Wesley Corpus

It originates with them; it is conducted by their direction. In every free state, every man is his own legislator; all taxes are free gifts; all laws are established by common consent. If laws are not made by common consent, a Government by them is slavery.” (Page 7.) * This quotation from Horace is thus translated by Boscawen : “Sense, morals, 'gainst such laws unite, And public good, true source of right.”-ED1T. Here is a group of strong assertions. But how are they supported? “O ! they are inferred from what has been said.” But what has been said, has as yet nothing to support it. If, then, these assertions stand at all, they stand by themselves. Let us try if they cau. “All civil govern ment, as far as it is free, is a creature of the people.” It is, if we allow your definition of freedom; that is, if we allow you to beg the question. 16. But before we can move a step further, I must beg you to define another of your terms. This is the more necessary, as it occurs again and again; and indeed the whole question turns upon it. What do you mean by the people? “All the members of a state?” So you express it, page 8. “All the individuals that compose it?” So you speak in the next page. Will you rather say with Judge Blackstone, “Every free agent?” or with Montesquieu, “Every one that has a will of his own 7” Fix upon which of these definitions you please, and then we may proceed. If my argument has an odd appearance, yet let mone think I am in jest. I am in great earnest. So I have need to be; for I am pleading the cause of my King and country; yea, of every country under heaven, where there is any regular Government. I am pleading against those principles that naturally tend to anarchy and confusion; that directly tend to unhinge all government, and overturn it from the found ation. But they are principles which are incumbered with such difficulties as the wisest man living cannot remove. 17. This premised, I ask, Who are the people that have a right to make and unmake their Governors? Are they “all the members of a state?” So you affirmed but now.