Wesley Corpus

“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. 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.