After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government, like
that of William the Conqueror, was founded in power, and the sword
assumed the name of a sceptre. Governments thus established last as
long as the power to support them lasts; but that they might avail
themselves of every engine in their favor, they united fraud to force,
and set up an idol which they called Divine Right, and which, in
imitation of the Pope, who affects to be spiritual and temporal, and
in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian religion, twisted
itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called Church and
State. The key of St. Peter and the key of the Treasury became
quartered on one another, and the wondering cheated multitude
worshipped the invention.

  When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for
Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the
honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the
attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all
knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus
imposed upon.

  We have now to review the governments which arise out of society, in
contradistinction to those which arose out of superstition and
conquest.

  It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing
the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact
between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot
be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man
must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was
a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could
originally exist no governors to form such a compact with.

  The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each
in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with
each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which
governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which
they have a right to exist.

  To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought
to be, we must trace it to its origin. In doing this we shall easily
discover that governments must have arisen either out of the people or
over the people. Mr. Burke has made no distinction. He investigates
nothing to its source, and therefore he confounds everything; but he
has signified his intention of undertaking, at some future
opportunity, a comparison between the constitution of England and
France. As he thus renders it a subject of controversy by throwing the
gauntlet, I take him upon his own ground. It is in high challenges
that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept it with the
more readiness because it affords me, at the same time, an opportunity
of pursuing the subject with respect to governments arising out of
society.

  But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a
Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix
also a standard signification to it.

  A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has
not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced
in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent
to a government, and a government is only the creature of a
constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its
government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the
body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by
article; and which contains the principles on which the government
shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the
powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of
Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the
powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in
fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a
civil government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by
which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government
what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of
judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither
can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and
the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

  Can, then, Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If he cannot,
we may fairly conclude that though it has been so much talked about,
no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and
consequently that the people have yet a constitution to form.

  Mr. Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have already
advanced- namely, that governments arise either out of the people or
over the people. The English Government is one of those which arose
out of a conquest, and not out of society, and consequently it arose
over the people; and though it has been much modified from the
opportunity of circumstances since the time of William the
Conqueror, the country has never yet regenerated itself, and is
therefore without a constitution.

  I readily perceive the reason why Mr. Burke declined going into
the comparison between the English and French constitutions, because
he could not but perceive, when he sat down to the task, that no
such a thing as a constitution existed on his side the question. His
book is certainly bulky enough to have contained all he could say on
this subject, and it would have been the best manner in which people
could have judged of their separate merits. Why then has he declined
the only thing that was worth while to write upon? It was the
strongest ground he could take, if the advantages were on his side,