ifts in each state, is the original agreement, compact, or contract of the fociety or community, which forms that ftate, to depute and delegate the rights, which were in them individually in the state of nature, to those, whose duty it should become, to rule, protect, and preserve the community. For in this confifts the whole duty both of the fupreme and fubordinate magiftracy. It would be nugatory to queftion the reality of this original contract, * because the particular time and place, when and where it was entered into, cannot be named, nor the written charter or document, in which it is expreffed, be produced for the fatisfaction and benefit of all future generations. "The chief question is not, whether there was ever such a contract formally and actually made; but whether mankind had not a right to make it: for if they had, civil government, in the ordinary course of things, could be rightfully founded upon nothing else, but this, or what is equivalent to it, a tacit confent of the governed. And fince the latter must be of the fame effect with the other, this may be fufficient for our present purpose, unless perfons

Vid Hoadley's Defence of Hooker's Judgment, p. 158. & feq.

+ Idem. p. 168.

1

think fit to call alfo for the original draught of a tacit confent." The actual affemblage of the multitude forming themselves into a particular fociety, was the formal ratification of this original contract, though it were done by tacit confent; and by this each individual of our ancestors became bounden to the power of the whole community, or, in other words, to the fovereignty of the state. The free continuance of each of their fucceffors in the community is the bond, by which they become more folemnly and firmly obligated to the contract, by grounding their tacit confent upon the valuable confiderations and daily encreafing advantages, of the experience and improvements of their predeceffors. This is a multiplying principle, that acquires vigour from every incident of human life; as each revolving day brings with it fresh reasons and motives, why the living members of the community should ratify and confirm the original contract entered into by their deceased ancestors. The perpetuation therefore of the community, is the unceasing renovation and confirmation of the original contract, in which it was founded.

The thorough confideration, and proper application of this principle, will demonftrate the folly and falfity of fome newly broached F

doctrines,

Futility of fome

modern doc

trines.

doctrines, which modern fophifts pretend to establish as the neceffary confequences of the true principles of government, which are denied by none.

* "There never did, there never will, and there never can exift a parliament, or any defcription of men, or any generation of men, in any country, poffeffed of the right or the power of binding and controuling posterity to the end of time, or of commanding for ever how the world fhall be governed, or who fhall govern it; and therefore all fuch clauses, acts, or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do, what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void.

"When man ceafes to be, his power and his wants ceafe with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing, who fhall be its governors, or how its government fhall be organized, or how adminiftered.

"Thofe, who have quitted the world, and thofe, who are not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other, as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive; what

Payne's Rights of Man, p. 9, 10, 11.

poffible

poffible obligation, then, can exist between them, what rule or principle can be laid down, that two nonentities, the one out of existence, and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, that the one should controul the other to the end of time."

Who does not fee, at the very firft view of fuch doctrines, that, in order to give them effect, a new legislation must be provided for the birth of each individual, if the former legiflation ceases by the deaths of the legiflating individuals, who framed it? For if we confider the real physical state of mankind, we shall find that the fame hour, which terminates the existence of one, gives birth to another individual; there confequently cannot be one given inftant of time, in which government can be said to cease by the demise of one, and revive by the birth of another. I fhall hereafter have occafion to go more deeply into this doctrine, by confidering the effects, which the laws, enacted many hundred years ago by our ancestors, ftill continue to produce upon their pofterity to this day.

In attempting to establish the full force and energy of the power and authority of magiftrates in the state of fociety, I by no means derogate thereby from the perfection of true liberty

F 2

The rights of each community are relative.

liberty in the individuals of the community, who are fubject to fuch power or authority. For far be it from me to deny to any man the full, free, and uncontrouled power of thinking and acting for himself, in every thing, which affects not the rights of the community; for fuch rights only does the community poffefs, as the individual no longer retains; the transfer of them from the one, has vefted them in the other; they cannot fubfift in both. Thus the rights of each community are relative only, and bind fuch, as by living under her protection, and remaining members of her fociety, continue fubject to the power, which they have fo delegated to her; and which, whilft the community fubfifts, they can neither totally nor partially recall. The liberty or right of locomotion never was transferred from the individual; and therefore the state cannot, without fome special reafon, prevent the emigration of her members. Every man is at liberty to withdraw himself from any particular fociety; but he is not free to disturb, overturn, or destroy the government of that fociety, of which he is a member. For the fubjection of each individual of the community to the fovereignty or political power of the whole, is that effential quality, which diftinguishes the

ftate