Wesley Corpus

Hitherto we have endeavoured to view this point in the mere light of reason. And even by this means it manifestly appears that this supposition, which is so high in vogue, which is so generally received, nay, which has been palmed upon us with such confidence, as undeniable and self-evident, 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. 17. But we need not rest the matter entirely on reasoning; let us appeal to matter of fact. And because we cannot have so clear and certain a prospect of what is at too great a distance, whether of time or place, let us only take a view of what has been in our own country for six or seven hundred years. I ask, then, When and where did the people of England (even suppose by that word, the people, you mean only an inundred thousand of them) choose their own Governors? Did they choose, to go no farther, William the Conqueror? Did they choose King Stephen, or King John? As to those who regularly succeeded their fathers, it is plain the people are out of the question. Did they choose Henry the Fourth, Edward the Fourth, or Henry the Seventh? Who will be so hardy as to affirm it? Did the people of England, or but fifty thousand of them, choose Queen Mary, or Queen Elizabeth? To come nearer to our own times, did they choose King James the First? Perhaps you will say, “But if the people did not give King Charles the supreme power, at least they took it away from him. Surely, you will not deny this.” Indeed I will; I deny it utterly. The people of England no more took away his power, than they cut off his head. “Yes, the Parliament did, and they are the people.” No; the Parliament did not. The lower House, the House of Com mons, is not the Parliament, any more than it is the nation. Neither were those who then sat the House of Commons; no; nor one quarter of them.