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 'ify iurginia ConBtltiitiflti ci 1776 
 
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 DEHrEnKD B''FORE THE 
 
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 A N l-I U A L M E E T I N G , 
 
 January 17i!i, 1852. 
 
 By M. a. WASillNfiTON. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
 
 RICHMOND: 
 
 MACFARLANE & FERGUSSON. 
 1852. 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 JK3925 1776 .W31 
 
 The Virginia constitution of 1776 
 
 3 1924 030 491 413 
 
 t Sirgima Clnimituuiiu ui xuu. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 ANNUAL MEETING, 
 
 January 17tli, 1852. 
 
 Br H. A. WASHINGTON. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
 
 RICHMOND! 
 
 MACPARLANE & FERGUSSON. 
 
 1852. 
 
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 M H g d S^ , 
 
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DISCOURSE. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 
 
 Virginia Historical Society. 
 
 In rising to address you, I feel oppressed by the convic- 
 tion that I have nothing to offer worthy of the Society, 
 worthy of the occasion, or worthy of this large and most 
 enlightened audience : and I have, therefore, to throw 
 myself upon your indulgence for what, I fear, wiU be con- 
 sidered the crudeness of this address. 
 
 Mr. President, I have been much gratified, since my 
 arrival in the city, to learn from our respected Secretary, 
 that the Virginia Historical Society is no longer an exper- 
 iment, that all those many difficulties which embarrass the 
 infancy of such enterprises every where, but especially in 
 the Southern States, have been successfully surmounted, 
 and that the Society may now be considered as established 
 on a permanent basis. This, as it seems to me, sir, is a 
 fact upon which I may not only congratulate you and the 
 Society, but the State at large — the fact that, at last, after 
 such unpardonable delay, an institution has been establish- 
 ed in this Commonwealth whose office and duty it will be 
 to collect together and systematically arrange, so as to be 
 of easy reference, that large and invaluable mass of ma- 
 terial for future history, which now lies scattered, here and 
 there, in almost innumerable fragments, over the length 
 
Discourse. 
 
 and breadth of the State— destined, in all probability, to 
 perish forever, unless speedily rescued by this Society. 
 The organization of such an institution is, I repeat, matter 
 of public congratulation, and the thanks of our people are 
 due to those gentlemen whose zeal, perseverance and pat- 
 riotism have originated and sustained the enterprise — an 
 enterprise which cannot fail to enlist the warm sympathies 
 and cordial co-operation of every son of Virginia, who 
 properly appreciates the treasures and the glories of her 
 history. That history, gentlemen, permit me to say, in 
 passing, remains yet to be written ; and I say this with a 
 full and high appreciation of the labors of those gentle- 
 men who have recently published volumes upon this sub- 
 ject. They deserve our thanks — they have my gratitude — 
 they have done much to illustrate our colonial annals ; but, 
 gentlemen, much yet remains to be done. They have 
 given us histories of the government of Virginia ; what 
 we now want is a history of her people — her institutions, 
 her social and political system — her civilization — a history 
 of Virginia in the sense in which Guizot has written the 
 history of France, and Macaulay the history of England. 
 And when, in the future, some scholar shall arise in our 
 midst, (as sooner or later he certainly will arise,) commis- 
 sioned to this work, will it not be a great point gained — 
 will it not be a great assistance to him, to have collected 
 here, at one point, in the metropolis of the State, every 
 thing which can illustrate his subjects ? The public thanks, 
 I repeat, are due to those gentlemen whose zeal, persever- 
 ance, and patriotism have founded the Virginia Historical 
 Society. 
 
 Gentlemen, I purpose to make the Virginia Bill of Eights 
 and Constitution of 1776, the subject of the remarks which 
 I shall address to you this evening. I select the Consti- 
 tution of '76, because it M'as the first written social com- 
 
Discourse. 
 
 pact ever reduced to practice, and made the foundation of 
 an actual government, and for the further reason, that its 
 adoption constitutes, in my poor judgment, one of the most 
 important stages in the progress of human liberty. On 
 the 29th of June, 1176, five days in advance of the general 
 Declaration of Independence, and amid revolutionary perils, 
 did our virise and gallant forefathers, assembled in the an- 
 cient Capitol of the colony, and clothed (the first instance, 
 perhaps, in human history,) with the sovereignty of a 
 whole people, adopt this great Charter of rational and 
 manly Uberty as the fundamental law of the Common- 
 wealth. And that day, as I conceive, is not only the 
 proudest in the annals of Virginia, but one of the most 
 memorable in the annals of the human race. I shall prove 
 to you, before I have done, that in giving utterance to this 
 sentiment, I speak the language not of extravagance, but 
 of soberness and truth. 
 
 It is no part of my purpose, gentlemen, to compare the 
 Constitution of '76 with those which have succeeded it. 
 They are all, without exception, framed upon it as a model, 
 modified, it is true, from time to time and in greater or 
 less degrees, to meet the progress of society and the prin- 
 ciples of equality. I wish to speak of that instrument 
 only historically, in its relations to the past — as a step in 
 political progress, and, viewed in this light, I do not hesi- 
 tate to declare that it is, in my judgment, one of the most 
 gigantic ever taken towards substantial and well-regulated 
 freedom. By one and the same act of sublime valor and 
 wisdom, did the men of '76 declare the ancient connec- 
 tion which had bound the Colony of Virginia to the mo- 
 ther country dissolved forever, and frame for themselves 
 and their posterity an instrument of government, which has 
 become the universal model of all those free institutions 
 which have since arisen both in the old world and the 
 
 1* 
 
Discourse. 
 
 new — thus binding up our State sovereignty and our civil 
 and religious liberties in the same great Charter. 
 
 Gentlemen, we commonly speak of George Mason as 
 the author of that Charter. In a certain sense, he was 
 its author. The Bill of Rights and Constitution of '76, 
 with the exception of the preamble, were prepared by him, 
 and laid before the Convention. In this sense that truly 
 great man was their author. But if it be imagined that 
 that instrument was the conception of George Mason, or 
 any other man — that it was the mere coinage of his or any 
 other brain — that it was framed with reference to any 
 mere abstract theory of government existing in his, or any 
 other mind, no greater error could possibly be committed. 
 My own conviction is, that no Constitution or frame of 
 government, the product of mere theory and speculation, 
 ever has existed, or ever can exist the quarter of a cen- 
 tury. Locke framed such a Constitution for South Caro- 
 lina. Seyes gave birth to a "litter" of such Constitutions 
 for Republican France. We know their fate. They per- 
 ished, each and all of them, in the very effort to reduce them 
 into practice. And such will and must be the fate of every 
 Constitution, which, taking no account of the peculiar hab- 
 its, customs, manners, opinions and prejudices of a people, 
 proceeds upon the hypothesis that society, like parchment, 
 may be cut into whatever fantastic shape the whim, or 
 caprice, or fancy of philosopher, or legislator, or theorist 
 may choose to dictate. 
 
 No, gentlemen, the Constitution of '76 is not the spawn 
 of theory or political metaphysics. It is the ancient and 
 immemorial rights, franchises and privileges of the colo- 
 nists of Virginia, gathered together and bound up in one 
 great system of law, order, liberty and justice. Our fa- 
 thers brought those rights, franchises and privileges with 
 them from England. They are of foreign and not domes- 
 
Discourse. 
 
 tic origin. The truth of history requires me to say so. 
 They have, indeed, expanded, ripened and matured in the 
 new world, but the germs were brought from the old. 
 They constitute a part of that " great inheritance of the 
 English race, settled on them at Runnymede," and which, 
 though complicated, in the mother country, with all the 
 consequences of the conquest — with the tyranny of that 
 Norman dynasty, the iron heel of which still presses on 
 the neck of the English people — with the Three Estates 
 of the Realm and all those innumerable abuses and injus- 
 tices which have grown up with the ancient Constitution 
 of England, have yet secured to her people a larger por- 
 tion of rational freedom, substantial liberty, than is enjoy- 
 ed by any other people on the earth, except our own. 
 Their portion in this inheritance — their rights and liberties 
 as free-born Englishmen, our fathers brought with them to 
 this continent. They were guaranteed to them in the 
 original Charter of James I., confirmed and ratified in 
 many subsequent royal charters, expressly stipulated and 
 reserved when the colony capitulated to the forces of Crom- 
 well and the Commonwealth, and ultimately sealed with 
 the blood of our fathers in that revolution which resulted 
 in our independence. And here, in the new world, dis- 
 embarrassed of all those incumbrances which attach to 
 them in the old, applied to societies which knew no ranks 
 or classes or partial advantages, and modified from time to 
 time to meet the progress of those societies, they have be- 
 come the foundation of governments under which has been 
 realized as much happiness, security and prosperity as has 
 ever been realized under any governments established 
 among men. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the history of those rights, franchises 
 and liberties, which our fathers brought with them from 
 .England, — which they enjoyed throughout the whole co- 
 
8 Discourse. 
 
 lonial period, under the protection of royal charters, and 
 the courts of law, and which, when all connection between 
 the colony and the mother country had been dissolved for- 
 ever, George Mason and his associates gathered together 
 and bound up in the Bill of Eights and Constitution of 
 '76 — the history of these rights, franchises and liberties 
 is what I wish to speak about this evening. I wish to 
 trace their rise, progress and development. I wish to show 
 you that they have not sprung from modern speculation, 
 or originated in any abstract theory of human rights and 
 human equality ; but that they have an ancient origin — a 
 high and noble pedigree, and are, in truth, an inheritance 
 transmitted to this democratic age and country from the 
 bosom of an exclusive aristocracy. This is what I wish 
 to show to you this evening. 
 
 When we come to look at the Constitution of '76, ana- 
 lytically and philosophically, we find that, passing over the 
 mere machinery of government, it is, in principle, an in- 
 strument drawing a line between the powers of the gov- 
 ernment and the rights of the governed. The single ob- 
 ject and function of the BOl of Rights is to assert certain 
 general principles and maxims of liberty, and to enroll, in 
 solemn form, certain rights, declared to be inalienable, 
 which are reserved to every individual man as against the 
 general society of which he is a member and which that 
 society is bound, under all circumstances, to respect and 
 hold sacred. So also with that clause in the Constitution 
 which declares that the Legislature shall, in no case, sus- 
 pend the writ of habeas corpus, pass any biU of attainder 
 any ex post facto law, any law impairing the obhgation of 
 contracts, the freedom of the press, or of speech, declar- 
 ing that private property shall never be taken for public 
 uses without just compensation, and securing to every cit- 
 izen the perfect enjoyment of religious freedom — the effect 
 
Discourse. 
 
 and object of all which is to draw around every individual 
 citizen an enchanted circle, as it were, which the govern- 
 ment dare not enter, and within which he may live in peace 
 and happiness, secure from all manner of authoritative in- 
 trusion. About these rights, thus secured to the individ- 
 ual against the general society, I shall have something to 
 say presently. But what I wish now to speak about is the 
 great principle upon which the Constitution of '76 was 
 founded, which is coeval with our ancient liberties — which 
 is their only guarantee, and constitutes, at once, the glory 
 of modern civilization and the genius of modern freedom — 
 the principle, I mean, that a limit should be set upon the 
 powers of all human governments — that absolute power, 
 wherever lodged, whether in the hands of one, the few or 
 the many — a monarchy, an aristocracy or a democracy — 
 is despotism in disguise; that there are certain sacred rights 
 of which the individual is the only natural and proper 
 guardian, which cannot, consistently with man's dignity 
 and freedom, be entrusted to any government, however 
 organized, and that, in the Constitution and frame work of 
 society, those rights should be so trenched round and fortified 
 as to be made forever impregnable against all manner of 
 governmental intervention. This is the principle upon which 
 the Constitution of '76 was founded, and what more sub- 
 lime scene does human history record than was presented 
 by the peojDle of this commonwealth in 1776, when, hav- 
 ing just thrown off their allegiance to the mother country 
 and declared themselves free, sovereign and independent, 
 so far from being elated and intoxicated by this acquisition 
 of sovereign power, but, on the contrary, deeply and pro- 
 foundly impressed with the high and solemn trust thus de- 
 volved upon them, we find them, under the conviction that 
 omnipotence is the attribute of God, and that he alone can 
 use without abasing it, in the very instant of the acquisi- 
 
10 Discourse. 
 
 tion, and in the very same act and instrument by which il 
 was made, placing limitations and restrictions upon their 
 own sovereignty, and thus, in the hour of calmness and 
 reflection, erecting safeguards and barriers against their 
 own passions and their own weaknesses in the hour of ex- 
 citement and temptation ? History, I say, presents no more 
 sublime spectacle than this — more sublime in its wisdom, 
 its courage, its modesty and its self-distrust. 
 
 This idea, gentlemen, thai the powers of the_Stateare_ngt 
 absolute; that the citizen .haSj or can have any rights as 
 against jthe^ State ; that his life, liberty, property, himself 
 and everything that is his, aje_ not w ithin the sovereign 
 control and disposition of the State ; this idea, as I have 
 already intimated, is peculiar to modern civilization and 
 the distinguishing glory of modern liberty. It has no 
 place^ in the ancient world. It was introduced, as we 
 shall presently see, into modern Europe by those northern 
 „/.' ^barbarians, (as we are used to call them), who overthrew 
 the Roman Empire, and who, b ringing it with them from 
 thj_woods_ of __ Germany, infused it as a new and vital ele- 
 ment into the second civilization of the European races. 
 In the ancient world, upon the contrary, the Omnipotence 
 of the State was a fundamental idea, and that ancient lib- 
 erty of which we hear so much — the boasted liberty of 
 Greece and Rome — was civil, and not personal liberty, 
 man's liberty as a citizen and not as an individual ;• his 
 franchises and privileges as a member of society, and not 
 his rights as against society. The idea that there was 
 or could be any thing useful or desirable to the general 
 society, which that society had not a perfect right to exact 
 of every individual member of it, was never conceived by 
 any philosopher or statesman of Greece or Rome. And 
 in an age and country where the jurisdiction of government 
 is more or less limited, and where personal independence and 
 
Discourse. 11 
 
 individual free agency, in greater or less degrees, are fun- 
 damental maxims, it is almost impossible to form any just 
 conception of the extent to which the ancient Republics 
 pushed the despotism of society over the citizen. The 
 powers exercised by those Republics Were not merely 
 civil and political. They were censorial, inquisitorial, 
 paternal. The government placed itself in loco parentis 
 to every citizen, directing his whole education for him, 
 prescribing what he should eat and what he should drink) 
 when he should marry and whom he should marry, which 
 children he should rear and which he should sacrifice — in 
 a word, it took charge of his entire existence, public and 
 private, from the cradle to the grave ; thinking for him, 
 acting for him, doing everything for him, leaving him 
 nothing to do for himself, and calling upon him at every turn, 
 to lay down the deepest instincts of human nature, and the 
 dearest affections of the human heart as sacrifice on the 
 altar of an inexorable State policy. This despotism of the 
 s ociety ov.er_the.. i ndiyidiial, which reached its greatest in- 
 tensity at Sparta, w as_ajii u d a m eiLtaLBQlitical_maxim in all 
 the freeJRejgublica-sf antiquity. It was one of the badges 
 of its oriental origin, which the first civilization of Europe 
 retained to the last, and which was the cause both of its 
 rapid development, and its yet more rapid decline. 
 
 This principle, then, lying at the basis of our govern- 
 ment, and so important in the annals of Constitutional 
 liberty — t he prin ciple, I mean, which draws a line between 
 the government and the individual — has no place in the 
 ancient world. It is, as I have stated, of comparatively 
 recent, and, as I shall now show, oi feudal and aristocratic 
 origin. 
 
 We hear a great deal, gentlemen, in our times, in com- 
 mendation of the free spirit of the Saxon laws, and there 
 is much justice in these eulogies. It is, however, an in- 
 
12 Discourse. 
 
 disputable fact— truth requires me to speak it — it is an 
 /'indisputable fact that all those limitations and restrictions, 
 i which the American people have everywhere imposed 
 1 upon the omnipotence of their governments, are of JVor- , 
 man descent, and that those great principles which now 
 lie at the foundation of the liberties of the Democratic 
 \ Anglo Saxon Republics of N. America, have been trans- 
 \ mittedfrom the bosom of a proud and haughty aristocracy ; 
 that Norman aristocracy, which, in the mother country, ruled 
 our fathers for centuries with a tyranny as relentless and 
 ' remorseless as any the world has ever seen. This, the 
 Norman branch of the great European peerage, is the 
 original source from which our American Democratic Anglo 
 Saxon Eepublics have derived their high-born liberties. 
 Strange as it may seem, the fact is so. It is history, irre- 
 futable history. I shall make this perfectly plain, and it 
 \i should teach us that the ways of God are not the ways of • 
 f man. It should also teach us humility, and to repose with 
 ^resolute hope and confidence, on that Providence which / 
 
 "Out of our evil, still seeks to bring forth good." 
 
 Gentlemen, the English from whom we are descended, 
 trace back all their liberties to Magna Charta. Now what is 
 Magna Charta ? Is it not a Feudal Charta ? And what is the 
 feudal charta, when analytically and philosophically consid- 
 ered ? Is it not an instrument drawing a line between the 
 powers of the crown and the rights of the feudal barons ? And 
 is not Magna Charta (the greatest of feudal Chartas,) an 
 instrument drawing a line between the powers of the Eno-- 
 lish kings and the rights of the English barons ; guaranteeino- 
 certain rights and privileges to those barons, which the Kino- 
 shall, under all circumstances, respect and hold sacred .' 
 And what are the rights and privileges thus guaranteed 
 in Magna Charta to the barons of England ? Here they 
 
Discourse. 13 
 
 are : " that no tax shall be levied upon them except by 
 their free consent ; " that " no fine shall be imposed, un- 
 less by the judgment of their peers ; " that " no freeman 
 shall be injured or impaired in person or estate, banished 
 or despoiled of his inheritance," unless by the same 
 judgement, and many others, the most important of which 
 have all of them, the security of person and property for 
 their end and object. 
 
 And now, as to the origin of these rights and liberties 
 guaranteed to the barons of England in Magna Charta ; 
 what was it ? Were they usurpations ; encroachments 
 made by the barons, arms in hand, upon the legitimate 
 prerogatives of the crown ? Not so, gentlemen ! Lord 
 Coke, and all writers upon Magna Charta, tell us that that 
 instrument was declaratory. Declaratory of what ? I 
 answer, of the immemorial common law of feuds ; of those 
 ancient rights and franchises, which were the birthright 
 and inheritance of the feudal peerage everywhere, but 
 which the English barons had lost by the usurpations of 
 the crown during the first century after the conquest. 
 Now, gentlemen, Magna Charta was but a reclamation of 
 those lost rights and franchises, after the pressure of those 
 circumstances, out of which the loss had sprung, had 
 passed away. For more than a century after the Con- 
 quest, Duke William and his Norman followers were but 
 a band of soldiers encamped in the midst of a people, 
 subjugated, it is true, yet brave, warlike, infinitely more 
 numerous than their masters, exceedingly restless under 
 their foreign yoke, and ever on the verge of insurrection. 
 While this state of things lasted, self-preservation re- 
 quired that the Norman barons should rally around their 
 King, and the consequence was an enlargement of the 
 royal prerogatives at the expense of the rights of the 
 barons. But when every thing had become quiet ; when 
 
14 Discourse. 
 
 the invaders had become firmly established in their conquest, 
 and all fear of insurrection had passed away, then the 
 barons began to look to the recovery of their lost rights 
 and franchises, and that struggle between them and the 
 crown began, which resulted in Magna Charta. Such is 
 the history of that great bulwark of English freedom. 
 And it is true, Uterally true, that those rights, franchises 
 and privileges, which the barons of England extorted from 
 John at Runnymede, were their ancient prescriptive rights, 
 franchises and privileges, as a branch of the great feudal 
 peerage of Europe. There is nothing valuable, nothing 
 characteristic in Magna Charta, " which a vassal might not, 
 according to the ancient and immemorial common law of 
 feuds, demand as a right from his suzerain." 
 
 And what was the ^warawiee provided in Magna Charta, 
 that those ancient rights thus recovered by the barons, 
 should be respected for the future ? I answer, force ; the 
 right of resistance, deliberately and solemnly stipulated in 
 the Charta itself. By force did the barons of England recov- \ 
 er their liberties, and by force were they resolved to hold \ 
 them. Twenty-five of their number were charged at \ 
 Runnymede with the execution of the Charta, and author- ) 
 ized to levy war upon the king for its breach ; he himself ex- i 
 pressly stipulating that, in such case, " Our barons shall 
 distrain and annoy us by every means in their power, that 
 is, by seizing our lands, castles, and possessions, and every 
 other mode, till the wrong be repaired to their satisfaction, ' 
 saving our person, our queen, and our children. And when 
 it is so repaired, they shaU obey us as before." Thus did 
 Magna Charta draw a broad and deep line between the 
 powers of the crown and the rights of the English barons 
 and deliberately ordain force as the guarantee of its ob- 
 servance ; thus canonizing, as it were, the right of resis- 
 tance, and making it as old as our liberties. 
 
Discourse. 15 
 
 " O ! Freedom, thou art not, aa poets dream, 
 A fair youn^ girl, with light and delicate limbs 
 And wavy tresses." 
 
 " A bearded man. 
 Armed to the teeth, art thou : one mailed hand 
 Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword^thy brow. 
 Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
 With tokens of old wars. Thy massive limbs 
 Are strong and struggling." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, who does not see in Magna Charta the 
 great prototype of the first Constitution of Virginia, and of 
 all those other Constitutions which have since been mo- 
 deled upon it ? Magna Charta is an instrument drawing 
 a line between the powers of the Crown and the rights of 
 the English barons. The Constitution of Virginia is an ^ 
 
 ! instrument drawing a line between the powers of the ,; 
 
 \ government and the rights of the people. The principle 
 oOiIagna Charta is, that the barons of England had cer- 
 tain rights which the Crown dare not invade. The prin- 
 ciple ofjhe Constitution of Virginia is, that the people of 
 the Commonwealth have certain rights, which the govern- 
 ment is bound, under all circumstances, to respect. And 
 if we look into the nature of the rights secured in Magna 
 Charta to the barons of England, we will find there the 
 germs of nearly all those rights secured in the Constitu- 
 tion of Virginia to the people of the State, and there de- 
 clared to hejiatural and inalienable rights. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, are we able to trace back both our 
 liberties and that principle which is their guarantee, di- 
 rectly to the feudal aristocracy of Europe, than whom 
 there never existed on the earth, a body of men animated 
 by a sterner and prouder spirit of independence. An iron 
 aristocracy as to the rest of the community, they were, 
 within the pale of their own order, a fierce and turbulent 
 democracy. Their chief was but primus inter pares, and 
 
16 Discourse. 
 
 the point of honor, the duel, the wager of battle, the 
 right of private war, judicial combat, are all but sa many- 
 witnesses testifying how feeble was the power of the 
 Crown, and how stern, how jealous, how haughty the 
 spirit of personal liberty and independence, which ani- 
 mated their own body. What more striking than the 
 oath by which the nobles of Aragon swore allegiance to 
 their sovereign? "We, who are each as good, and who 
 are altogether more powerful than you, promise obedience 
 to your government if you maintain our rights and liber- 
 ties, but not otherwise." And this was the spirit of the 
 feudal peerage everywhere. Am I not right then, in say- 
 ing that a fiercer, prouder spirit of liberty, never animated 
 any body of men ? And the feudal Charta, it will be re- 
 membered, was the muniment of their high exclusive 
 rights and liberties ; the instrument in which those rights 
 and liberties were gathered together, enrolled, and, as it 
 were, canonized. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the point which I wish particularly to 
 bring to your notice, is this — that the feudal Charta was 
 everywhere strictLy.and jmielj a.n aristocratic Charta — a 
 compact and treaty between the King and his barons, 
 most generally in arms against each other. The people 
 had no part or lot in it. It is, I know, the popular im-~ 
 pression, that Magna Chaita was an exception to this gen- 
 eral rule, and that the people of England were parties to 
 that instrument. This, in my judgment, is a mistake — 
 history does not sustain it. At the time of Magna Charta, 
 the people of England, as apolitical body, had no exis- 
 tence. There were, indeed, serf and villains ; villains 
 regardant, and villains in gross; vassals and vassalage 
 through all the stages of fudation and subinfudation ; but 
 no people as a power in the State. The " liberi homines" 
 of the Charter, were, beyond all doubt, the feudal bai-ons. 
 
Discourse. 17 
 
 As late even as the fourteenth century, all the popular move- 
 ments of Europe — the Jacquerie in France, and the rebel- 
 lion of Wat Tyler in England, were, in their nature 
 essentially servile insurrections. 
 
 / It is a great mistake, then, to suppose that the people of 
 England were parties to Magna Charta. That Charta was, in 
 the strictest sense, an aristocratic Charta ; the King and his. 
 barons being the only parties to it. As yet the great and 
 illustrious English Commons had no existence, and, at the 
 time of Magna Charta, England presents us with two dis- 
 tinct races, living side by side in the same land — the one 
 a conquering, and the other a conquered race — the one a 
 race of kings, nobles, warriors, and priests, the other a 
 race of tradesmen, serfs, villains and slaves — the one rich, 
 living in palaces, castles, and monasteries ; the other poor, 
 and living either in cities, in humble tenements, or scat 
 tered over the country in cottages and cabins with thatched 
 roofs. Each has its own language, and speaks a tongue 
 foreign to the other. Norman French is the language of 
 the court, the castle, and the monastery ; the old Anglo 
 Saxon is the language of the field, the workshop, and the 
 hovel. Never was conquest more deeply impressed on 
 any country ; never was the distinction between conquer- 
 ors and conquered more strongly drawn among any people. 
 All rank, power, wealth, privilege, — even liberty itself, 
 were the prerogatives of the conquerors ; toil, sweat, pov- 
 erty and slavery, the doom of the conquered. And this 
 continued to be the condition of England for more than a 
 century after the conquest. 
 
 I have said that at the date of Magna Charta, the 
 English Commons had no existence. It may, perhaps, be 
 proper to state, in this connection, that that Commons was 
 formed at a later period, by a union between the conquer- 
 ing and the conquered races. In the course of time, the 
 
 2» 
 
18 Discourse-. 
 
 badges of the conquest began- toi disappear, the barriers 
 between the two nations were broken down, connections 
 and matrimonial aliiiances were contracted between them, 
 and the conquerors ceased! to exist as an exclusive cast. 
 By_the la w of the N orman peerage, the title__gassgd to 
 the eldest son— he alone was enobled, and the younger 
 sons sunk into the ranks of the commonalty. It so hap- 
 pened also that many of th& most illustrious Norman fami- 
 lies had declined aU titles. The Bohuns, the Mowbrays, 
 the De Veres and others, descendants of those "knights 
 who had broken the Saxon ranks at Hastings, and scaled 
 the walls of Jerusalem," waving all rank, took their 
 place in the body of the commons. And when, in ad- 
 dition to this, it is remembered that the whole Saxon race, 
 including its ancient nobility — ^its Godwins, its Harolds, 
 its Siwards, its Leofricks, — men as noble as the proudest 
 baron who followed the standard of Duke WUliam to the 
 shores of England, had been aU overwhelmed in one in- 
 discriminate conquest, and merged in the English Com- 
 mons, we see at a glance, what it was which gave to that 
 Commons the high consecutive character which has dis- 
 tinguished it from all the other Commons of Europe. 
 
 But, gentlemen, as I have already said, this body was 
 the formation of after years. At the time of Mao-na 
 Charta it had no existence, and, at that date, England 
 presents us with conquerors and conquered, masters and 
 slaves ; but no people, as an independent political power 
 in the State. And this, the division of the English na- 
 tion into two races of conquerors and conquered,, is the 
 starting point in EngHsh history. Standing upon this 
 eminence, and looking down the vista of centuries, we 
 may trace the Constitution of England through all the 
 subsequent stages of its development, as it has opened 
 from time to time Lo receive different portions of the sub- 
 
Discourse. 19 
 
 jugated races within its exclusive and aristocratic pale. 
 As society has advancedi class after class has been admit- 
 ted to all those high chartered rights and liberties which, 
 for centuries, were the exclusive possession and inheri- 
 tance of the Norman peerage. So that the Constitution 
 of England, is, in truth, little less than; Magna Charta 
 enlarged, liberalized and generalized, to meet the pro- 
 gress of its society, and the development of its differ- 
 ent classes. This work of generalization has been going 
 on throughout the whole period of English; history, which 
 has been one continued reaction against the conquest ; nbr 
 has it stopped yet. The barons obtained their Charter 
 from John ; the middle classes obtained theirs from Wil- 
 liam ; and who doubts that sooner or later, peaceably or 
 by revolution, the people wUl have their Charta also. 
 And now, what I wish particularly to call your attention to 
 is this, that as the Constitution of England'is Magna Charta 
 enlarged and liberalized to meet the progress of English 
 Society, so' are all our American Constitutions that same 
 great Charta, still more enlarged, still more liberalized to 
 meet the yet greater progress of American society, and the 
 more rapid growth among us of the principles of equality. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I claim that I have made good the 
 proposition with which I started — that those liberties 
 which we enjoy and prize so highly, have sprung from no 
 abstract theory of human rights and human equality ; but 
 are an entailed inheritance, transmitted to, this democratic 
 age and country, from the bosom of a haughty and exclu- 
 sive aristocracy, and that this is true, not only of those 
 liberties themselves, but also of the forms, the very ma- 
 chinery as it were, by which they have been preserved 
 and perpetuated. The principle of equality, is indeed 
 new ; but liberty is old and aristocratic, and the great 
 work assigned to modern society, is to reconcile ancient 
 
20 Discourse. 
 
 liberty with modern equality. And, in thus tracing back 
 our liberties to a high and ancient origin, permit me to 
 say to you, in the language of the wisest man of his age, 
 "we are guided not by the superstition of antiquarians, 
 but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice 
 of inheritance, we give to our frame of polity the image 
 of a relation in blood ; binding up the constitution of our 
 country .with our dearest domestic ties ; adopting our 
 fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections ; 
 keeping inseparable and cherishing with all the warmth 
 of their combined and mutually reflected charities, our 
 State, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars." 
 
 Gentlemen, I now advance a step further. I not only 
 maintain that our own liberties are of ancient origin — a birth- 
 right and entailed inheritance, but I maintain that this 
 is equally true of liberty, wherever and whenever it has 
 existed among men, whether in ancient or in modern times ; 
 or, to express the proposition somewhat differently, that 
 society always begins in inequality and tends towards equal- 
 ity, and that, in its early stages, all rights, privileges and 
 franchises — even liberty itself- — are the possession of an 
 exclusive cast, from which they descend iu successive stages, 
 with the progress of society, to the great body of the nation. 
 
 In proof of this assertion let me now caU your atten- 
 tion for a moment — it shall be only for a moment — to the 
 Constitutional history of those two illustrious races which 
 have fiUed all countries with the products of their genius, 
 and aU time with the fame of their achievements. 
 
 And, first, the Greeks. Every student of Grecian his- 
 tory knows that her institutions, like those of Eno-land 
 were founded in conquest. The first distinct fact which 
 meets us in Grecian history, is the presence on the same 
 soil of two races, the one dominant, and the other subject. 
 Behind this, all is myth and fable. And at the first dawn 
 
Discourse. 31 
 
 of authentic history, we find the great Hellenic race in 
 possession of the country which they have conquered and 
 distributed among themselves, reducing the native races 
 everywhere to slavery. These Hellenic conquerors were, 
 like Duke WiUiam and his Norman chivalry, a band of 
 warriors, who, having conquered the country by the sword, 
 the sword was the tenure by which they held it. We ac- 
 cordingly find them establishing themselves everywhere 
 as a warrior cast, devoted exclusively to arms, and impo- 
 sing upon the subjugated races all the menial and industrial 
 operations of society. At first, and for ages, all rights, 
 all privileges, all franchises were their exclusive birth- 
 right and inheritance ; and the rest of the community be- 
 ing in subjection and vassalage, liberty itself became rank 
 and nobility. But, while thus establishing their domi- 
 nation over the subjugated races, the Hellenic peerage was, 
 like the feudal and every other peerage, a strict democra- 
 cy within the pale of their own order ; jealous, in the last 
 degree, of their rights and privileges. They acknowledged 
 no superior ; had no chief to whom they paid allegiance ; 
 and in this respect, pushed the principle of individual 
 liberty even further than the feudal barons. And when 
 ultimately, cause for united action arose in Greece ; when 
 the rights of hospitality were violated in the person of an 
 illustrious Hellenic princess and the most beautiful woman 
 of her age, — 
 
 "No wo-nder sdch celestial charms, 
 For nioe long years should hold the world in arms ;'' 
 
 when, I say, ultimately, cause for united action arose in 
 Greece, we find the nobles, electing a chief. And yet, 
 so feeble was the authority of that chief, so little was it 
 respected, that Achilles (the most perfect and illustrious 
 representative of the Hellenic chivalry,) for a mere per-f 
 
22 Discourse. 
 
 sonal insult, quits the ranks in the presence of the enemy, 
 retires in sullen majesty to his tent, nor can any solicita- 
 tion or any disaster to the cause of Greece, induce him to 
 relent until his friend falls in battle, when immediately, 
 maddened by passion and remorse, and " breathing war 
 and blood" he rushes to the fight, " all bright in heavenly 
 arms," not to uphold the sinking cause of his country, 
 but to avenge the shade of that slaughtered friend. So 
 strong, so haughty, so uncompromising was the spirit of 
 personal liberty and independence maintained within the 
 pale of this old Hellenic peerage. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, do we see, that the earliest form of 
 Grecian society was that of a haughty warrior cast, 
 everywhere dominant, and holding a vast subject popula- 
 tion in bondage by the sword ; that, for ages, rank, nobili- 
 ty, power, privilege — liberty itself — was the exclusive 
 birthright and inheritance of this cast ; but that, though 
 lording it over the rest of the community, they were, 
 within their own body, in the strictest sense of the term, 
 a military democracy, animated by the fiercest spirit of 
 liberty, independence, and equality. Starting from this 
 point, the student of Grecian history may trace her in- 
 stitutions through all the stages of their subsequent de- 
 velopment; he may see the bigotry of race gradually 
 yielding before the pride of wealth ; the pride of wealth 
 before the spirit of equality. He may see class after class 
 in the progress of society, fighting its way within the 
 bosom of that proud democracy, widening and deepenino- 
 the basis of the government at each successive step, until 
 ultimately, every citizen of Greece becomes a member of 
 the old Hellenic peerage, and heir to its high-born rio-hts 
 and privileges. Such is the history of liberty in Greece, 
 which was strictly an inheritance, and not the offspring of 
 theory, w speculation. 
 
Dtscourse. 23 
 
 And if, leaving the classic shores of Greece, we pass to 
 that other illustrious race — the mighty masters of mankind 
 in law and government as the Greeks were in literature 
 and art — we find the same truth, if possible, yet more 
 strikingly illustrated. And here, gentlemen, permit me to 
 say, m passKig and by way of episode, that history is but 
 in its infancy. This may seem a bold assertion, but I be- 
 lieve it to be literally true. The first half of the nine- 
 teenth century is the beginning of a new historic era. 
 Never before has history been studied in such high rela- 
 tions—never before has it been so penetrated by the spirit 
 of philosophy — never before has such immense erudition, 
 enlightened skepticism and patient, laborious and compre- 
 hensive learning been brought to bear on this or any other 
 subject. The result has been almost startling. Stale com- 
 mon-places have been refuted, consecrated errors ex- 
 posed — established dogmas shaken — ancient rubbish te- 
 moved — a fuU broad light thrown upon things which have 
 been hitherto enveloped in impenetrable myth and fable, 
 and, in a word, with material almost entirely new, the hand 
 of genius and philosophy has restored the " buried ma- 
 jesty" of the ancient commonwealths in forms which wiU 
 endure till time shall be no more. In the department of 
 Roman history, with which we have now to deal, it was 
 the immortal Niebuhr who, to borrow his own happy illus- 
 tration, like the naturalist, gathering and putting together 
 the fossil bones of some lost species of animal, " has re- 
 built, with fragments picked up here and there, where they 
 lie scattered about as by a tempest, over the whole surface 
 of ancient literature, the sacerdotal and patrician City of 
 the Kings, in all its old Cyclopean strength and massiveness 
 and the awful forms of Tuscan mystery and superstition." 
 He has shown us the vast influence which religion exerted 
 over the mighty Roman race — that they lived, moved and 
 
24 DiscouRSiSi 
 
 had their being in the midst of religion — that this religion 
 was no simple belief or worship, but a science and a mys- 
 tery, administered by vestals, flamens, augurs, and Pon- 
 tiffs, amidst gorgeous pomps and ceremonies — that this 
 science and mystery was hereditary in certain families, and 
 that the old patrician fathers of Rome were at once a war- 
 rior-cast and a priest-cast. He has also shown us how this 
 religion penetrated and pervaded every portion of the state 
 and of society, consecrating every thing it touched, pro- 
 perty in the worship of Terminus, contracts in the apoth- 
 eosis of Faith, making the city a temple, and its citadel a 
 sanctuary. 
 
 But it is to the reconstruction of the ancient Constitution 
 of Rome that Niebuhr has brought to bear the vast resources 
 of his genius and his erudition with such wonderful suc- 
 cess. He has shown us that the whole fabric and constitu- 
 tion of Roman society rested on the element of race — that 
 the original people of Rome was composed exclusively of 
 thrice privileged Tribes — that these Tribes were divided 
 into Curias, and the Curiae into Gentes or Houses — thus 
 making the Gens or House the original element of the Ro- 
 man State. He has further shown us that this Gens or 
 House was itself an artificial association, formed by the 
 union of many families, bound together by the joint per- 
 formance of the same religious rites and having the altar 
 for its centre — that, in the earliest times, the entire free 
 population of Rome were members of some one of these 
 families — and, if of a family, then of a Gens or House, 
 and, if of a Gens or House, then of a Curiae, and, if of a Cu- 
 
 rlse, then of a Tribe, and, if of a Tribe, then of the State 
 
 thus making the original Populus Romanus a strictly priv- 
 ileged order, in the exclusive possession of the government. 
 Lastly, he has shown us that, by the side of this privi- 
 leged and exclusive order, there came to be formed, in the 
 
Discourse. 25 
 
 course of time, partly by emigration, but principally by 
 conquest, an alien and foreign population, not contemplated 
 by the original Constitution of Rome, for whom no pro- 
 vision was made, in that the Constitution — having no con- 
 nection with either one of the three original Tribes — related 
 to none of the Houses forming those Tribes either by the 
 tie of membership or clientage and therefore excluded 
 from all connection with the State — in a word, an anoma- 
 lous population, uniting personal liberty with political sub- 
 jection — dependants on no House and therefore freemen — 
 members of no House and therefore disfranchised and not 
 citizens of Rome. Such were the Plebs — the great Roman 
 commons — the most illustrious commons the world has ever 
 seen, unless the English be excepted. In the infancy of 
 Rome, we see them poor, weak, disfranchised ; connected 
 with the State, but no part of it; compelled to fight its bat- 
 tles, but not permitted to share its privileges. They are 
 not even allowed to live within the city — this is consecra- 
 ted ground. The Aventine Hill, without its walls, is as- 
 signed them for their residence. Still less are they per- 
 mitted to intermarry with any of the Roman Houses. This 
 would be, not only to admit aliens and foreigners within 
 the pale of the Constitution, but to taint 'the old patrician 
 blood of Rome. For many generations the blood ran pure 
 in the veins of those old patrician fathers of the city. No 
 foreign alloy mingled with it, and the Plebeans resided out 
 side of the walls, a distinct community, regulating their 
 own municipal affairs, and living according to their own 
 laws, usages and customs. They were, as we have seen, 
 for the most part, like the English commons, a conquered 
 people ; but they were also like that same commons an en- 
 terprising, energetic and intelligent people. Consequently 
 they grew rapidly in wealth, and as they grew in wealth 
 they grew in numbers, intelligence and power until ulti- 
 
26 Discourse. 
 
 mately they came to be the most wealthy, most numerous 
 and most powerful portion of the community. Added to 
 this, there were in their ranks men as high-born, in whose 
 veins the blood coursed as pure as in the veins of the haugh- 
 tiest patrician of the City. The Scilii, the Decii, the Domitii 
 and others, families as ancient and noble as the patrician 
 Claudii or Quinctii, sprang from the bosom of the com- 
 mons and, in the latter days of the Republic, the majority 
 of the illustrious historic names of Rome were of Plebean 
 origin. That such a body of men should rest contented 
 under their political disfranchisement and social inferiority 
 was not to be expected. Accordingly, in the very earliest 
 times, we hear the mutterings of their discontent, and the 
 early constitutional history of Rome is little else than the 
 history of this illustrious body as it develops itself through 
 incessant, though not bloody conflicts with the original Ro- 
 man Tribes — the growth of their demands always keeping 
 pace with their growth in wealth, intelligence and power — 
 the pride of privilege gradually yielding before the principle 
 of equality, until ultimately the whole Roman Plebs, like 
 the English commons, fight their way within the pale of 
 the Constitution. The mantle of the high-born patrician 
 descends upon the shoulder of the humble plebean, and the 
 entire Roman people, patrician and plebean, are fused to- 
 gether in one homogeneous mass in the enjoyment of equal 
 rights, franchises and liberties. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, do we see that ancient liberty, like our 
 own, was an inheritance transmitted from an aristocratic 
 to a democratic age — from the bosom of a haughty aris- 
 tocracy to the humblest citizen. The idea that it was 
 founded in nature — that it was an inalienable right due in 
 common justice to all mankind, has no place in the ancient 
 world. It never seems to have once occurred to any leg- 
 islator or philosopher of Greece or Rome. On the con- 
 
Discourse. 27 
 
 trary, " the two ideas most deeply rooted in the ancient 
 world were the bigotry of race, and the pride of privilege. 
 Never was the bigotry of race more exclusive — more in- 
 tense — any where, not even among the Jews, than it was 
 at Sparta." The Doric race there was, like the Norman 
 conquerors of England, literally a standing army encamp- 
 ed in the midst of a subjugated people, ever on the verge 
 of insurrection and only kept down by the sword. Nor 
 was there any thing peculiar in this domination of race 
 over race at Sparta except its rigor and intensity. Citi- 
 zenship was universally an affair of race — and liberty, so 
 far from being a natural right, was, as we have seen, every- 
 where rank, privilege, nobility and the exclusive inheri- 
 tance of certain superior races, while slavery was equally 
 the doom of certain other inferior races. And in the so- 
 cial and political systems of those times, the relation of 
 master and slave was quite as well established, quite as 
 universal, as the relation of parent and child, husband and 
 wife, or any other domestic relation. The statesmen and 
 philosophers of antiquity so far from holding any general the- 
 ory of human equality, held precisely the reverse — that the 
 races of men are unequal — that some are superior, others 
 inferior — that it is the right of the superior races to com- 
 mand, and the duty of the inferior to obey — that all this is 
 agreeable to nature's law, which law is subordination and 
 not equality among the races of men, and that in estab- 
 lishing and perpetuating, in the constitution of society, the 
 supremacy of certain races — in setting them apart, and, as 
 -it were dedicating and consecrating them to government, lit- 
 erature, philosophy and art, while all the menial_and indus- 
 trial operations of society were assigned to certain other infe- 
 rior races, they were but proceeding according to that law, 
 and laying the foundation of the most refined civilization — 
 this, whether true or false, was the theory of human rights 
 
28 DiscouKSE. 
 
 universally prevalent in the ancient world — the theory of 
 all the philosophers of all the schools — the Grove, the Por- 
 tico, and the Academy. The justice of this view will be at 
 once admitted by every true student of ancient history, and 
 I venture to affirm that he who does not admit it — whose 
 mind is not thoroughly penetrated by it — who has not con- 
 ducted his historical researches with reference to it, has 
 not, as yet, laid his hand upon the Key of the Past, or even 
 so much as entered the portals of the ancient world. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, if, leaving the ancient world, we 
 come to the modern, we shall tind but accumulated proof 
 of my proposition that liberty has no where sprung from 
 theory or metaphysics ; but has every where descended, in 
 the form of an inheritance, from the bosom of an aristo- 
 cratic peerage to democratic ages and countries. 
 
 Rome, having consolidated he-r strength in Italy, pro- 
 ceeded, with unprecedented speed, from victory to victory 
 until she " veiled the earth in her haughty shadow." But 
 the seeds of her dissolution were sown side by side with 
 the seeds of her greatness, and, having once grasped the 
 sceptre of universal empire, we find her forgetting her 
 early virtues, defiling her ancient liberties, and, after first 
 prostituting herself from time to time in the arms of the 
 city rabble, sinking ultimately exhausted under the despo- 
 tism of the Csesars. Then for the fourth, and it is to be 
 hoped for the last time, do we see the collective force of 
 the human race gathered together in one of those mighty 
 aggregates, known as Universal Empires — ^producing al- 
 ways the same effects — monotony, torpor, stagnation — 
 casting the human race in one common mould by bring- 
 ing them under the despotism of a single will, and de- 
 stroying that diversity and variety, out of which spring 
 those rivalries and conflicts which are so necessary to in- 
 dividual, social and political development. Such was the 
 
DlSCOXTRSE. 29 
 
 condition to which the Roman world was every where rap- 
 idly tending toward the close of the fourth century. Eu- 
 ropean civilization was fast assuming the Asiatic type, and 
 there was the most imminent danger that those oriental 
 elements which presided at its birth would triumph in its 
 decline. At this critical moment, the northern barbarians 
 came to its relief. Bursting the barriers of the Rhine and 
 the Danube, they rushed down, like an avalanche, upon 
 civilized Europe ; and Rome, 
 
 " With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell. 
 
 Pushed by a rude and artless race 
 
 From off its wide ambitious base, 
 
 When Time his Northern sons of spoil awoke, 
 
 And all the blended work of strength and grace, 
 
 With many a rude repeated stroke. 
 
 And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke." 
 
 Here the curtain falls on the first civilization of the Eu- 
 ropean races. The Dark Ages foUovs^. All is chaos and 
 primordial night. No governments, no nations, no coun- 
 try, no laws, no literature, no arts, nothing settled, every 
 thing in motion. Strife, jumble, universal uproar — " con- 
 fusion worse confounded" is theneworder of things. This 
 continues from the fifth to the ninth century. During the 
 whole of this period, what was once civilized Europe, 
 pressed by barbarians on every side, has not a moment of 
 repose, and, amidst the movement we find race displacing 
 race and nation piled on nation. 
 
 Never has an angry heaven inflicted upon this earth a 
 more dreadful scourge, and yet never, in any event inhu- 
 man history, has wisdom and mercy, in the midst of wrath 
 and vengeance, been more manifest. For it is an indispu- 
 table fact that that same tempest which desolated Southern 
 Europe and swallowed up her languishing and exhausted 
 civilization in universal barbarism, scattered, at the same 
 
 3* 
 
30 Discourse. 
 
 instant, the seeds of another aad a higher and more glo- 
 rious civilization. Not only did it break the great Roman 
 empire into a hundred fragments — whip its lazy elements 
 into motion and stir the stagnant mass to its inmost depths ; 
 but it introduced into modern Europe a new and invalua- 
 ble element — ^that of individual liberty — -personal iTidepen- 
 dence — an element which, as I have already explained, had 
 no place in the ancient world, but which came now, for the 
 first time, from the woods of Germany. This sentiment 
 of personality — of individuahty — freedom from all control, 
 and the liberty of doing whatever one wishes to do, this 
 sentiment, I say, so strong in the bosom of every savage 
 man, was a passion among those barhariajQ races which 
 overthrew the Roman empire, and became the characteris- 
 tic element of that civiUzation which they estabhshed. 
 Thus do we see that, at the darkest hour of European his- 
 tory, in the midst of confusion, strife and chaos, were those 
 germs scattered which have since ripened into those great 
 principles and institutions which now shelter and protect 
 our lives, liberty and property ; 
 
 " And this should teach us 
 There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rougli-liew them how we will," 
 
 As the Dark Ages passed away, and society began to 
 reorganize itself, we every where find FeudaUsm issuing 
 out of the bosom of barbarism. " Wherever barbarianism 
 ceased, Feudahsm began." Now, gentlemen, there is and 
 always has been, in the popular mind, a deep-rooted preju- 
 dice against the Feudal system. Nor can it be denied that 
 in many respects, this prejudice is well-founded. As a 
 Social System I have nothing to urge in its behalf. It did 
 ittle or nothing for society-it was every where opposed 
 to Its progress and to the establishment ' of order. As a 
 
Discourse. 31 
 
 system of general liberty I have still less to urge in its be- 
 half; for it was unquestionably a system of injustice, 
 tyranny and violence — a despotism founded in no senti- 
 ment moral or religious, but in brute force and the domi- 
 nation of man over man. But, gentlemen, all this being 
 admitted, and freely admitted, let it never be forgotten that 
 it was this same system, thus universally opposed to gen- 
 eral order and liberty, which first organized that principle of 
 personal independence, which, introduced into Europe, as 
 we have seen for the first time, from the forests of Ger- 
 many, and perpetuated in the Feudal System, has become 
 the keystone of the arch which supports modern liberty 
 and civilization. And let me say, in passing, that it was 
 principally by means of that ascendancy and preponderance 
 which the Feudal System gave to country over city life 
 that it was enabled to effect this end. All the ancient 
 states were city states — their governments, municipal 
 governments. Rome herself was a city — the empire but 
 an aggregate of cities, and when that empire dissolved, it 
 returned to its original elements — cities. During the Dark 
 Ages, also, population was every where collected together 
 in cities, or large masses, for the purposes of protection and 
 security. But the Feudal System changed all this. It dis- 
 persed the population of the cities over the country, and 
 gave a vast preponderance to country over city life. "The 
 solitary castle, fortified against the law as well as against 
 violence," is the type of that system. Here, the lordly 
 Baron, gathering around him his feudal family, spends his 
 life. Within its walls are his wife, children and relatives. 
 Beyond them, and at a distance, collected together in huts, 
 are the serfs who tiU his lands. These constitute no part 
 of the feudal family — they have no association with the in- 
 mates of the castle. They are infinitely beneath them— 
 generally of a different race— a conquered race— and an 
 
32 Discourse. 
 
 impassable gulf lies between them. Over this little so- 
 ciety the Baron rules supreme — his will the only law. Can 
 any situation be conceived better calculated to foster and 
 develops the sentiment of personality and individual lib- 
 erty than this ? And does not fact here come in aid of 
 theory ? Does not the feudal baron stand the historical rep- 
 resentative and impersonation of all that is jealous, proud 
 and haughty in liberty and the spirit of personal freedom ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I have said that the solitary castle, with its 
 towers and frowning battlements, fortified against the law 
 as well as against violence, is the type of the feudal sys- 
 tem. I now say that the peasant's lowly cottage, with its 
 thatched roof, and unchinked walls, fortified, not against 
 the law, but against lawless violence, is the type of our 
 present system — of modern civilization. " The poorest 
 man may in his cottage," said Lord Chatham in his great 
 speech upon the quo warranto, " bid defiance to all the 
 forces of the Crown. It may be frail — its roof may shake 
 — the wind may blow through it — the storm may enter — 
 the rain may enter — but the king of England cannot en- 
 ter! All his forces dare not pass the threshold of the 
 ruined tenement!" And thus has a principle which was 
 asserted eight hundred years ago by armed barons in their 
 lordly castles, descended in the progress of society and of 
 liberty, to the humblest peasant, protecting him in his 
 lowly cottage, and making that cottage his castle. 
 
 Nor is this principle, which thus throws its protection 
 around private property, confined to those countries 
 which, in common estimation, enjoy free constitutional 
 governments. It extends to every country, however ab- 
 solute its government, which the feudal system has perva- 
 ded. In aU those countries, the inviolability of private 
 property is a fundamental maxim. You have all heard 
 gentlemen, of the wind-mill of Sans Souci. There it 
 
Discourse. 33 
 
 stands to this day in full view of the palace at Potsdam, 
 an eye-sore, and yet a monument prouder than any tri- 
 umphal arch, of the inviolability of private property, testi- 
 fying that no European monarch, he he ever so power- 
 ful, dare invade its rights, "save in those cases where, by 
 usage or the organic law, it may be condemned for pub- 
 lic uses. And it is precisely in this fact, that the distinc- 
 tion between the European autocrat and the Asiatic des- 
 pot is to be found ; in the fact that whereas the European 
 autocrat, however absolute, is but prince and chief mag- 
 istrate, the Asiatic despot is, in addition to this, proprietor 
 and landlord over all his vast dominions, which are, in- 
 deed, but his estates, and his subjects mere tenants hold- 
 ing at his sovereign will and pleasure. And that this is 
 not now the relation between European monarchs and 
 their subjects, and between modern democratic govern- 
 ments and their citizens, is due to those feudal barons 
 who, in the middle ages, asserted and maintained against 
 the Crown, principles which then rendered their own per- 
 sons and property [inviolable, and now throw their pro- 
 tection round the life, liberty, and property of the hum- 
 blest citizen. 
 
 Such is the history — such the pedigree of our liberties. 
 Modern speculation and theory have, indeed, had much to 
 do with their development \ but their roots extend far out 
 into the past. And the first instance, I believe, either in 
 ancient or modern times, where any people, renouncing 
 antiquity altogether, have undertaken to tear down the 
 ancient fabric of society in order to reconstruct it on princi- 
 ples purely theoretical and speculative, is that of the 
 French revolution. The self-confident architects of that 
 day, setting down as nothing the time-honored and time- 
 consecrated usages of the family, the society, 'and the 
 altar ; having brick for stone, and slime for mortar, sai.d, 
 
34 Discourse. 
 
 in their hearts, " Go to, let us build us a city and a tower 
 whose top shall reach unto heaven." We know the re- 
 sult— 
 
 '■ Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud 
 Among the builders, each to other calls 
 Not understood, till hoarse and all in rage, 
 As mock'd they storm ; great laughter was in heaven, 
 And looking down to see the hubbub strange 
 And hear the din ; thus was the building left 
 Ridiculous, and the work confusion named." 
 
 Such was the result of the first effort ever made among 
 men to construct society upon elementary and specula- 
 tive principles. The lesson is one which can never be 
 forgotten. Liberty was the object which revolutionary 
 France was seeking in '89, and it must be admitted that 
 she succeeded in that object. For ten long years was she 
 drenched with liberty ; drenched to the very dregs. But 
 what sort of liberty was it ? Rational, substantial liberty 
 — that liberty which is justice, founded on law and pro- 
 tected by law — the only sort of liberty worth having? 
 No, gentlemen, it was Fr^ench libert'if ; " a liberty which 
 first attacked property, then the lives of its foes, then 
 those of its friends ; which prostrated aU religion and 
 morals ; set up nature and reason as goddesses to be wor- 
 shipped ; afterwards condescended to decree that there 
 is a God ; and, at last embraced iron despotism as its 
 heaven-destined spouse." 
 
 All the existing political systems of Europe, have, I 
 believe, with the single exception of the French Republic, 
 been constituted without any reference to general theory. 
 They have everywhere sprung out of conquest, the con- 
 querors establishing themselves as a privileged cast in 
 the exchjsive possession of the government, and of all 
 rights, liberties and franchises ; and this continued to he 
 
Discourse. 35 
 
 the case for ages. Gradually, however, and in ever 
 widening circles, the conquered races have been admitted 
 to the rights and privileges of the conquerors. This is 
 the history of liberty in modern Europe, — I have already 
 shown you that it is its history in ancient Europe, — the 
 history of gradual and progressive extension of rights, 
 which in the early stages of society, were the birth-right 
 of an exclusive aristocracy, founded in conquest, to the 
 different classes of the conquered races. Society, as I 
 have said, always begins in inequality and tends towards 
 equality, and he only deserves the name of a statesman 
 who sees that its institutions keep pace with its progress, 
 and that the Constitution opens, from time to time, to ad- 
 mit class after class, successively, as they are prepared to 
 enter it. Nations, like individuals, have their growth and 
 their development, and to suppose that the early institu- 
 tions of a nation are adapted to it throughout all the stages 
 of its progress, is as absurd as to suppose that the swad- 
 dling clothes of the infant are adapted to the proportions 
 of the full-grown man. Time, in this as in every thing 
 else, is the greatest innovator, nor can its march be stayed. 
 All human institutions and systems must follow in its foot- 
 steps, or be crushed beneath its progress. And if, upon 
 the one hand, there is a fanaticism which would upheave 
 the ancient foundations of society in order to reconstruct 
 it with reference to some fantastic theory, there is, on the 
 other, a bigotry which, by opposing all reform, prepares 
 the way to inevitable revolution. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have said that coeval with our ancient 
 liberties, and their only guarantee, is the great principle 
 upon which the Virginia Constitution of '76 was founded — 
 that principle, I mean, which sets a limit upon the powers 
 of all government, and throws its shield around the rights 
 of the individual. I wish, in this connection, to read to 
 
36 Discourse. 
 
 you the words of a wise man, which must sink deeply and 
 indelibly into the minds of all who hear and can appreci- 
 ate them. " Whatever theory," says Mr. Mills, " we 
 adopt respecting the foundation of the social union, and 
 under whatever political institutions we live, there is a 
 circle around every individual human being, which no gov- 
 ernment, be it that of one, of a few, or of the many, ought 
 to be permitted to overstep ; there is a part of the life of 
 every person, who has come to years of discretion, within 
 which the individuality of that person ought to reign un- 
 controlled either by any other individual or by the public 
 collectively. That there is, or ought to be, some space in 
 human existence thus entrenched round, and sacred from 
 authoritative intrusion, no one who professes the smallest 
 regard to human freedom or dignity, will call into ques- 
 tion." Here, gentlemen, in my poor judgment, is the 
 principle which distinguishes despotism from liberty ; for 
 the truth is that liberty, properly viewed, is not so much a 
 question of this or that form of government, as of the 
 rights of the individual as against all government, what- 
 ever form it may assume. 
 
 If any one doubts the value of this principle — if he sup- 
 poses that its application is confined to monarchical or aris- 
 tocratic forms of government — that it is not equally, indeed 
 more important in a popular government than in any other, 
 I have only to refer him to the latter history of the Greek 
 Democracies^particularly of that great Athenian democ- 
 racy which, after having fiUed the world and all time with 
 the renown of its achievements in arts and arms, sunk, at 
 last, utterly debauched and prostrate, into the arms of Cleon 
 and the Demagogues. Never, perhaps, has there existed 
 at any time upon this earth, a more relentless, extermina- 
 ting and inexorable tyranny than that of this self-same 
 illustrious Athenian Demus. Plato speaks of it as a " sav- 
 
Discourse. 37 
 
 age wild beast" — Aristotle as a " cruel despot," who, 
 though he has no crown upon his head, has yet a remorse- 
 less sceptre in his hand, and holds his court at the corners 
 of the streets and the market place, with sycophants, par- 
 asites and demagogues for courtiers. We, who enjoy the 
 benefits of habeas corpus and trial by jury, and live in an 
 age and country in which the security of life, liberty and 
 property is a fundamental maxim, can scarcely form any just 
 conception of a state of things where private was treated 
 uniformly as public property — where, indeed, it was es- 
 tablished as a principle, that the citizen was but a trustee 
 of his property for public uses — where forfeiture and con- 
 fiscation were organized into a system — where justice was 
 administered in assemblies composed of thousands of the 
 city rabble — where the honest, the wise, and the learned 
 were driven from public affairs and compelled to bury 
 themselves in academic studies — ^where the voice of truth, 
 justice and wisdom was drowned in the clamors and shouts 
 of the multitude — where, in a word, society was one uni- 
 versal scene of violence, plunder and brigandage, and aU the 
 provinces and functions of government, were consolidated 
 and confounded in one tremendous despotism, wielded by 
 a mob as lawless and as brutish as Comus and his swinish 
 crew. It was this state of things in his beloved country 
 which embittered the latter days of the great Demosthe- 
 nes — which engraved upon his face those deep lines of 
 sorrow and melancholy which have been perpetuated in 
 all his busts, and which paved the way, at once, for the 
 overthrow of Grecian liberty and the iron rule of Mace- 
 don. He who has attentively studied and considered the 
 history of these evil times — who has studied, in the same 
 relation and in the same spirit, the history of the French 
 democracy at tlie era of the Revolution, and who has thus 
 seen " the most cultivated and enlightened nations led or 
 
38 Discourse. 
 
 driven into the worst crimes by wretches like Cleon and 
 Robespierre — who has seen polished capitals, like Athens 
 and Paris, the glory of the earth, seats of the highest civi- 
 lization and filled with the trmhies of genius, become the 
 theatres of horrors worthy only' of the most savage hordes, 
 drenched in gore by a banditti of Septembriseurs, doing 
 murder in broad daylight, or delivered up to the hellish 
 orgies of mobs, made cruel by suspicion and drunk with 
 blood — who has witnessed judicial massacre solemnly per- 
 petrated in the name of the law, and decrees of flagrant 
 iniquity, and revolting for their barbarity, sanctioned by 
 the votes of majorities made up of mild and merciful, but 
 timid and feeble men — who has heard shouts of liberty 
 uttered by multitudes, subjugated by terror and cringing 
 before the idols of their own creation, and seen (what is 
 the infallible consequences of such excesses) the reptile 
 demagogue a moment before, " squat like a toad" at the 
 ear of his victim, " start up in his own shape the fiend and 
 stand confessed the tyrant" — he, I say, who has seen and 
 heard all this, is prepared to appreciate that great inestimable 
 principle upon which our fathers founded the fundamental 
 law of this commonwealth, and on the preservation of which 
 our liberties depend. In these schools he will have learn- 
 ed the invaluable truth that despotism is despotism whether 
 wielded by one man, a number of men, or by the numeri- 
 cal majority — that it is, perhaps, never so harsh, so cruel 
 and so relentless, as when it creeps in under popular forms, 
 and allies itself with popular sovereignty — and that, in the 
 worst of Asiatic despotisms, there is something mild, some- 
 thing patriarchal, something paternal, compared with the 
 despotism of an Athenian or a Parisian mob, drunk with 
 liberty, hungry after confiscatipn, and gorged with blood. 
 He will also have learned that the great and fatal defect in 
 the political constitutions of the ancient world was, that in- 
 
Discourse. 39 
 
 stead of distributing the powers of government among differ- 
 ent departments, and thus estahUshing in their mutual checks 
 safeguards against abuse, the statesmen of antiquity knew 
 no other means of curbing one despotism than by building up 
 another; the consequence of which was, that we find ancient 
 society everywhere falling under the sway of some exclu- 
 sive principle, — of the democratic at Athens, the aristo- 
 cratic at Sparta, and the despotic at Rome. Finally, he 
 will be forced to the conclusion that, as the despotism of 
 the State over the individual, was the rock upon which 
 ancient civilization and liberty were wrecked, so the line 
 which separates the rights of the individual from the powers 
 of the government, is the line along which, modern civiliza- 
 tion and modern liberty must be defended. 
 
 Gentlemen, we hear a great deal in our times about the 
 principles of government. We are told that there are 
 certain universal principles of government, and the com- 
 mon and popular opinion is, that the right of the majority 
 to govern is one of those universal principles. Now, gen- 
 tlemen, in my poor judgment, there is but one universal 
 principle of government, which is, that every people are 
 entitled to those institutions which will make them most 
 happy, most prosperous, and most contented. Nor do I 
 believe that there is any universal formula for making men 
 happy, prosperous, and contented. On the contrary, I be- 
 lieve that what is best for one people, may be worst for 
 another — what. is best in Africa, may be worst in Asia — 
 what is best in Asia, may be worst in Europe — what is 
 best in Europe, may be worst in America, and vice versa. 
 In a word, I believe that government is a practical affair — 
 an affair of time, place, and circumstance — of means to 
 an end, which end is the prosperity of the governed, and 
 that every people have a right, (a natural right, if you 
 please,) to that form of government which will best secure 
 
40 Discourse. 
 
 that end. If, under the circumstances in which they are pla- 
 ced, a popular government will best secure their prosperity, 
 then, with that people, popular government becomes a natural 
 right ; but in this sense it is plain that despotism itself may 
 become a natural right. In the third century, despotism 
 was certainly the best, and, perhaps, the only practicable 
 government for Rome. If so, despotism then at Rome 
 was as legitimate as democracy now at Washington. Sin- 
 cerely attached to the institutions of my own country — 
 preferring them infinitely above all others — believing that 
 they are admirably, nay, wonderfully adapted to our coun- 
 try and people, and that government here, resting on any 
 other than the broad and generous basis of the popular 
 sovereignty, would be unwise and impracticable, I am 
 not bigot enough to suppose that our institutions are adap- 
 ted to all times and nations, and that all governments pro- 
 ceeding upon other principles, must necessarily be illegi- 
 timate and in derogation of natural rights. The principle 
 of popular sovereignty, applied to the brave, enlightened 
 and educated freemen of America, is, beyond all reach of 
 controversy, the best basis of government ; but is there 
 any fanatic in the land who would apply that principle to 
 the rajahs of Turkey, the fellahs of Egypt, the pariahs of 
 India, the Arabs of the Desert, or the nomads of central 
 Asia? No, gentlemen, we cannot judge governments in 
 the abstract, and Macaulay was right when he said that a 
 " good government, like a good coat, is that which fits the 
 body for which it is designed. A person who, upon ab- 
 stract principles, pronounces a Constitution to be good, 
 without an exact knowledge of the people who are to be 
 governed by it, judges as absurdly as a tailor who should 
 measure the Belvidere Apollo for the clothes of all his 
 customers." I repeat, gentlemen, there is but one 
 principle — one right, connected with government, and that 
 
Discourse. 41 
 
 is that every people are entitled to those institutions which, 
 under the circumstances in which they are placed, wiU 
 make them most happy and most prosperous. 
 
 Gentlemen, this idea that government is a science, and 
 is to be constructed with reference to abstract principles, 
 is of comparatively recent origin. All the governments 
 of Europe, as I have already stated, with the exception of 
 the present revolutionary government of Trance, have 
 been the growth of time and circumstances, springing out 
 of the Feudal System, and modified from time to time, to 
 meet the progress of society. Those political theories and 
 speculations, which have exerted such a wonderful influ- 
 ence over modern society, had no existence when the 
 foundations of these governments were laid. They be- 
 long exclusively to the eighteenth and nineteenth centu- 
 ries, though their rise may be traced back remotely to the 
 Reformation. The distinguishing characteristic of that 
 great movement was, that it was " an insurrection of the 
 human mind against absolute power," and resulted in the 
 emancipation of the human reason, and the establishment 
 of the right of free enquiry. It is a somewhat remarka- 
 ble fact, however, that the Reformation, thus founded on 
 intellectual liberty, and so eminently favorable to religious 
 freedom, was not, at first, favorable to the progress of 
 political freedom ; but was, on the contrary, followed 
 every where throughout Europe, by an increase of mo- 
 narchical power ; for it is an indisputable fact that, at 
 the same moment that the principle of liberty triumphed 
 in the Church, the principle of despotism triumphed in 
 the State — in Germany in the person of Charles V. — in 
 France in the person of Louis XIV. — and in England in 
 the person of Henry VIII. The explanation of this re- 
 markable circumstance is no doubt to be found in the fact 
 .that the Reformation was, in its origin, essentially a reli- 
 
 4* 
 
42 Discourse-. 
 
 gious movement, and that the attention of men was at first 
 directed to their religious, to the neglect of their political 
 interests. But it was impossible that this state of things 
 should last, and a struggle between that principle of liberty 
 and free enquiry, which had triumphed in the spiritual 
 order, and that principle of despotism which had triumphed 
 in the temporal, was, sooner or later, inevitable. I need 
 scarcely remind you that that struggle began in England. 
 This is not the place to enter iato any examination of the 
 causes which enabled the Tudors to push the royal preroga- 
 tives to a point which they had never reached under the 
 mostpowerful and absolute of the Plantagenets. It is enough 
 that the fact is so, and that the explanation is to be found, 
 partly, in the personal character of the illustrious princes 
 of that haughty house ; but, principally, in the destruction 
 of the old nobility in the wars of York and Lancaster, 
 whose jealousy and watchfulness had always held the 
 Crown in check, and maintained the Ancient Constitution 
 of the Realm. Under the usurpations of the Tudors, the Eng- 
 lish people manifested, from time to time, much uneasiness 
 and discontent ; but these monarchs, by their firmness and 
 energy — by timely concession, where concession was inevi- 
 table, and by resolute resistance wherever resistance was 
 practicable, managed to maintain their power, and to crush 
 every revolutionary movement in the bud. It was just at 
 this critical moment when the people of England were awa^ 
 kening to their political interests, that, the line of the Tudors 
 failing, James I., a foreigner, a pedant, acoward and a fool, 
 ascended the English throne, and began his reign by the as- 
 sertion of dogmas in relation to the nature and origin of 
 the regal powers which the haughtiest Tudor had never 
 dreamed of. It was gravely asserted by him that the 
 kingly power came from heaven— that it descended di- 
 rectly from God— that, being derived from God, it was re-. 
 
Discourse. 43 
 
 sponsftle only to him, and, therefore, above all human 
 control and intervention — absolute, inviolable — irrevoca- 
 ble — that no injustice, no misconduct could forfeit it — that 
 to rebel against it was to rebel against heaven, and that 
 what were termed the rights of the subject, were so termed 
 by courtesy only, being, in truth, but so many grants, or 
 concessions from the reigning prince to his subjects, revo-- 
 cable at his sovereign will and pleasure. And thus, at the' 
 very instant when the people of England were beginning 
 to take an interest ia their political affairs, was an effort 
 made to withdraw them entirely from their jurisdiction, by 
 giving to government a divine origin, and establishing the 
 principle of inviolability. By the assertion of these dog- 
 mas on all occasions, in season and out of season, in the 
 palace, the city, and the country, James invited, and, as it 
 were, challenged, an investigation of their truth. I need 
 scarcely say to you that the challenge was accepted — that 
 the controversy soon passed from the court to the nation, 
 and thus began that memorable struggle between the prin- 
 ciples of despotism and the principles of liberty which delu- 
 ged England in blood, brought one of her ancient kings to the 
 scaffold, and laid the foundations of Politcal Science. 
 On the side of the Court, first appeared Filmer, main- 
 taining, with his royal patron, that the kingly power is of 
 divine origin — absolute, inviolable, irrevocable, and he ac- 
 tually attempted to trace it back historically to God. Ab- 
 surd as was his whole system and the arguments alleged 
 in its support, it is a remarkable fact that Filmer' s book 
 made a deep and profound impression at the time of its 
 publication. 
 
 The public mind of England was now thoroughly arou- 
 sed upon the subject of its political affairs, and it was im- 
 possible that the controversy should stop at this point. 
 . We accordingly find that, shortly afterwards, and on the 
 
44 Discourse. 
 
 same side, appeared another writer, not like Tilmer, a 
 mere pedant, but a man of genius and erudition — a great, 
 bold, original thinker — the first philosopher of his age and 
 country — I mean Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes saw at once the 
 absurdity of Filmer's theory, and that, if the Royal pre- 
 tensions were to be maintained at all, it must be upon some 
 other hypothesis of government than that of the " Divine 
 Right." He adopted that of a " State of JVature," and 
 has thus the credit of originating an idea which has been 
 at the bottom of all speculations upon government, from 
 that time to the present. Instead of deducing government 
 from God, he deduced it from " a state of nature," which 
 he supposed to be a state of constant warfare, which, in 
 time, became so intolerable that men were forced to seek 
 refuge from it in civil society. The act, by which he sup- 
 poses them to pass from a state of nature into society, was 
 a " compact," and thus this great original thinker was also 
 the first to conceive the idea ihsX govei-nment is founded on 
 a compact. By this compact, according to Hobbes, all agree 
 to " submit their will to the will of one — it matters not 
 whether this be one individual or an assemblage of per- 
 sons — whose wiU should become the wdl of all." " Who- 
 ever procures his will to be thus respected, possesses the 
 sovereign power and majesty — he is the prince — the others 
 are his subjects." In the person of this prince, according 
 to the theory, all powers, executive, legislative and judi- 
 cial, unite, and, having once passed.to him by the original 
 compact, cannot be revoked. And thus Hobbes, deducing 
 government from " a state of nature," and Filmer deriving 
 it from God, arrived, in the end, at the same conclusion — 
 that the kingly power is absolute, indivisible, inviolable and 
 irrevocable. 
 
 But I have said that the English people had now be- 
 come deeply concerned about their government, and that 
 
Discourse. 45 
 
 that spiritof free enquiry, which had overthrown despotism 
 in the Church, was now directed to the State. It was not 
 to be expected, therefore, that Filmer and Hobbes would 
 go unanswered. Nor was it so ; and, passing over Alger- 
 non Sidney and other writers of less note, I come directly 
 to Locke, the great champion of liberty, and of the ancient 
 Constitution of England, against the despotic dogmas of 
 the Stuarts. Like Hobbes, Locke derived society from 
 " a state of nature ;" but his idea of this thing, called " a 
 state of nature," was altogether different from that of 
 Hobbes. According to Locke, a state of nature was no state 
 of universal warfare ; but a state in which all men were 
 free, equal, and in the enjoyment of certain rights — which 
 rights each was bound to respect, and, in case of their vi- 
 olation or infringement, was justified, upon the principles 
 of self-defence, in resorting to force for their maintenance 
 and protection. And here, permit me to say in passing, 
 we have, for the first time in human history, the sugges- 
 tion of the idea of natural rights, and the universal free- 
 dom and equality of mankind in connection with govern- 
 ment. In Locke's State of Nature, all men were suppo- 
 sed to be free, equal, and in the possession of certain rights, 
 and, from this state of universal freedom and equality, in 
 which every individual is the guardian and conservator of 
 his own natural rights, he makes mankind pass into civil 
 society by an act of surrender, upon the part of each individ- 
 ual, to the constituted authorities, of his personal privilege 
 of punishing and redressing all violations of those natural 
 rights. And, as the State, in the estimation of Locke, is but 
 a voluntary association among a number of men, each in- 
 dividually free and equal, and the universal freedom and 
 equality of mankind thus the original element of his sys- 
 tem, it was but a fair and logical deduction from these 
 premises that this association., when organized, should be 
 
46 Discourse. 
 
 directed by the will of the majority, and that each mem- 
 ber should submit his will to the will of that majority. 
 Thus was Locke led to the conclusion that the supreme 
 power resides in the majority of the community. But he 
 also held, what was the most important part of his theory, 
 that this supreme power was transferable and divisible, and 
 that, in England, it had actually been transferred and dis- 
 tributed among the different departments of the govern- 
 ment and the different orders of the Slate, in various pro- 
 portions. 
 
 Such was the reasoning by which Locke refuted the des- 
 potic theories of Filmer and Hobbes, and demonstrated, to 
 the satisfaction, at least, of the great body of the English 
 people, that the ancient constitution of the realm was in 
 strict conformity with the abstract principles of govern- 
 ment — and so great was the impression made by his Es- 
 say — so high was the authority of his name, and so entirely 
 were his conclusions in harmony with the feelings and 
 patriotism of the people of England, that his theory was 
 looked upon as completing and perfecting the science of 
 government. And certain it is that politics, as a science, 
 has made no progress in that country from that day to this. 
 
 Abandoned in England, however, political science was 
 revived upon the continent, and pushed to a point greatly 
 in advance of that at which Locke had left it. This is not 
 the occasion to enter into any explanation of those circum- 
 stances which made Geneva, in the early portion of the 
 eighteenth century, the centre of political speculation for 
 all Europe. I simply state the fact, and that the " Con- 
 trat Social" could only have been written by a " citizen of 
 Geneva." This little Republic — one of the smallest States 
 of Europe — situated in the centre of the continent, and 
 surrounded on all sides by great and powerful monarcties, 
 not only managed to maintain its independence ; but be- 
 
Discourse. 47 
 
 came, about this time, the hot-bed of those political theo- 
 ries, which have since overturned a throne, expelled an 
 ancient dynasty, and agitated the general fabric of Euro- 
 pean society to its lowest depths. Rousseau was the apos- 
 tle of this Geneva School. Like Hobbes and Locke, he 
 deduced government from " a state of nature," out of 
 which he supposes mankind to emerge into civil society 
 by a voluntary contract — the " Contrat Social." This 
 contract is the result of unanimous agreement, every mem- 
 ber of society being a party to it, and is concluded, not 
 between the people and their rulers, but between the peo- 
 ple themselves. The object of it is the establisment of 
 institutions " under which the power of all may be exer- 
 cised for the protection of the persons and property of 
 each" — each individual surrendering himself to the will 
 and direction of the community, which is thus made sov- 
 ereign and supreme. And the sovereign and supreme 
 power, thus vested in the community, is, when so vested, 
 according to Rousseau, indivisible and intransferable, al- 
 ways abiding, undiminished, in the community — from which 
 it follows that magistrates are but agents, and government 
 a mere agency, responsible always to the people, who re- 
 main all the time supreme and sovereign. 
 
 Such is the " Contrat Social" — the " text-book of revo- 
 lution" — which, though it would be a shallow and super- 
 ficial view to say that it caused the French Revolution, 
 yet certainly impressed upon that great movement its dis- 
 tinctive character, and gave it the-direction which it took. 
 It is manifest from this rapid review of the theories of 
 Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, that Hobbes and Rousseau 
 stand at opposite extremes, while Locke occupies a posi- 
 tion intermediate between the two. Hobbes, by maintain- 
 ing that the supreme power is transferable, but indivisible 
 and irrevocable, and that, in all organized governments, it 
 
48 Discourse. 
 
 has been actually transferred, thus undivided, to the con- 
 stituted authorities by the original compact, was led di- 
 rectly to absolute monarchy. Rousseau, on the other hand, 
 by maintaining that the supreme power, was indivisible 
 and intransferable, and must abide always, and under all 
 circumstances, with the sovereign people, was led directly 
 to pure democracy — while Locke, by maintaining that the 
 supreme power was both transferable and divisible, was 
 led to mixed government. 
 
 Such is a very brief sketch of the rise and progress of 
 those political theories which, though of recent origin, have 
 exerted, and are still exerting, a marvellous influence over 
 the destinies of modern society. Their great importance 
 demanded that I should not pass them by in silence. Many 
 good and wise men, looking to the discontent and dis- 
 satisfaction which they have diffused so generally through- 
 out the world, and the excesses and crimes to which they 
 have led in at least one memorable instance, have been 
 induced to regret their existence, and to look upon specu- 
 lative politics as the great pest and nuisance of our times. 
 Such is not my opinion. Those ideas of human equaUty 
 and natural rights, generated by political theory and meta- 
 physics, have, indeed, like all new ideas of a popular 
 character, been pushed, in the first instance, to extremes ; 
 but the evil is one which, in the nature of things, must 
 soon correct itself, and it is manifest that reaction has al- 
 ready commenced. The difference between the first and 
 second Revolutions in France, marks the progress of that re- 
 action, and I have an abiding faith that modern civilization 
 will not fail in the accomplishment of its great work of recon- 
 ciling the principles of equality with the principles of liberty\ 
 I have never been able to see why those general ideas — tha^ 
 spirit of philosophy, which has pervaded every other depart- 
 ment of human affairs, and allied itself, in science, morals 
 
Discourse. 49 
 
 and religion, with experience and fact, should be excluded 
 from the field of legislation. Whj is it that, in the scien- 
 tific, moral and religious world, theory and fact may move 
 side by side, checking, controlling and modifying each 
 other, while the political world must be abandoned to pre- 
 scription and to ancient abuses and injustices ? There is, 
 there can be no good reason for it, and while upon the one 
 hand I would not surrender society to the despotism of 
 theory, so neither would I, upon the other, abandon it to the 
 despotism of prescription ; but keeping a steady eye upon 
 its growth and development, I would gradually, cautiously, 
 and upon the principles of reform rather than of revolu- 
 tion, mould and modify the institutions of the past so as to 
 accommodate them to the present. And, if that great 
 conservative principle which lies at the basis of our gov- 
 ernment, can only be preserved in its full integrity, I have 
 no apprehensions connected with the progress of the prin- 
 ciples of equality — no fear whatever but that those ancient 
 and high-born rights, privileges and franchises, of which 
 I have so often spoken, may be extended with safety and 
 infinite benefit to the humblest citizen who toils and sweats 
 in the field, the work-shop, the factory, or on the highway. 
 In conclusion, gentlemen, for I feel that it is time, full 
 time, that I should bring this address to a conclusion, I 
 have but one wish to express, which is that the purport 
 and tenor of these remarks may not be misunderstood. In 
 aU that I have said — in every syllable which I have utter- 
 ed, I have had but one object in view, and that is to say 
 something which might strengthen and tighten the cords 
 which bind ©very son of Virginia to the soil which gave 
 him birth. If I have endeavored to prove to you that our 
 liberties have not sprung from modern theory and meta- 
 physics, but have a high and ancient pedigree, it was only 
 that I might thereby the more endear them to you upon 
 
50 Discourse. 
 
 the principle upon which we love and respect whatever is 
 old, and has been transmitted to us as an inheritance from 
 our fathers. If I have endeavored to prove to you that 
 the principle upon which the Virginia Constitution of '76 
 is based, is the principle which draws the line between 
 despotism and liberty, and is at once the glory and the 
 guarantee of modern civilization, it was only that, by teach- 
 ing its priceless value, I might present to you a stronger 
 motive to defend and maintain it under all circumstances 
 and at every hazard. Lastly, if I have spoken in terms 
 of reverential homage of those illustrious founders of the 
 Republic, who, at the instant of the separation of the Col- 
 ony from the mother country, collected together and bound 
 up the ancient liberties of the people of Virginia in that 
 great Constitutional Charta, and thus transmitted them as 
 an inheritance to those who should succeed them, it was 
 only that we might learn to love and respect their memo- 
 ries the more, and to imitate their high example. And 
 now, gentlemen, finally, what I say to you, and through 
 you, to the young men of our State, is, let us study the 
 characters of these Conscript Fathers of the Republic — 
 let us fill our heads with their rational and manly views of 
 liberty, and our hearts with their noble, patriotic impulses 
 and purposes — let us, in a word, take them as our models, 
 and, to this end, here, in the capital of that Commonwealth 
 which, under the shelter and protection of those institu- 
 tions which they founded, has enjoyed, for the last seventy- 
 five years, as large a portion of happiness, prosperity and 
 substantial freedom, as has been ever realized by any com- 
 munity of men on earth,^ — here, I say, in the capital of 
 this ancient Commonwealth, and within a few yards of the 
 spot from which I now address you, 
 
 "Will we bdilb them 
 A Monument and plant it round with shade 
 
Discourse. 51 
 
 Of laurel, ever green, and branching palm, 
 With all their trophies hung and acts inroU'd 
 In copious legend, or sweet lyric song. 
 Hither shall all the valiant youth resort, 
 And from their memory inflame their breasts 
 To matchless valor and adventures high : 
 The virgins also shall, on feastful days, 
 Visit their tomb with flowers." 
 
 THE END. 
 
Stockton, Catif. 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
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