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by the negligence and tyranny of their rulers. They wished to be able legitimately to strive for this better condition, even against their rulers, and to call their rulers to an account for not aiding them, especially for throwing impediments in their way. What the friends of the people really wanted, then, was to establish the Responsibility of Power, not to God only, but, so to speak, to man also. The Responsibility to God alone, in the actual state of things, since rulers had ceased to fear God, or to believe in his providence, was as good as no responsibility at all, and left to the millions, able to endure their oppressions no longer, no hope of redress. In this case there was no effectual remedy but in asserting the sovereignty of the people.

"But the people," say the advocates of power, "when did they become sovereign, they who have rarely exercised any political power, or constituted even an estate in the empire; they whom government is instituted to govern?"

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power.

They were the original source of They were originally free and equal, and no man had a right to control them; but for their mutual protection and benefit, they chose to come together into civil society, and to institute civil government; to clothe some among them with authority, the rest promising obedience. From the compact formed by the people, and which constitutes and expresses the powers and the ends of the body politic, derives government with all its legitimate authority. The people have not then become sovereign, they always were sovereign, always were that to which the constituted authorities were accountable."

Here it is seen that the doctrine of Social Compact met precisely the doctrine it was desirable to overthrow, and established the authority of the people over their rulers, and their right to seek a redress of grievances, if need were, even against the constituted authorities, for they were paramount to those authorities.

The motive was good, but the friends of the people made one serious mistake: they demanded the Responsibility of power, when they should have demanded the Limitation of power. Power is not and cannot be responsible; for so far forth as responsible it is not power, but a trust. In making the

governments responsible to the people, power was shifted, but not rendered responsible, for the power then vested in the people instead of the magistrate; but who was there to call the people to an account, should they chance to abuse their power? To whatsoever we render the administrators of government responsible, unless power be restricted, there is always the possibility of its being abused, we may say, the certainty that tyranny, oppression, corruption, and political death, will sooner or later find their way into the state. Power has always a tendency to enlarge itself, and will always run into abuse, wherever it may be lodged, if not tied up so that it cannot. This is the fact that the advocates of the people, in demanding the Responsibility of power, overlooked, and therefore failed to secure the end they had in view, for which they had so strenuously asserted the sovereignty of the people, and the origin of government in compact. it was not the sovereignty of the people nor the doctrine of compact they cared for, but some legitimate ground of opposition to the Tory Theory, and on which social amelioration, freedom and well-being, could be contended for and secured. This ground we, too, want, and will never consent to abandon; but we find it not where the friends of Liberty and well-being in the two preceding centuries found it. Where we find it, will hereafter appear.

Yet

Furthermore, the advocates of the doctrine we have been considering seem to me to deceive themselves in believing that they themselves, in their own minds, place the origin of Government in compact. They do no such thing. They always, consciously or unconsciously, assume the state already as existing, and possessing all the rights of sovereignty. When they speak of the people assembling in convention, they assuredly have in mind a particular people, that is to say, a particular nation, or the inhabitants of some particular or specified territory, with its bounds marked and determined. after all, not a mass of individuals, taken at random, but this particular people, nation, already existing as a distinct, and, we may say, a sovereign community, that assembles in convention, and forms the compact. To talk of this people as having no government would be nonsense. It is a sovereignty,

It is,

and has in itself, undoubtedly, the right to establish such a frame of government, and such a mode of administration as it may judge proper; but to say that this people meets together in convention, and by solemn compact creates civil society, or constitutes itself a body politic, is to say that it meets to make itself what it already is and assumes itself to be. Evidently, then, as it can be really only of such or such a people that we can say it creates its government in convention assembled, the advocates of the origin of government in compact do virtually assign government some other origin. Even in their own view, would they analyze it, the sovereignty resides not so much in the compact as in territory, and, so to speak, nationality.

To illustrate my meaning, I will take the cases of Ireland and of Rhode Island. Ireland is the land of the Irish. I suppose the advocates of the origin of government in compact would agree with me, that the Irish have a right, if they choose, to be independent of England; and in case they should assert and maintain successfully their independence, would have a right to establish a frame of government for themselves. But are we not, in all this, speaking of the Irish as a distinct race from the English, as a peculiar people, having in reality, though subjected to the foreigner, in its kindred blood, a nationality of its own? The Irish are a people, a community, and therefore it is that we can conceive of their right to form a social compact, and their ability to do it. If the Irish should gain their independence, and should call a convention to devise a frame of civil government suitable for them, should we not hold that England and other nations would have no right to be represented in it, and regard it as an outrage upon the Irish, if they should send delegates to it? Why? Simply because we think of the Irish as a distinct, independent people, having the sovereign right to dispose of its own internal concerns. Now, shall we contend that a people of whom we can say this, is not already a civil society, a body politic? Whence did it become Not by compact; for that, by the very terms of the supposition, is not yet formed. Whence, then?

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Take the case of Rhode Island. They were the people of Rhode

Island, that had, according to the Suffrage Party, the inherent right to come together in Convention and frame and ordain a Constitution. The advocates of the People's Constitution asked as the necessary condition of giving legitimacy to that Constitution, the formal assent of a majority of the white adult male population of Rhode Island. But what see we in all this? We see that it is assumed, prior to the formation of the Constitution, and independent of the Charter, that there is a veritable people of Rhode Island, having the right to institute a form of government which shall be supreme over all the inhabitants of the territory recognized under the Charter as Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The thought with which these Suffrage men proceed, evidently is this: The majority of the inhabitants of a given territory have the right to determine what form of government shall prevail in that territory, and to what civil rule the whole number of its inhabitants shall be subjected. Now, suppose there never had been any civil or political Rhode Island; suppose that the inhabitants of the territory in question were in the alleged state of nature, and the suffrage men threw themselves really back on the people in their primary capacity, that is, as free, independent, sovereign individuals, who could in this case have spoken of the people of Rhode Island? Who could have said the individuals living within certain boundaries, form a distinct community, and the majority of these have a right to govern the whole? In the case we suppose, why would not individuals living in Massachusetts or Connecticut have had the same right to be represented in the People's Convention, as those who lived within the geographical limits of Rhode Island? But what makes Rhode Island in the supposed state of Nature? Whence, in point of fact, does Rhode Island derive its existence? Evidently Rhode Island is in its civil polity, or in its territory. The suffrage men could not have admitted the first, for they assumed the existence of Rhode Island independent of the polity, if one may so speak. Of course, then, the sovereignty they recognized they must have regarded as an incident of territory; and so they were in fact basing their own proceedings on the very principle

against which they were contending! They would supersede the existing government, because it made freemen of none but landholders; and they would give to territory the right of constituting a people, a body politic, a sovereign community. These remarks show that the conception of a people existing as a distinct, peculiar people, having in the similarity of its manners, customs, the identity of its origin and unity of its life, a nationality of its own, or inhabiting a specific territory, politically and geographically determined, is always presupposed by the advocates of the origin of government in compact, as the essential condition of the conception of the people's coming together in Convention, to ordain a frame of government for their mutual convenience and benefit. The whole sum and substance of the doctrine, when reduced to its practical elements, is this: each nation has the right to institute and administer its own form of government, and the proper method is for it to assemble by delegates in Convention, and draw up what shall be the fundamental law of the land, namely, the Constitution. All this may be true. But let not this be called going back to the origin of government. This would give me the origin only of some particular form or mode of administering government, not of government itself. I am not told the origin of government till I am told whence this nation derives its national life, and its right to institute and administer government for itself.

2. We have lingered so long on the Theory which derives government from a primitive pact, that we have little time and less space, to examine the other three Theories we have enumerated. Yet we must not pass them over without a few remarks on each. We take them in the reverse order from that in which they stand on our list. The third theory we have mentioned, is known as the PATRIARCHAL. Its advocates derive the State from the Tribe, and the Tribe from the Family. The primitive government, the foundation of all government, is that which the father exercises over the child. This enlarged, the father of the family becomes the Chief of the clan or tribe; from the chief of the tribe he becomes the King or the Ruler of the nation; from this, it may

VOL. XIII.-NO. LXII.

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be, again an Emperor or Ruler of many kings or nations. Whether the patriarchal was the earliest form of government or not, is a matter of some doubt, though we are inclined so to regard it; but whether so or not, is not material to our present purpose, for we are seeking not the origin of this or that form of government, but government itself. The authority of the father over his children is already government. Whence the origin and ground of this authority? Whence the right of the father to govern his children? And by what right does the authority of the father over his children, come to extend to those who, though his kindred, are not begotten of his body?

The authority of the father is founded, we are told, in natural law, and grows out of the necessity of the case. I understand very little of what men mean by natural law. Natural Law for me, means either one of two things: 1. What I am naturally impelled, or driven by the impulses of my nature to seek; or 2. That which is founded in the Original Nature or order of things as God hath created and arranged them. In the first sense, a natural law must sometimes be resisted; my inclinations must be controlled, and my thoughts, feelings, passions, instincts, propensities, subordinated and subjected to the law of God under which I am placed. In this sense, to say that the authority of the father is founded in a law of Nature, is not saying that it is therefore legitimate. To say that it is founded in the law of nature, in the second sense, is on the one hand begging the question by assuming the very point to be proved, and on the other, is resolving Nature into the appointment of God, and therefore identifying the third or patriarchal theory with the first, or that of Divine Right. If we say the authority of the father grows out of the necessity of the case, then we originate government in necessity. Necessity to a Christian can mean only the Will of God; for the ground of all things is not with Christians the Invincible Necessity of Heathendom, but Infinite Freedom. This again would leave us as the ground of the right of the father to govern his child, only the will of God. We apprehend that people would be wiser would they talk

less about what is, or is not commanded by Nature. Nature never yet furnished a uniform standard for anything, nor commanded the same thing to any two individuals of any race. In no sense, then, in which the law of Nature is distinguishable from a law of God, could even the fact that the authority of the father over the child originates in a law of Nature, legitimate that authority. If, then, we could resolve all governments into the patriarchal, and deduce all authority from the parental, we should still have the same question to ask, and the same problems to solve in relation to the origin and ground of this parental authority, that we have in relation to the origin and ground of Government in general.

But how from a man's right to govern his own children will you deduce his right to govern his wife, and those who are not his children? The conjugal relation has never been held to be one of perfect equality; the man is the head of the woman, the lord. He promises love, protection, fidelity; but the woman love, fidelity, obedience. Whence this obligation to obey on the part of the woman rather than on the part of the man? This assuredly is not deduced from that alleged law of nature, which commands the child to obey the parent. Whence then? Whence, again, the logic by which I am able, from my right to govern my child, to conclude to my right to govern another man's child, and not only the child, but the man himself? If my right of chieftainship grow out of my right as a father, why has not every father in the tribe the same right to be its chief? This question alone shows that it is impossible to deduce the State from the Family. I do not regard the Family as the germ of the State. It contains elements which are not in the State, and wants elements, without which the State could neither be constituted nor preserved. Both, in my view, are primary institutions, and neither is secondary; certainly neither is derivable from the other. Both are necessary, but they rest on different bases, and exist for widely different, though not hostile ends.

3. The other two theories on our list concerning the origin of government, namely, that of the Spontaneous Development of Nature, and that of Divine Ordination, rightly understood,

are both in the main true and worthy to be accepted. Government does not originate in spontaneity alone, nor in the outward ordinance of God alone; but it must respond to man's nature, to an inherent and essential want of humanity, or there could be no reason for its existence; nay, it could have no hold on man, and therefore could not be at all; and it must have in it a Divine element, and to some extent be an expression of the will of God, or it would have no legitimacy, no right to command,-no right to our allegiance, to our loyalty.

But, after all, there is no occasion to seek the historical origin of government. Most likely the historical origin of government is no longer ascertainable. The more we study into the past, the more do we discover there to impress us with a sense of our ignorance, and to confound our philosophies. There was a time when the learned had their snug little theories of the Universe, according to which all questions were easily answerable and answered. A little study, and we were acquainted with all matters, and could judge of all events from the creation to the present. Indeed, saving one or two events, nothing prior to the eight-eenth century had ever occurred worth troubling one's head about. But we begin to feel that the past was not all a blank. What most astonishes us is, the further back we go, the higher the antiquity to which we attain, the more perfect are the monuments we meet. Under the relation of Art, the oldest of the pyramids is the most perfect. The oldest books extant contain the profoundest philosophy, and indicate the widest and most varied experience of life. Each generation, so to speak, seems to dilute the life of its predeces

sor.

Nothing is new under the sun. The highest antiquity indicates a higher. We lose all dates and places, and no longer know where to begin, or where to leave off. Vain is it then for us to attempt to fix historically the origin of government. Historically speaking, government has no origin. Men, wherever we find them, live in society, and society without government has never been known, is not even conceivable. How did society originate? How did language originate? language is essential to our conception of man, and therefore man, as soon as

Yet

he existed, must have had language; so must society be regarded as coeval with the individual. Man out of society is a solecism; is not man. The true view to be taken is to regard government as never beginning, never ending, and considering its legitimacy as transmitted from generation to generation, and from place to place, by a law

analogous to that by which the life of the race itself is so transmitted.

But we leave the development of this thought, as well as the clear and distinct statement of the philosophical origin and ground of government, and the mode in which government should be organized, for a future communication.

PROMETHEUS.

BY J. R. LOWELL.

ONE after one the stars have risen and set,
Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my chain :
The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold
Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den,
Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the Dawn,
Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient;
And now bright Lucifer grows less and less,
Into the heaven's blue quiet deep withdrawn.
Sunless and starless all, the desert sky
Arches above me, empty as this heart
For ages hath been empty of all joy
Except to brood upon its silent hope,
As o'er its hope of day the sky doth now.
All night have I heard voices: deeper yet
The deep, low breathing of the silence grew,
While all about, muffled in awe, there stood
Shadows, or forms, or both, clear felt at heart,
But, when I turned to front them, far along
Only a shudder through the midnight ran,
And the dense stillness walled me closer round.
But still I heard them wander up and down
That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings
Did mingle with them, whether of those hags
Let slip upon me once from Hades deep,
Or of yet direr torments, if such be,

I could but guess; and then toward me came

A shape as of a woman: very pale

It was, and calm; its cold eyes did not move,

And mine moved not, but only stared on them.

Their moveless awe went through my brain like ice;
A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my heart,
And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog
Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt :
And then, methought, I heard a freezing sigh,
A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips
Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I thought
Some doom was close upon me, and I looked
And saw the red moon through the heavy mist,
Just setting, and it seemed as it were falling,
Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead

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