despotism.

    * Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr.
Richard Price, 3d ed., pp. 17, 18.

    *(2) "Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed
by public authority, ought, if they can find no worship out of the
church which they approve, to set up a separate worship for
themselves; and by doing this, and giving an example of a rational and
manly worship, men of weight from their rank and literature may do the
greatest service to society and the world".- P 18, Dr. Price's Sermon.

    BUT I may say of our preacher "utinam nugis tota illa dedisset
tempora saevitiae".- All things in this his fulminating bull are not
of so innoxious a tendency. His doctrines affect our constitution in
its vital parts. He tells the Revolution Society in this political
sermon that his Majesty "is almost the only lawful king in the world
because the only one who owes his crown to the choice of his
people." As to the kings of the world, all of whom (except one) this
archpontiff of the rights of men, with all the plenitude and with more
than the boldness of the papal deposing power in its meridian fervor
of the twelfth century, puts into one sweeping clause of ban and
anathema and proclaims usurpers by circles of longitude and
latitude, over the whole globe, it behooves them to consider how
they admit into their territories these apostolic missionaries who are
to tell their subjects they are not lawful kings. That is their
concern. It is ours, as a domestic interest of some moment,
seriously to consider the solidity of the only principle upon which
these gentlemen acknowledge a king of Great Britain to be entitled
to their allegiance.

    This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the British throne,
either is nonsense and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms
a most unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position.
According to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his Majesty does
not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no lawful king.
Now nothing can be more untrue than that the crown of this kingdom
is so held by his Majesty. Therefore, if you follow their rule, the
king of Great Britain, who most certainly does not owe his high office
to any form of popular election, is in no respect better than the rest
of the gang of usurpers who reign, or rather rob, all over the face of
this our miserable world without any sort of right or title to the
allegiance of their people. The policy of this general doctrine, so
qualified, is evident enough. The propagators of this political gospel
are in hopes that their abstract principle (their principle that a
popular choice is necessary to the legal existence of the sovereign
magistracy) would be overlooked, whilst the king of Great Britain
was not affected by it. In the meantime the ears of their
congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as if it were a
first principle admitted without dispute. For the present it would
only operate as a theory, pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit
eloquence, and laid by for future use. Condo et compono quae mox
depromere possim. By this policy, whilst our government is soothed
with a reservation in its favor, to which it has no claim, the
security which it has in common with all governments, so far as
opinion is security, is taken away.

    Thus these politicians proceed whilst little notice is taken of
their doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain
meaning of their words and the direct tendency of their doctrines,
then equivocations and slippery constructions come into play. When
they say the king owes his crown to the choice of his people and is
therefore the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps
tell us they mean to say no more than that some of the king's
predecessors have been called to the throne by some sort of choice,
and therefore he owes his crown to the choice of his people. Thus,
by a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render their proposition
safe by rendering it nugatory. They are welcome to the asylum they
seek for their offense, since they take refuge in their folly. For
if you admit this interpretation, how does their idea of election
differ from our idea of inheritance?

    And how does the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line
derived from James the First come to legalize our monarchy rather than
that of any of the neighboring countries? At some time or other, to be
sure, all the beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called
them to govern. There is ground enough for the opinion that all the
kingdoms of Europe were, at a remote period, elective, with more or
fewer limitations in the objects of choice. But whatever kings might
have been here or elsewhere a thousand years ago, or in whatever
manner the ruling dynasties of England or France may have begun, the
king of Great Britain is, at this day, king by a fixed rule of
succession according to the laws of his country; and whilst the
legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty are performed by him
(as they are performed), he holds his crown in contempt of the
choice of the Revolution Society, who have not a single vote for a
king amongst them, either individually or collectively, though I
make no doubt they would soon erect themselves into an electoral
college if things were ripe to give effect to their claim. His
Majesty's heirs and successors, each in his time and order, will
come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which
his Majesty has succeeded to that he wears.

    Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the
gross error of fact, which supposes that his Majesty (though he
holds it in concurrence with the wishes) owes his crown to the
choice of his people, yet nothing can evade their full explicit
declaration concerning the principle of a right in the people to
choose; which right is directly maintained and tenaciously adhered to.
All the oblique insinuations concerning election bottom in this