Wesley Corpus

Are they “all the members of a state?” So you affirmed but now. Are they “all the individuals that compose it?” So you said quickly after. Will you rather say, “The people are every free agent?” or, “Every one that has a will of his own?” Take which you will of these four definitions, and it necessa rily includes all men, women, and children. Now, stand to your word. Have all men, women, and children, in a state, a right to make and unmake their Governors? They are all free agents, except infants; and even these have a will of their own. They all are “members of the state;” they are, all and every one, “the individuals that compose it.” And had ever the people, as above defined by yourself, a right to make and unmake their Governors? 18. Setting Mr. Evans's witticisms aside, I seriously desire him, or Doctor Price, or any zealous assertor of the king making right of our sovereign lords the people, to point out a single instance of their exerting this right in any age or nation. I except only the case of Thomas Aniello, (vulgarly called Massanello,) in the last century. Do not tell me, “There are many;” but point them out. I aver, I know of none. And I believe it will puzzle any one living to name a second instance, either in ancient or modern history. 19. And by what right, (setting the Scriptures aside, on which you do not choose to rest the point,) by what right do you exclude women, any more than men, from choosing their own Governors? Are they not free agents, as well as men? I ask a serious question, and demand a serious answer. Have they not “a will of their own?” Are they not “members of the state?” Are they not part of “the individuals that compose it?” With what consistency, them, can any who assert the people, in the above sense, to be the origin of power, deny them the right of choosing their Governors, and “giving their suffrages by their representatives?” “But do you desire or advise that they should do this?” Nay, I am out of the question. I do not ascribe these rights to the people; therefore, the difficulty affects not me; but, do you get over it how you can, without giving up your principle. 20.