The changes made at the revolution the strongest poffi

ble cafe of the

power of the people to

change their go

vernment.

upon earth, there never exifted, in my opinion, an instance, in which the tranfcendency of this fovereign right in the people was fo clearly demonftrated, as in our revolution of 1688. For in that temporary diffolution of the government, which was occafioned by the abandonment or dereliction of it by the executive power, the people in reality and practice, carried their rights to an extent far beyond the fpeculative allowances of the most unconfined theorifts. So well fatisfied were they of the general tenor of the constitution. and government, that to fuch parts, as they did not think fit to change and alter, they very wifely endeavoured to add strength, vigour, and authority. But imagination cannot conceive a greater ftretch of human power, than to make the king's choice of his own religion (a right which every man poffeffes independently of the community) the immediate caufe of his deprivation of all those benefits and advantages, which the community had fettled upon him, and which he and his ancestors exercifing that fame religion, had for many centuries enjoyed in confequence of fuch fettlement; nay, even to fuch extent did they carry their power, that they excluded the whole line of his immediate fucceffors, not for their actual exercife

of

of this first right of man, but because they might by poffibility exercise it in the fame manner, in which their progenitors had cho fen to do it before them. They did not attempt to check, nor forbid, nor prevent the perfonal adoption or exercife of religion in the individual; but as there could be no fovereignty enjoyed by any one, without the free confent of the community, fo the community determined, that no one, who should in future chufe to adopt and follow the Roman catholic religion, fhould be capable of enjoying the crown of this realm. The abfolute deviation from the conftitutional rule of hereditary fucceffion, by the exclufion of King James and his heirs, though the nation, for regulating the future fucceffion of the crown, reforted to a common stock from a remoter heir of the Stuart family, was the moft irrefragable proof, that could be given of the right to alter the fucceffion. And certainly it cannot be denied, but that it was an innovation in the conftitution to make the renunciation of a certain religion the fine qua non condition of inheriting the crown; otherwise it could not have defcended upon King James the Second, and the few years of his reign must be erafed from the annals and ftatute books of this realm.

When violent

measures be

art is requifite

to carry them into execution.

In the heat of the times, in which the ma

come neceffary, jority of this community chose to carry the exercise of their rights to fuch an extraordinary extent, it certainly became neceffary policy in the active ministers of the nation's wishes and intentions, to carry them into execution in a lenient and palatable, if not artful manner. Thus, from not fufficiently distinguishing between the rights of the people, which were exercised at the revolution, and the measures of the minifters in carrying them into execution, have arifen most of the contradictory judgments and opinions formed by posterity in the complex of that great and memorable event. "From these views arofe that repugnance between the conduct and the language of the revolutionists, of which Mr. Burke has availed himself. Their conduct was manly and fyftematic; their language was conciliating and equivocal; they kept measures with prejudice, which they deemed neceffary to the order of society; they imposed on the grofsnefs of the popular understanding, by a fort of compromise between the conftitution and the abdicated family; they drew a politic well-wrought veil, to use the expreffions of Mr. Burke,

Mackintosh, p. 298, and 299.

over the glorious fcene, which they had acted; they affected to preferve a femblance of fucceffion, to recur for the objects of their election to the pofterity of Charles and James, that refpect and loyalty might, with lefs violence to public fentiment, attach to the new fovereign." In forming our thoughts and judgment upon this great event, it never must be forgotten, that at the time, when the convention of the two eftates, on behalf of the majority (which is equivalent to the whole) of the community, called King William to the throne, and recognized him

as their fovereign, there was an actual diffolution of government, occafioned by the flight and abdication of King James, who may perhaps with more ftrictness be faid to have diffolved, than to have violated the original compact between the governor and the governed; for wherever one of two contracting parties withdraws or recedes from the condition and obligation of the contract, there the contract of itself ceases.

It cannot be denied, but that all the writers upon this fubject, who were living at the time of the revolution, have either, on the one fide or the other, been guilty of fome partiality. At this time of day, I will not even fuppose the poffibility of any fuch undue bias bear

ing upon the mind of any man, who undertakes to confider and view that tranfaction in a mere historical point of view.

It would exceed my intent and purpofe, were I to undertake either to justify or approve of every act of refiftance in any of the people against the commands of their fovereign, from the acceffion of king James the Second to the time of the revolution, or to blame and condemn the feveral acts of the fovereign, which provoked fuch refiftance. It is evident from obfervation, that a long feries and combination of acts may produce and even justify a confequence, which no one fingle act of the whole would of itself have produced or juftified. I fhall not therefore argue upon any of the actions, either of the fovereign or of the nation, during the fhort reign of this unfortunate monarch. But when the circumftances and fituation of the nation had, as it were, collected into one focus all the counteracting efforts of the oppofite parties, there arofe that neceffity for decifion in acting, that rendered every future act, either of the fovereign or the people, in their refpective political capacities, abfolutely conclufive.

The old uncontroverted principle, that, Rex datur propter regnum et non regnum propter regem