the oppofition of different temptations and impediments, in confequence of peculiarities in the established forms of civil government. No ethical work therefore, which profeffes to treat of the duties of various claffes of fociety in Great Britain, can be complete as to its plan, unless it pays a marked attention to the British Conftitution. The uses of the principal parts of that Conftitution will be distinctly noticed in fubfequent chapters, in which the refpective duties of the individuals composing the several branches of the Legislature will be difcuffed. The way however may be cleared for those details, by a previous investigation of fome points of a more general nature. The present chapter therefore will be employed in ascertaining those leading principles, the observance of which political wifdom feems to require as effential to the equity and good conduct of civil government; and in examining how far each of those principles is observed in the exifting (c) Constitution of this realm.

In

(c) This expreffion is used in the present chapter, in a fenfe perhaps fomewhat more extended than its ufual acceptation; not merely as characterising the form of go

vernment

In the difcuffion of this fubject little more will commonly be neceffary than briefly to ftate the principles themselves, with the grounds on which they reft. For a very flight degree of reflection will evince that they are fully comprehended within the general outline of the British Conftitution; and the particular manner in which they are carried into effect will be more fitly investigated hereafter, when the functions of the feveral branches of the Legislature come to be diftinctly confidered. One or two points however will require rather more explanation.

1. The first principle dictated by political wisdom is this; that thofe fundamental rules be obferved, which natural justice inculcates as the proper groundwork of all focial inftitutions. For as far as these are violated or neglected, oppreffion will take place in the community; the members will gradually become more and more diffatisfied; and if the hard

vernment by King, Lords, and Commons, but as including the general spirit of the laws, and of the principles which guide the execution of them.

VOL. I.

C

ships

ships undergone are not fufficient finally to produce civil commotions, yet in proportion to their frequency and magnitude the prosperity of the State will be impaired and retarded.

That in the whole code of British Laws there is not an individual statute, which men accustomed to the investigation of moral principles can fairly charge with any deviation from the line of ftrict juftice, is a pofition for the validity of which it would be too much to contend. It is not likely that such an affertion could be maintained with respect to any Government exifting. But that the British Conftitution bears in every part of it the broad and ftrong characters of justice, is a truth so prominent and obvious, that it fhould feem entitled to the immediate assent of every rational advocate for the duty of civil obedience, on whatever theory he may be disposed to rest the obligation. If he founds the rights of government on the genuine and folid ground of national confent expreffed or implied, he fees that the British Government

-volentes

Per populos dat jura—;

that

that in each of the three branches it is fanctioned not merely by the paffive concurrence, but by the avowed and zealous approbation of the great mass of the Community; that it is regarded with an attachment, which, being. established on the wifeft principles, and confirmed by the experience of ages, is, we truft, more likely to increase than to abate, and may equally preclude from all hopes of fuccefs the favourers of a republican form of government on the one hand, and the supporters of the indefeasible rights of kings on the other. If he contents himself with looking to expediency, alone, and measures the title of Civil Governors to the fubmiffion of their fubjects folely by the scale of the general welfare; he discovers perfons and property fecured, industry encouraged and rewarded, and public and private happiness permanently enjoyed in Great Britain, in a degree scarcely if ever paralleled in any other part of the earth.

One leading circumftance however in the British Conftitution, the ftate of Popular Representation, has been repeatedly ftigmatised as incompatible with the fundamental principles

of juftice. It is undoubtedly true that a very large majority of the inhabitants of this kingdom has no elective voice in the appointment of the members of the House of Commons; in other words, most of the people of Great Britain have no fuffrage in the nomination of the perfons who are to enact the laws, by which non-electors in common with the reft of the nation are to be governed. But the limited diffufion of the elective franchise cannot fairly be affirmed to be neceffarily a breach (d) of juftice. The right of voting for a member of parliament is a public trust; it is as truly a civil office as the most confpicuous employment in the State; and, humble as it may seem, is a civil office of confiderable importance. All public offices and trufts being constituted in this kingdom for the general good of the whole; it is juft that they should be conferred under fuch political conditions as the general good may demand; and be devolved to thofe perfons alone, who poffefs the political qualifications deemed effential to the proper discharge

(d) Whether the limitation of the right of voting be repugnant to found policy, is a queftion which will be confidered hereafter in its proper place.

of