Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
Читать онлайн книгу.
to do this there must indeed be some connecting, pervading principle; but this is found in the person and prerogative of the king. He it is that conjoins all these individual societies into one great body politic. He it is that is to preserve their mutual connection and dependence, and make them all co-operate to one common end—the general good. His power is equal to the purpose, and his interest binds him to the due prosecution of it.
Those who aver that the independency of America on the British Parliament implies two sovereign authorities in the same state, deceive themselves, or wish to deceive others, in two ways: by confounding the idea of the same state with that of the same individual society; and by losing sight of that share which the king has in the sovereignty, both of Great Britain and America. Perhaps, indeed, it may with propriety be said that the king is the only sovereign of the empire. The part which the people have in the legislature may more justly be considered as a limitation of the sovereign authority, to prevent its being exercised in an oppressive and despotic manner. Monarchy is universally allowed to predominate in the constitution. In this view, there is not the least absurdity in the supposition, that Americans have a right to a limitation similar to that of the people of Great Britain. At any rate, there can never be said to be two sovereign powers in the same state, while one common king is acknowledged by every member of it.
Let us, for a moment, imagine the legislature of New York independent on that of Great Britain. Where would be the mighty inconvenience? How would government be frustrated or obstructed by this means? In what manner would they interfere with each other? In none that I can perceive. The affairs of government might be conducted with the greatest harmony, and by the mediation of the king directed to the same end. He (as I before observed) will be the great connecting principle. The several parts of the empire, though otherwise independent on each other, will all be dependent on him. He must guide the vast and complicated machine of government, to the reciprocal advantage of all his dominions. There is not the least contradiction in this; no imperium in imperio, as is maintained: for the power of every distinct branch will be limited to itself, and the authority of his Majesty over the whole will, like a central force, attract them all to the same point.
The second part of your paragraph is this: “In arbitrary governments this (supreme absolute) power is in the monarch; in aristocratical governments, in the nobles; in democratical, in the people, or the deputies of their electing. Our own government, being a mixture of all these kinds, the supreme authority is vested in the king, nobles, and people— that is, in the King, House of Lords, and House of Commons elected by the people.”
You are mistaken when you confine arbitrary government to a monarchy. It is not the supreme power being placed in one, instead of many, that discriminates an arbitrary from a free government. When any people are ruled by laws, in framing which they have no part, that are to bind them, to all intents and purposes, without, in the same manner, binding the legislators themselves, they are, in the strictest sense, slaves; and the government, with respect to them, is despotic. Great Britain is itself a free country, but it is only so because its inhabitants have a share in the legislature. If they were once divested of that they would cease to be free. So that, if its jurisdiction be extended over other countries that have no actual share in its legislature, it becomes arbitrary to them, because they are destitute of those checks and controls which constitute that moral security which is the very essence of civil liberty.
I will go farther and assert that the authority of the British Parliament over America would, in all probability, be a more intolerable and excessive species of despotism than an absolute monarchy. The power of an absolute prince is not temporary, but perpetual. He is under no temptation to purchase the favor of one part of his dominions at the expense of another, but it is his interest to treat them all upon the same footing. Very different is the case with regard to the Parliament. The Lords and Commons, both, have a private and separate interest to pursue. They must be wonderfully disinterested, if they would not make us bear a very disproportional part of the public burthens, to avoid them as much as possible themselves. The people of Britain must, in reality, be an order of superior beings, not cast in the same mould with the common degenerate race of mortals, if the sacrifice of our interest and ease to theirs be not extremely welcome and alluring. But should experience teach us that they are only mere mortals, fonder of themselves than their neighbors, the philanthropy and integrity of their representatives will be of a transcendent and matchless nature, should they not gratify the natural propensities of their constituents, in order to ingratiate themselves and enhance their popularity.
When you say that “our government being a mixture of all these kinds, the supreme authority is vested in the king, nobles, and people—that is, the King, House of Lords, and House of Commons elected by the people,” you speak unintelligibly. A person who had not read any more of your pamphlet than this passage, would have concluded you were speaking of our Governor, Council, and Assembly, whom, by a rhetorical figure, you styled “king, nobles, and people.” For how could it be imagined you would call any government our own, with this description, that it is vested in the king, nobles, and people, in which our own people have not the least share? If our own government be vested in the king, nobles, and people, how comes it to pass that our own people have no part in it? The resolution of these questions will afford a proper field in which to display your ingenuity. You must endeavor to transmute the people of America into those of Great Britain, or your description will be considered as mere jargon by every man of sense. Perhaps you may be able, in imitation of that celebrated sophist Spinosa, to prove that they are only modally different, but substantially the same. Or, if you please, that syllogism of the schools, by which a man is proved a horse, may serve as an excellent model. If I recollect right, it is in these words:
Homo est animal;
Equus est animal;
Ergo, homo est equus,—
which is rendered thus: A man is an animal; A horse is an animal; Therefore, a man is a horse. By the same method of argumentation, you may prove that, as Britons and Americans are generically the same, they are numerically so, likewise, as your description implies. You may form a syllogism thus:
Britons are men;
Americans are the same;
Therefore, Britons and Americans are the same.
This argument will be as good as the one I am next going to examine.
“The supreme authority,” you say, “extends as far as the British dominions extend. To suppose a part of the British dominions which is not subject to the power of the British legislature, is no better sense than to suppose a country at one and the same time to be, and not to be, a part of the British dominions. If, therefore, the colony of New York be a part of the British dominions, the colony of New York is subject and dependent on the supreme legislative authority of Great Britain.”
By “this supreme authority,” I suppose you mean the Parliament of Great Britain. I deny that it extends as far as the British dominions extend, and I have given many substantial reasons for this denial, whereas you have never offered any to prove that it does. You have begged the question, and taken that for granted which is the very point in debate. As to your general position, that there must be a supreme, absolute authority lodged somewhere, I have explained in what sense it ought to be understood, and shown that the several parts of the empire may each enjoy a separate, independent legislature with regard to each other, under one common head, the king.
The seeming proof you have subjoined is entirely fallacious, and depends upon the use of the terms British dominions and British legislature in an equivocal sense. The former may signify countries subject either to the king or to the legislature of Great Britain. When we say French dominions, we mean Countries subject to the king of France. In like manner, when we say British dominions, the most proper signification is, countries subject to the king of Great Britain. At least there is no impropriety in using it in this sense.
If by the British legislature you mean nothing more than the Parliament of Great Britain, it is well; but if you affix a different idea to it,