we reiect or refrain from usino, the infallible means which we possess for determining what is the law of God, because others discard them and attempt to get on without them ? Must we strip ourselves and run naked through the streets, because some of our brethren obstinately persist in being Adaryiites ? Really, this were asking too much of us.

But let no one be frightened out of hi,, propriety, for we really say no more for our Church than every sectarian claims for his sect@no more in principle than was claimed last year by the Presbyterians, when tliev officiallv coi-ideMDeCl the Mexican xvai-, or by the Unitarians, when, as officially as was possible with their organization or want of organization, they did the same. The Church, in the case we have supposed, decides only the morality or immorality of the act done or proposed to be done. And is there a Protestant who belongs to what is called a church who doe,; not take his church as his moral teacher'@ When Philip of Hesse found his wife unsatisfactory to him, and wished to take unto himself another, did lie not submit the question to Luther aiid the pastors of the new religion ? What are your Protestant ministers, if not, in youi- estimation, among other thiiigs, teachers of morals? And in case of doubt, to whom would you apply for its resolution but to your church, such as it is? Do you say yo@ would not? To whom, then? To your politicians? What! do you regard politicians as safer moral guides than your pastors ? To the state ? So you hold the iLtaW more competent to decide questions of morals than your 406 @hurch ! But the state is the pirtv -Accused; would -,on srffei it to be judo, ein its own cause? Then you are at its merev and are a slave. Trust your own judgment? But you art,'a' party interested, and what right have you to be judge in vour own cause? I

The fact is, every man who adinits religion at all must adniit its jurisdiction over all moral questions, whether in their individual or in their social tpplication, and therefore does and must defer in them to that authority which represents for him the spiritual order. The state has no commission as a teacher of morals or as a director of consciences, and unless you blend church arid state, and absorb the spiritual in the temporal, you cannot claim authority for the state in any strictly moral ques tion. The theory of our own institutions is the utter ideompetedey of the state in spirituals. But spirituals include necessarily every question of right and wrong, whether under the natural law or the revealed law,-a fact too often overlooked, and not sufficiently considered by some even of our nominally Catholic politicians and newspaper-writ,,,rs and editors. lf this be so, tli(,, legitimate province of the state is restricted to matters which pertain to human prudence and t-ocial economy. Within the limits of the law of God, that is, providing it violate no precept of the natural or revealed law, -..t is, as we have said in our reply to Mr. Tliornwell, independent and free to pursue the policy which human wisdom and prudence suggest as best adopted to secure the public good. To grive it a wider province would be to claim for it a portion at least of that very authority which Protestants make it an offence in us to claim even for the Church of God. We claim here no direct temporal authority for the Church, but we do claim, and sball, as long as we retain our reason, continue to claii-n for her, under God, suprpy.-ie and exclusive jurisdiction over all questions which pertain to the spiritual order.

The conservative doctrine which we have contended for, and which does not happen to pl@e some of our readers, followq iaee,essarily from this doctrine of the d@'.vine origin and rioht of 0 407 government. No one particular form of government exist-, by eivine right for every people, but every form so exists for the particular nation of which it is the established order. The estziblisbed order, the constitution o@ the state, which God in his pi-o%,ideDee baj given to a particular people, which is coeval with that people, has grown up with it, and is identified with its whole public life, is the legitimate order, the legal constitution, and therefore sacred and inviolable. Tf sacred and inviolable, it must be preserved, and no changes or innovations under the name of progress or reform, that would abolish or essentially alter it, or that would in any degree impair its free, vigorous, and healtbv action, can be tolerated.

This is the doctrine we have maintained, and this is asserted to be hostile to liberty and favorable to despotism. However this i@,iv be, the doctrine is not a recent doctrine with us, not one which we have embraced for the first time since our conversion to (',itliolicity. We held and publicly maintained it during that period of our life when we were regarded as a liberalist, and denounced by our countrymen @ a radical, a leveller, and a (lisoi-@ranizer. Thus, in October, 1838, we oppose it to the I)ro-eediiig., of the Abolitionist-, and maintain that it is a sufficient reason for condemning those proceedings, that thev -ire uncoyistitutioiial and revolutionary.

We would acquit the Abolit,onists, also, of all wish to change fundamentally the character of our institutions. They are not, at least the honest part of them, politicians ; but very ,iiiipl(,-iiiinded men and women, who crave excitement, and seek it -n @bolition 'meetings, and in getting up Abolition societies ailq petitions, instead of seeking it in ballrooms, theatres, or places of fashionable amusement or dissipation. Politics, properly speaking, they abominate, because politics would require them to think, and they wish only to feel. Doubtless some of them are moved by generous sympathies, and a real regard for the well-being of the Negro; but the principal moving cause of their proceedings, after the craving for excitement, and perhaps notoriety, is the feeling that slavery is a national disgrace. Now this feelidg, as we have shown, proceeds from a misconception of the real character of our institutions. This feeling can be 408 justifled only on the supposition that we are a consolidated m public. Its existence is therefore a proof, that, whatever be the conscious motives in the main of the Abolitionist, their proceedin(rs strike against otr Federal system.

Well, what if they do ? replies the Abolitionist. If Federalism, or the d(4ctriiie of State sovereignty, which you @ay -.s the American system of politics, prohibits us from laboring to free the slave, then down -,vilh it. Any system of government, any pc,iit,ical relations, which prevent me from laboring to break the yoke of the oppressor and to set th6 captive free, is a wicked svstem, and ouoht to be destroyed. God (lisowns it, Christ disown,,; it, and man oii,,Tbt to disown it. If consolidation, if ceiiti-alization, be the order that enables us to free the slave, then give us consolidation, give us cei)tralizatioii. Tt is the true doetritie. It enables one to plead for the slave. The slave, is crushed under his master's foot; the slave is dving -, I see nothiiio, but the slave ; I hear nothing but tile slave'@ cries for deliverance. Away with your paper barriers ! away with vour idle i)t-atino, about State rights ! clear the way ! let me r@u to the sl@ive! Any thino, that frees the slave is right, is owned by, God.

"We express here the sentiment and use very nearlv the lan- gii,t(,Ye of the Abolitionists. They have no respect f@r govern- i-iient as such. They, indeed, are fast adopting the ultra-radical uoctrine, that all government is founded in usurpation, and is an evil which all true Christians must labor to abolish. They have, ,at least some of them, nominated Jesus Christ to be President of the United States ; as much as to say, in the only practical sense to be given the nomination, that there shall be no Presideiit of the United States but an idea, and an idea without any visible embodiment; which is merelv contending, in other words, that there shall be no visible government, no political institutions whatever. 'Pliey have fixed their niinds on a given object, and, finding that the political institutions of the country and the laws of the land are against them, they deny the legitimacy of all laws and of all political institutions. Let them carry their doctrines out, and it is easy to see that a most radical revolution in the institutions of the country must be the result.

"Now, we ask, has a revolution become necessary ? Is it no longer possible to labor for the progress of Humanity in thicountry, without chancing entirelv the character of our political institutions ? Must we cliange our Federal svstem, destroy the existino,'relations between the States and the Union and between) 409 the States themselves ? N@v, must we destroy all c-atward, vif.ible government, abolish all laws, and leave !he Community in the state in which the Jews were, when 'there was Do king in Israel, and qvery man did that which was right in his own eyes ?' We pu7t these questions in soberness, and with a deep feeling of their magditude. The Abolition ranks are full of insane dreamers, and fuller yet of men and women ready to undertake to realize any (tre@m, however insane, and at any expense. We ask, therefore, these questions with solemnitv, and with fearful forebodings for our country. We rarely f@,,ir, we rarely tremble at the prospect of evil to come. The habitual state of our own mind is that of serene trust in the future ; and if in this respect we are thought to have a fault, it is in beiil,7 too sanguine, in hoping too much. But we confess, the proceedin of the A@litionists, coupled with their va(rue specula- 98 zn tions and their crude notions, do fill us with lively alarm, and make us apprehend dancer to our beloved country. We beg, in the name of God and of man, the Abolitionist,-, to pause, and if they love libert ' y, ask themselves what liberty has, in the lor,@g run, to gain by overtlirowinq: the svsteni of government we hard established, by effecting a Revolution in the very foundation of our Federal system.

"For ourselves, we have. accepted with our whole heart the political svstem adopted b our fathers........... We take the y American political system as our startiii(Y-i)oint, as our primitive data, and we repulse whatever is rel)tiynaiit to it, ,,tiad accept, demand wbat6ver is essential to its preservation. 'vi",,@ tai,,e our stand on the Idea of our institutions, and labor with all our soul to realize and develop it. As a lover of our rtee, as Cti@ devoted friend of liberty, of the progress of mankind, we feel that we must, in this country, be conservative, not radical. If we demand the elevation of labor and the laboring classes, we do it onlv in accordance with our institutions and for the puri,@oge of preserving them, by removing all discrepancy between their spirit and the social habits and condition of the people on whom they are to act and to whose keeping they are iiitriisted. We demand reform onl ' y for the purpose of preserving American institutions in their reai character ; and we can tolei-ate no cbanues DO innovations, no alleged improvements, not introduced in sti-ict accordance with the relations which do subsist between tl-,e States and the Union and between the States themselves. Here is our political creed. More power in the Federal governraeut than was given it by the Convention which framed the 410 Constitution would be dangerous to the States, and with leu power the Federal government would not be able to subsist. We take it, then, as it is. Tile fact, that any given measure is necessary to preserve it as it is, is a sufficient reason for adop@ ing that measure; the fact, that a given measure is opposed to it as it is, and has a tendency to increase or diminish'i6 power, is a sufficient reason for rejecting that measure.'@The Boston Qitarterly Review, 1838, Vol. I. pp. 492-495.

The same doctrine we had inculcated in the P@eview for the previous July of the same year.

"Our government, in its measures and practical character, should conform as strictly as possible to the ideal or theory of our institutions. Nobody, we trust, is prepared for a revolatia.a; nobody, we also trust, is bold enough to avow a wish to dc,,pfirt very widely from the fundamental principles of our institutioi,s; and everybody will admit that the statesman should Study to preserve those, institutions in their simplicity and integril@y, and should seek, in every law or measure he proposes, merely to bring out their practical woi@tb, and secure the ends for which they were established. Their spirit should dictate ev,&ry leoislative enactment, every judicial decision, and every exc-,-,itive measure. Any law not in harmony with their gCDiUS, any measure which would be likely to disturb the nicely adjusted balance of their respective powers, or that would give them, in their practical operation, a character essentially different from the one they originally intended to have, should be discountena,ict-d, and never for a single moment entertained.

11 We would not be understood to be absolutely opposed to all innovatiors or chances, whatever their character. it is true, we can never consent to disturb the settled order of a state, without strong and urgent reasons; but we can conceive of cases in which we should deem it our duty to demand a revolution. When a government has outlived its idea, and the institutions of a country no longer bear any relation to the prevailing habits, thought,-,, and sentiments of the people, and have become a mere dead carcass, an encumbrance, an offence, we can call loudly for a revolution, and behold with comparative coolness its terrible doi-ags' But such a me does not as yet present itself here. Our institutioi-is are all young, full of Jife, and the future. Here, we cannot be revolutionists. Here. we can tolerate no innovations, no, ebaDgeS, which touch fundamental laws, None are idm;@' 411 ble but such as are needed to preserve our institutions in their original character, to bring out their concealed beauty, to eal the field for their free operation, and to give more directness and force to their legitimate activity. Every measure must be in harmony with them, grow, as it were, out of them, and be but a development of their fundamental laws!'-Vol. I. pp. 334, 335.

Undoubtedly, we here recognize a case in which a revolution would be justifiable; but not a case in which it would be lawful to subvert the constitution ; for the case supposed is one in which the constitution has already been subverted, and ceased to be living and operative. The doctrine is nowise different from our present doctrine on the subjec@ only what we called revolution then we should call by another Dame now. The movements of a people to depose the tyrant, to throw off the illegitimate and to restore the legitimate authority, are not a revolution in the sense in which we deny the right of revolution. It is essential to our idea of a revolution, that it should involve, in some respect, an effort or intention to subvert the legal authority of a state. If, for instance, it be conceded that Ireland is an integral part of the British empire, or, rather, of the Britisli state, an effort on the part of Irishmen to sever her from the British state, and erect her into an independent nation, would be revolutionary and unjustifiable. But if it be conceded that she is a separate state, that she has never been merged in the British state, and has been bound to it only by a mutual compact, and if it be conceded or established that England has broken tire compact or not complied with its conditions, a like effort at separation and independence would involve no revolutionarv principle, and, if prudent or expedient, would be justifiable, even though it should lead to a fearful and protracted war between the two nations.

It is clear, however, from these extracts, that, as lono, aoo a--a 1838, we were, in relation to our own country, decidedly conservative. Here is another extract from the same Review, foi October, 1841, which proves that we, while still regarded as a radical, generalized it and extended it to all countri" 412

"In this matter of world-reformin@, it is our misfortune to dis,iurc,e with our radical brethren. 'The reforms which ca-i be Introduced into any one coili,ti@y are predetermined bv its geographical position, the productions of its soil, and the @enius of its people and of its existiii(Y institutions. Anv reform which requires the introduction or the destruction of a fundamental el(,fiient is precluded. All refo ' ri-ns must consist in, and be restricted to, clearing away anomalies and developing already ad- zn iiiit-ted pr'@nciples."-Vol. iv. p. 53 2.

Here is the conservative doctrine stated as broadly and a-distinctly as we state it now, and we could easily show that we entertained it at a much earlier date. Doubtless there are many ,@bin(ys to be found in The Boston Quarterly Review not easily reconcilable with this doctrine; for we had not, at the time of conducting it, reduced all our ideas to a systematic and harinoDious whole. Moreover, we Nvrote with less care than we do now ; for we wrote more for the purpose of excitino, tliouaht zn c than of establishing conclusions. But the discrepancies to be detected are in genert] more apparent than real ; for we, utihappily, adopted the practice of using popular terms in an unpopular sense, which often gave us the appearance of adx,ocating doetriies we by no means intended. Thus, we adopted the word democracy, but defined it in a sense of our own, very different from the popular sense. We did the same with many other terms. There was in this no intention to deceive. But we bad a theory,-for in those times we were addicted to tlieorizing,-tbat the people used terms in a loose and vaoue sense, and that the business of the writer was to seize and define it,-to give in its precision what the people really mean by the term, if they could but explain their meaning to themselves. But we found by experience that we could not make the people attend to our definitions, and that they would, in spite of them, coiitinue to use the popular term in its popular sense, and that, if we wished to express another sense, oi, the same sense somewhat modified, we must select another term. The rnista@e wo fell into is fallen into by many who are nof so fortunate as to 413 detect it. Some of our friends have tried to find fault with our views on liberty, when their own views were the same as ours. They use the word liberty in relations in which we avoid it ; but they, in iisin(T it, fail to convey their real meaning. The popular mind understands by liberty soi-nething very different from what they do. It is necessary to select. terms with a view of denying what we do not mean, as well as of expressing what we do mean. Many of the inconsistencies we have been charged with have grown out of our former neglect of this rule, and not a few of the chances we are supposed to have undergone are really notbino- but chances in our terminology, made for the purpose of getting our real meanino, out to public apprebedsion. But this by the way. Versatile as we may have been, we have always had certain fixed principles, and what they were may be known by noting what we have cast off in our advance towards manhood, and what we have retained iiid still retain. The conservative principle is evidently one of these, and as we undeniably held it when nobody dreamed of charging us with hostility to liberty, we cannot see why our holding it now should be construed into proof that we are on the side of despotism.

But let us look at the doctrine itelf. People bold it objectionable, because they suppose it commands us to preserve old abuses and forbids us to labor for the progress of civilization. But in this they assume two thiugs:-I. That the legitimate constitution of a state is, or may be, an abuse; and, 2. That the progress of civilization is denied, if the right to subvert the constitution is denied.

The first involves a contradiction in terms. Nothing legal or legitimate is or can be, an abuse; An abuse is a misuse of that which is legal. The abuse is always contrary to the constitution, or it least some departure from it ; and consequently conse]-v,ttism, or the preservation of the constitution, instead of requiring ur, to conserve the abuse, imperatively commands us to redress it , because, if not redressed, it may in time undermine and destroy the constitution itself.

IU wwnd is equidly unfounded. The destruction of the 414 constitution is the destruction of the state itself, its resolution into anarchy or despotism, either of which is fatal to civilization. Wtiat should we think of the physician who should undertake to restore a man to health, or to increase his soundness and vi(ror, by destroying his constitution? What we should think of him is precisely what we ought to think of the statesrjaan who seeks to advance civilization by subverting the constitution of the state. The proyress of civilization is inconceivable without the progress of the state, and the progress of the state is inconceivable without the existence of the state. How, then, can the subversion, that is, the destruction, of the state tend to advance civilization ? If you will listen either to common sense or to the lessons of experience, you will grant that revolutions tend only to throw men into barbarism and savagism. The passions they call forth are the lowest, fiercest, and most brutal of our nature, and your patriot so called, be who seeks to advance his country by destroying its constitution, is usually a tiger for his ferocity.

But it is said that the existing constitution is destroyed only order to make wav for a new and better organization of the state. When you have shown us an instance, in the whole history of the world, in which the destruction of an existino, constitution of a state has been followed by the introduction and adoption of a new anl better oiie,-better for the particular na. tion, we mean@we will give up the point, acknowledge that we have been in this whole matter consummate fools, and become as rnad revolutionists as the best of you. But such an iDSttDCG cannot be found. How often must we tell you that a constitution cannot be made as one makes a wheel-barrow or a steamengine,-that of the constitution we must say, as we say of the poet, "Nascitur, non fit"' It is generated, not constructed, and no human wisdom can give to a state its constitution. The experiment has often been tried, and has just as often failed. Shaftesburv and Locke tried it for the Carolinas. They failed, France tried it in her old revolution; she is trying it again. Her former experiment resulted in anarchy, military despotism, 415 and the restoration ; her present experiment in four short months has reached military despotism. Encriand has tried it, and sent out from her iiiills at home, along with her other manufactures, a constitution cut and dried for each of her colonies, and in what instance has the constitution not proved a curse to the colony for which it was made and on which it ha- been imposed? Who .tire these men who now come forward and ask us to credit them in spite of philosophy, of common sense, uniform experience, and experiment? Surely they must be prodigies of modesty, or else count largely on our simplicity and credulity.

But we are referred to our own country, to the American Revolution. Be it so. In reply, we might refer to the Spanish American revolutions, as a case much more in point. But our own country is the case on which the modern revolutionists chiefly rely for their justification. We do not contest the riorht of the Anglo-American colonies to separate from the luother co-,intry ; we are not the men to condemn' the Congress of 1 7 7 6 ; and we cheerfully concede the prosperity which has followed the separation. But what is called the American Revolution was no revolution in the sense in which we deny the right of revolution, and in it there was no subversion of the state, no destruetioii of the existing constitution, and no assertion of the right to destroy it. The colonies were held by compact to the crown of Great Britain. The tyranny of George the Third broke that compact, and absolved the colonies from their allegiance. Absolved from their allegiance to the crown, they were, ipso facto, sovereign states, and the war which followed was simply a war in defence of their independence as such states. No abuse of terms can convert such a war into a revolutionary war. Then there was no civil revolution. The internal state of the colonies was not dissolved, and there was no war on the constitution of the American states. They retained substantially the very political constitutions with which thev conirinenced, and retain them up to this moment. We have never undergone a revolution in any sense like the European revolutions which have fi)llowed since the war of our independence Slight alterations bai e from 416 time to time been, wisely or unwisely, effected in the State con. stitiitions, but none which have struck at essential principles.

Nor was the formation of our Federal Constitution 9,Dv thing like what the French National Assembly are attempting. It was similar in its cbaraetpr to what the German Diet at Frankfort have just done, or are still engaged in doing. It was not making and giving a constitution to a people who bad just overthrown an old government, destroyed the old constitution, and resolved the state into its orioidal elements, but was the act of free, sovereign states, already constituted, and exercising all the -faculties of sovereign states. Here are vast differences, which are too often overlooked, and which should prevent our conduct in throwing off the crown of Great Britain and formiing the Federal UDIOD from being regarded as a precedent for those who would destroy au existing constitution for the purpose of re6rganizing the state. We never did any thiiag of the sort, and from the fact that the result of what we did do has been great national prosperity it cannot,. be inferred that such Will be the result of revolutionsintbeeuropeaustates. Revolutionistsboth at home and abroad, especially abroad, do not sufficiently consider the wide difference between colonies already existing as bodies politic, exercising nearly all the functions of government, separating themselves politically, under the authority of their local governments, from the mother country, and setting up for themselves, and the insurrection of the niob aoainst the existing constitution, destroying it, and attempting to replace it by one of their own makiiio,. We were children come to our majority, leaving our fatber's house to become beads of establishments of our own; the revolutionists are parricides, who knock their aged parent in the head or out his throat -in order to possess themselves of the homestead.

But however this may be, it is clear that the doctrine we put forth is not favorable to despotism ; for despotism is as destructive of the legitimate constitution as revolutionism in favor of what is called Liberalism. Radicalism and despotism are only two phues of one and the same thing. Despotism is radica@m 417 in place; rtclicali,@m is despoti@@m out of place. Both are unconstitutional, and to pi-(-,serve the constitution requires us to oppose the one as much as the othei,. Liberty demands the supremacy of the law, and law is will regulated by reason, resti-,t"ned by justice; and to preserve law in this sense, we must resis@ every attempt, come it fronv Nvbat quarter it may, to subslitute for it the government of arbitrary will.

Nobody denies the right to correct abuses. The doctrine we .,et fol-tli not only concedes our right to correct abuses, but makes it, as we have seen, our duty to correct them. All that it forbids is our ii(ylit to correct them bv illegal, and therefore unjustiflable means. We must obey the law in correcting the abuses of tie law, the constitution in repelling its enemies. This resti-iction is just, and good ends are never attainable bv unjust means. Needs it be said again and afraiii, that iniqtiity can IneN@ei- lead to justice, tyranny to liberty ? But observing this restrictions vou i-nay go as ftr ts you I)Iease. The doctrine we contend foi- does not, indeed, tllow you to change a legal men-ii-cby into a dc@i-noci@acy, nor i dei-noci,aev, where it is the legal oi-d(!i,, a-, with us, into a mon,,ircl)y; but it does allow vou to. chaii(re the individuals intrusted with the administration of the government. Kiri,@, as lotio, as they reign justly, reign bv divine ri,,Iit ; and in this sense, an(-t in no other, we accept the doctrine of the divine rio-bt of kinos ; but when thev ceise to reign jtistiv, become tyrannical -tyid oppressive, they forfeit their ri,o;lit,@, and the authority reverts to tl)e nation, to be Oxercised, however, in accordance -with its fundamental constitution. The nation may depose the. tyrant, even disl)osseqs, for sufficient reasons, the rei(ynin(y fainiln,, and call ,% new dynasty to the throne for no nation can be i-i,,htfully the property of a prince, or of a fai-nilv, or bound to submit to etei@nal slavery. Thus far we go; for we hold with the great C@itholic authorities;, that the king is not in i,ei(yniiig, but in i-eicinin(y just!

But we have said enoti@@h to vindicate our doctrine from the charge, of bein(y hostile to libei-tv ind favorable to despotism. We vield to no man in our love o' libeftv, but we have always 418 felt that just ends are more e ilv gained by just than by unjust means, and that the truth is much more effectually defended by aj--uments drawn from sound than from unsound principles. It is not that we are indifferent to liberty, but that we reject the grounds on which modern politicians defend it, and disapprove of the means by which they seek to secure it. 'vVe have shown that those gronnds are untenable, and that those means are fitted only to defeat the end for which they are adopted. He who wants more than justice will give him wants what he cannot have without injustice to others. Our doctrine will satisfy no such man, and we should be satisfied with no doctrine that would. He who wishes for liberty without obedience to law wishes for what never has been and nevc.- can be. An authoritv which does not restrain, which is only an instrument to be used when it serves our purpose, and to be cast off the moment it can no lon(yer serve it, is no legitimate authority, is not a gov- erninent at all. If we have government, it must govern, and we must obey it, even when to obey it nray be a restraint on our private feelings and passions, for it is only at this price that we can purchase immunity from the private feelings and passions of others. Nothing is, then, in reality more unwise than to cherish an impatience of restraint and a spirit of insubordination. The sooner we learn the difficult lesson of obedience, the better ,",ill it be for us. We cannot, if we would, have every thing our own wav: and perhaps it would not be to our advantage, if we could. Life his, and as long as the world stands will have, its trials, and, liowei,er impatient we may be, there is and will be much @vliich we can conquer only by learning to bear it. It is easy to stir up a revolution, to subvert a throne or a dynasty; but to reestablish order, to readjust the relations of man with man, of prince with siib,;ect and subject with prince, so as to re. move all evils amd satisfv every wish,-tliis is labor, this is work, Nvliieli no i-nortal man has ever yet been equal to. , A man could lose paradise, brino- siD, death, and all our ivoe into the world; only a God could i-ei)air the damage, and restore us to the heaven we bad foi-f(-,ited. 419

Our doctrine,, just at this moment, may be unpopular, and we know it will put no money into our pocket, and bring us no applause; but this is not our fault, nor a reason why we should withhold it. Having never yet pandered to popular prejudices, or sought to derive profit from popular passions and fallacies, we sliall not attempt to do it now. We love our country, perhaps, as much as som@ others who make much more parade of their patriotism; and we love liberty, it may be, as well, and are likely to serve it as effectually, as our young revolutionists in whom reason "sleeps and declamation roars." We have, indeed, a tolerable pair of lungs, and if not a musical, at least a strod(v voice; we know and could use all the COMMODplaces of our young patriots, and reformers,-nay, we think we could, if we were to try, beat them at their own trade, grave and staid as we have become; but we have no disposition to enter the lists with them. We have never seen any good come from the declamatory speeches and fiery patriotism of boys just escaped the forula of the pedagogue, and who can give utterance to nothiiict but puerile rant about liberty and patriotism. We have never seen good come to a country whose counsellors were youno- men with downy chins, and we set it down as a rule, that the country in which they can take the lead, whatever else it is fitted for, is not fitted for the liberty which comes through popular institutions.

We can weep as well as our juniors over a nation robbed of its rights, on whose palpitating heart is planted the iron heel of the conqueror, and have the will, if not the power, to strike, if we can but see a vulnerable spot, or a chance that the blow will tell upon the tyrant. But, as a general thing, we have a great distaste for the valor that evaporates in words, though they be great and hioh-sounding words, well chosen, slilfully arranged, and admirably pronounced ; and an equal distaste even for deeds which recoil upon the actor, and aggravate his sufferings, already too afflictirio- to behold. We believe it wise to bide one's time, and to take council of prudence. In most cases, the sufferings of a people spring from moral causes @vond the 420 reach of civil government and they are rarely the best patriots who paint them in the most vivid colors, and rouse up popular indignation against the civil authorities. Much more effectual service could be rendered in a more quiet and peaceful way, by each one seeking, in his own immediate sphere, to remove the moral causes of the evils endured. St. Vincent of Paul was a far wiser and more successful patriot than the greatest of your popular orators, declaimers, and songsters. ][le, humble-minded priest, had no ambition to shine, no splendid scheme of world or state reform. He thought only of saving his own soul, by doing the work that lay next him; and be became the benefactor of his age and his country, and-in his noble institutious of charity he still lives, and each year extends his influence and adds to the millions who are recipients of his bount.y. 0 ye who would serve your country, relieve the suffering, solace the afflicted, and right the wronged, go imitate St. Vincent of Paul, and Heaven will own you and posterity revere you.

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Adapted from
Essays and Reviews p. 386
Brownson's Quarterly Review (October, 1848)
Works, Vol. XVI, p. 60

Revised January 8, 2005.

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