Wesley Corpus

Then they have a right to choose their own Governors; an indefeasible right; a right inherent, insepar able from human nature. “But in England, at least, they are excluded by law.” But did they consent to the making of that law If not, by your original supposition, it can have no power over them. I therefore utterly deny that we can, consistently with that supposition, debar either women or minors from choosing their own Governors. 13. But suppose we exclude these by main force, (which it is certain we are able to do, since though they have most votes they have least strength,) are all that remain, all men of full age, the people? Are all males, then, that have lived one-and-twenty years allowed to choose their own Governors? “Not at all; not in England, unless they are freeholders, unless they have forty shillings a year.” Worse and worse. After depriving half the human species of their natural rights for want of a beard; after depriving myriads more for want of a stiff beard, for not having lived one-and-twenty years; 50 ThouGHTS CoNCER NING you rob others (probably some hundred thousands) of their birthright for want of money! Yet not altogether on this account neither; if so, it might be more tolerable. But here is an Englishman who has money enough to buy the estates of fifty freeholders, and yet he must not be numbered among the people because he has not two or three acres of land I How is this? By what right do you exclude a man from being one of the people because he has not forty shillings a year; yea, or not a groat? Is he not a man, whether he be 1 rich or poor? 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. 14. “But he is excluded by law.” By what law? by a law of his own making? Did he consent to the making of it? Before this law was passed, was his consent either obtained or asked ? If not, what is that law to him? No man, you aver, has any power over another but by his own consent.