Wesley Corpus

Has he not a soul and a body? Has he not the nature of a man; consequently, all the rights of a man, all that flow from human nature; and, among the rest, that of not being controlled by any but by his own consent? “But he that has not a freehold is excluded by law.” By a law of his own making? Did he consent to the making of it? If he did not, what is that law to him ? No man, you aver, has any power over another, but by his own consent: Of consequence, a law made without his consent is, with regard to him, null and void. You cannot say other wise, without destroying the supposition, that “none can be governed but by his own consent.” 26. See now to what your argument comes. You affirm, all power is derived from the people; and presently exclude one half of the people from having any part or lot in the matter. At another stroke, suppose England to contain eight millions of people, you exclude one or two millions more. At a third, suppose two millions left, you exclude three-fourths of these; and the poor pittance that remains, by I know not what figure of speech, you call the people of England ! 27. Hitherto we have endeavoured to view this point in the mere light of reason; and, even by this, it appears, that this supposition, which has been palmed upon us as undeniable, is not only false, not only contrary to reason, but contradictory to itself; the very men who are most positive that the people are the source of power, being brought into an inextricable difficulty, by that single question, “Who are the people?” reduced to a necessity of either giving up the point, or owning that by the people, they mean scarce a tenth part of them. 28. But we need not rest the matter entirely on reasoning. Let us appeal to matter of fact; and, because we cannot have so clear a prospect of what is at a distance, let us only take a view of what has been in our own country. I ask, then, When did the people of England (suppose you mean by that word only half a million of them) choose their own Governors? Did they choose (to go no further) William the Conqueror?