der that system. Let the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished for ever. Be content to bind America by laws of trade; you have always done it. Let this be your reason for binding their trade. Do not burthen them by taxes; you were not used to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the schools; for there only they may be discussed with safety."

Let us hear him on the subject of the duties of representatives and their constituents, in the very flower of his popularity, just after his election at Bristol.

"He tells you, that the topick of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city;' and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of such instructions.

"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

"My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

"To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience, these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenour of our constitution."

In his "Speech on Conciliation with America" he again gives full expression to his abhorrence of abstract politics.

"Sir, I think you must perceive, that I am resolved this day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the right of taxation. Some gentlemen startle-but it is true; I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing in my consideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this profound subject. But my consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do not examine, whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and reserved out of the general trust of government; and how far all mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right by the charter of nature. Or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. These are deep questions, where great names militate against each other; where reason is perplexed; and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion. For high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides; and there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is the great Serbonian bog, betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies whole have sunk. I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in such respectable company. The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable; but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do."

Again:

"I do not know, that the colonies have, in any general way, or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the temper or dispositions of any man, or any set of men, when they are composed and at rest, from their conduct, or their expressions, in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is besides a very great mistake to imagine, that mankind follow up practically any speculative principle, either of government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of the principles upon which we support any given part of our constitution; or even the whole of it together. I could easily, if I had not already tired you, give you very striking and convincing instances of it. This is nothing but what is natural and proper. All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights that we may enjoy others; and, we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants. As we must give away some natural liberty, to enjoy civil advantages; so we must sacrifice some civil liberties, for the advantages to be derived from the communion and fellowship of a great empire. But, in all fair dealings, the thing bought must bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights, and all the intrinsick dignity of human nature. None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under a government purely arbitrary. But although there are some amongst us who think our constitution wants many improvements, to make it a complete system of liberty ; perhaps none who are of that opinion would think it right to aim at such improvement, by disturbing his country, and risking every thing that is dear to him. In every arduous enterprise, we consider what we are to lose, as well as what we are to gain; and the more and better stake of liberty every people possess,

the less they will hazard in a vain attempt to make it more. These are the cords of man. Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest; and not on metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all sophistry.”

In his "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol," there are expressions yet more remarkable. Thus, speaking of the legislative power which England claimed to exercise over her colonies, he tells us :

:

“I had indeed very earnest wishes to keep the whole body of this authority perfect and entire as I found it and to keep it so, not for our advantage solely; but principally for the sake of those on whose account all just authority exists; I mean, the people to be governed. For I thought I saw, that many cases might well happen, in which the exercise of every power comprehended in the broadest idea of legislature, might become, in its time and circumstances, not a little expedient for the peace and union of the colonies amongst themselves, as well as for their perfect harmony with Great Britain. Thinking so, (perhaps erroneously,) but being honestly of that opinion, I was at the same time very sure, that the authority, of which I was so jealous, could not under the actual circumstances of our plantations be at all preserved in any of its members, but by the greatest reserve in its application; particularly in those delicate points, in which the feelings of mankind are the most irritable.

I

"It is so with regard to the exercise of all the powers, which our constitution knows in any of its parts, and indeed to the substantial existence of any of the parts themselves. The king's negative to bills is one of the most indisputed of the royal prerogatives; and it extends to all cases whatsoever. am far from certain, that if several laws, which I know, had fallen under the stroke of that sceptre, that the publick would have had a very heavy loss. But it is not the propriety of the exercise which is in question. The exercise itself is wisely forborne. Its repose may be the preservation of its existence; and its existence may be the means of saving the constitution itself, on an occasion worthy of bringing it forth. As the disputants, whose accurate and logical reasonings have brought us into our present condition, think it absurd, that powers or members of any constitution should exist rarely or never to be exercised, I hope I shall be excused in mentioning another instance, that is material. We know, that the convocation of the clergy had formerly been called, and sat with nearly as much regularity to business as parliament itself. It is now called for form only. It sits for the purpose of making some

more.

polite ecclesiastical compliments to the king; and, when that grace is said, retires and is heard of no It is however a part of the constitution, and may be called out into act and energy whenever there is occasion, and whenever those who conjure up that spirit will choose to abide the consequences. It is wise to permit its legal existence; it is much wiser to continue it a legal existence only."

Again:

"These were the considerations, gentlemen, which led me early to think, that, in the comprehensive dominion which the Divine Providence had put into our hands, instead of troubling our understandings with speculations concerning the unity of empire, and the identity or distinction of legislative powers, and inflaming our passions with the heat and pride of controversy, it was our duty, in all soberness, to conform our government to the character and circumstances of the several people who composed this mighty and strangely diversified mass. I never was wild enough to conceive, that one method would serve for the whole; that the natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia could be ordered in the same manner; or that the Cutchery court and the grand jury of Salem could be regulated on a similar plan. I was persuaded that government was a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of uniformity, to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians. Our business was to rule, not to wrangle; and it would have been a poor compensation that we had triumphed in a dispute, whilst we lost an empire."

What follows, however, is still more remarkable. Part of it is exactly like much in the "Reflections," and indeed might almost be imagined to be cited from thence.

"If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so; and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter. If they practically allow me a greater degree of authority over them than is consistent with any correct ideas of perfect freedom, I ought to thank them for so great a trust, and not to endeavour to prove from thence, that they have reasoned amiss, and that having gone so far, by analogy, they must hereafter have no enjoyment but by my pleasure.

It

"If we had seen this done by any others, we should have concluded them far gone in madness. is melancholy as well as ridiculous, to observe the kind of reasoning with which the publick has been amused, in order to divert our minds from the common sense of our American policy. There are people, who have split and anatomised the doctrine of free government, as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity, and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling. They have disputed, whether liberty be a positive or a negative idea; whether it does not consist in being governed by laws; without considering what are the laws, or who are the makers; whether man has any rights by nature; and whether all the property he enjoys be not the alms of his government, and his life itself their favour and indulgence. Others, corrupting religion, as these have perverted philosophy, contend, that Christians are redeemed into captivity, and the blood of the Saviour of mankind has been shed to make them the slaves of a few proud and insolent sinners. These shocking extremes provoking to extremes of another kind, speculations are let loose as destructive to all authority, as the former are to all freedom; and every government is called tyranny and usurpation which is not formed on their fancies. In this manner the stirrers-up of this contention, not satisfied with distracting our dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are corrupting our understandings: they are endeavouring to tear up, along with practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and justice, religion and order.

"Civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavoured to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation and all the just reasoning that can be upon it is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. Far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysicks, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude; social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. The extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains no where, nor ought to obtain any where. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates

either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely."

We shall close these citations with one or two extracts from the "Speech on Economical Reform."

"Early reformations are amicable arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed upon a conquered enemy: early reformations are made in cool blood; late reformations are made under a state of inflammation. In that state of things the people behold in government nothing that is respectable. They see the abuse, and they will see nothing else—They fall into the temper of a furious populace provoked at the disorder of a house of ill fame; they never attempt to correct or regulate; they go to work by the shortest way-They abate the nuisance, they pull down the house. "This is my opinion with regard to the true interest of government. But as it is the interest of government that reformation should be early, it is the interest of the people that it should be temperate. It is their interest, because a temperate reform is permanent; and because it has a principle of growth. Whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further improvement. It is right to consider, to look about us, to examine the effect of what we have done.—Then we can proceed with confidence, because we can proceed with intelligence. Whereas in hot reformations, in what men, more zealous than considerate, call making clear work, the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indigested, mixed with so much imprudence, and so much injustice; so contrary to the whole course of human nature, and human institutions, that the very people who are most eager for it are among the first to grow disgusted at what they have done. Then some part of the abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of the correction. Then the abuse assumes all the credit and popularity of a reform. The very idea of purity and disinterestedness in politicks falls into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot and inexperienced men; and thus disorders become incurable, not by the virulence of their own quality, but by the unapt and violent nature of the remedies. A great part, therefore, of my idea of reform is meant to operate gradually; some benefits will come at a nearer, some at a more remote period. We must no more make haste to be rich by parsimony, than by intemperate acquisition."

Those who cannot see in these extracts the same general spirit and tendency which characterized the whole of Burke's political system, must surely be blind.

Thus far on the mere consistency of Burke's system. Of its soundness or unsoundness we feel ourselves hardly called upon to venture an opinion. We feel little hesitation, however, in saying that it was founded on just and comprehensive principles and a profound knowledge of the great laws and necessary conditions of human society. That Burke sometimes carried his principles too far-that he occasionally erred in the application of them that his reverence for ancient institutions was now and then excessive and absurdthat his reforms would have been, in many cases, more wary and gradual than circumstances warranted or than the most jealous caution required, is only to affirm, what is very true, that, such is the infirmity of the human mind, men cannot hold any opinions, not even the wisest, without deviating into occasional extravagance, and that their very adherence to profound general maxims will sometimes incapacitate for a judicious application of them to particular circumstances.

Thus Burke's horror of abstract principles was in some instances carried to almost absurd and dangerous extent. In his work on the French Revolution, for instance, while exploding some of the "rights of men," some of which it must be confessed were absurd enough, and while exposing the mischievous consequences which visionary politicians would have grafted upon them all, he gives but too much reason to lament that he has sometimes incautiously inveighed against some of the real "rights of men." In his eagerness to demolish some pernicious errors he is in danger of destroying some salutary truths. The particular instances will be mentioned hereafter.

But a word or two more on Burke's unmeasured invective against the abstract principles of political science. As the tendency of all improvements in government and legislation is

to approach still nearer and nearer to theoretical perfection, although they will assuredly never reach it, it can never be wise to declaim against abstract political science, with the indiscriminate violence which too often characterizes the writings of Burke. To view it with such habitual and excessive suspicion, to pursue it with such immitigable scorn and hatred, is to repress the very attempt to purify it, or to apply its principles with caution and wisdom; to induce an indolent and contented acquiescence in the present state of any government; to multiply the obstacles in the way of all future improvement; and, remotely, even to engender a belief that a narrow expediency is every thing in politics, and that this science, unlike every other, is not subject to any great laws and general principles. With respect to the modes of introducing and applying these general principles, indeed, nothing can be more just than his great doctrine, that all this must be determined by the actual circumstances of nations. This truth he has stated more frequently than any other; has enforced it with every species of argument, and illustrated it with all the prodigality of his boundless imagination. As the progress of all states is from ignorance to knowledge, from slavery to freedom, from bad government to good, and that too by a long series of almost imperceptible changes, numberless interests at variance with more enlightened principles of government and legislation will have sprung up and consolidated themselves before the discovery, or at all events before the general recognition of such principles. In bringing these principles therefore into operation, statesmen, if they would act with wisdom, must act with caution, and submit the truths which an enlightened political philosophy has discovered to be modified, at least for a time, by circumstances. This they must do, unless they would attempt changes of such suddenness and magnitude, as would involve universal ruin, or inflict more misery than they would remedy; it is the course which policy, interest, and a profound knowledge of human nature, would alike concur in dictating. And even when such principles have been introduced as far as circumstances will permit, they will be still far enough from operating with the precision and uniformity of theoretical perfection. Numberless anomalies will still exist in the infinite complexity of human affairs, to shame the profoundest masters of political wisdom.

As a political tactician, Burke was far inferior to many of his contemporaries. There was, in fact, a singular disproportion between his knowledge of human nature in general, and his knowledge of individual character; or if he possessed the latter at all, he was strangely incapable of using it to any practical purpose. None understood better than he did, that abstract principles of policy must be modified by actually existing circumstances; yet this very same maxim, of such profound truth and such immense value, he showed a singular inability to apply to individual conduct, on the small scale and within the limited sphere of parties. In the conduct of any measure, he never deigned to consult prejudices or to soften enmity. He had no patience to bear with folly; he was only irritated by it. So far from any attempt to conciliate his political opponents, he often exasperated hostility by setting them all at open defiance, and would frequently pour out the most bitter scorn and invective, when the most guarded and temperate style of expression was essential to success. Never checking the impetuosity of his passions, he often contended for mere trifles with a pertinacity which could only have been justified in the defence of principles of vital importance; trifles, the timely and graceful concession of which would have insured success, which would have far more than counterbalanced such a sacrifice. He never seemed nicely to calculate, with a view to his own conduct, the temper and conduct of the House, or the exact relations of parties in it; thus he never cared to conceal or disguise his opinions on any subject whatever, but uniformly expressed them boldly and fully. Now, though we may admire the blunt honesty of such conduct, none can commend its prudence; nothing but the most imperious necessity could justify it. This impetuosity of temper he himself deeply lamented in a beautiful letter to Charles James Fox, from which we extract the following curious passage: