Wesley Corpus

Is it not one fundamental * Thoughts on the Origin of Power. principle, that “all persons living are naturally equal; that all human creatures are naturally free; masters of their own actions; that none can have any power over them, but by their own consent?” Why, then, should not every man, woman, and child, have a voice in placing their Governors, in fixing the measure of their power, and the conditions on which it is intrusted? And why should not every one have a voice in displacing them too? Surely they that gave the power have a right to take it away. By what argument do you prove, that women are not naturally as free as men? And if they are, why have they not as good a right to choose their Governors? Who can have any power over free, rational creatures, but by their own consent? And are they not free by nature as well as we? Are they not rational creatures? 24. But suppose we exclude women from using their natural right, by might overcoming right, what pretence have we for excluding men like ourselves, barely because they have not lived one-and-twenty years? “Why, they have not wisdom or experience to judge of the qualifications neces sary for Governors.” I answer, (1.) Who has? how many of the voters in Great Britain? one in twenty? one in an hundred? If you exclude all who have not this wisdom, you will leave few behind. But, (2.) Wisdom and experience are nothing to the purpose. You have put the matter upon another issue. Are they men? That is enough. Are they human creatures? Then they have a right to choose their own Governors; an indefeasible right; a right inherent, inseparable from human nature. “But in England they are excluded by law.” 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, exclude either women or minors from choosing their own Governors. 25. But, suppose we exclude these by main force; 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 in England, unless they are freeholders, and have forty shillings a year. Worse and worse!