entertain, on the subject of their liberty, but one opinion. Forming thus, as it were, one body, the People, at every instant, have it in their power to ftrike the decifive blow which is to level every thing. Like those mechanical powers, the greateft efficiency of which exifts at the inftant which precedes their entering into action, it has an immenfe force, juft because it does not yet exert any; and in this ftate of ftillness, but of attention, confifts its true momentum. With regard to those who (whether from perfonal privileges, or by virtue of a commiffion from the People) are intrusted with the active part of Government, as they, in the mean while, see themselves expofed to public view, and obferved as from a distance by Men free from the fpirit of party, and who place in them but a conditional truft, they are afraid of exciting a commotion which, though it might not prove the deftruction of all power, yet would surely and immediately be the deftruction of their own. if we might fuppofe that, through an extraordinary conjunction of circumftances, they should refolve among themselves upon the facrifice of those laws on which public liberty is founded, they would no fooner lift up their eyes towards that extensive Affembly which views them with a watchful And watchful attention, than they would find their public virtue return upon them, and would make hafte to resume that plan of conduct out of the limits of which they can expect nothing but ruin and perdition. In short, as the body of the People cannot act without either fubjecting themselves to fome Power, or effecting a general deftruction, the only fhare they can have in a Government with advantage to themselves, is not to interfere, but to influence, to be able to act, and not to act. The Power of the People is not when they ftrike, but when they keep in awe : it is when they can overthrow every thing, that they never need to move; and Manlius included all in four words, when he faid to the People of Rome, Oftendite bellum, pacem habebitis. CHA P. XIV. Proofs drawn from Facts, of the Truth of the Principles laid down in the prefent Work.-1. The peculiar Manner in which Revolutions have always been concluded in England. IT may not be fufficient to have proved by arguments the advantages of the English Conftitution it will perhaps be afked, whether the 6 effects effects correfpond to the theory? To this queftion (which I confefs is extremely proper) my answer is ready; it is the fame which was once made, I believe, by a Lacedæmonian,-Come and See. If we peruse the English History, we shall be particularly ftruck with one circumstance to be obferved in it, and which diftinguishes moft advantageously the English Government from all other free governments; I mean the manner in which Revolutions and public commotions have always been terminated in England. If we read with fome attention the History of other free States, we shall fee that the public diffenfions that have taken place in them, have conftantly been terminated by fettlements in which the interefts only of a few were really provided for; while the grievances of the many were hardly, if at all, attended to. In England the very reverse has happened; and we find Revolutions always to have been terminated by extenfive and accurate provifions for fecuring the general liberty. The History of the ancient Grecian Commonwealths, but, above all, of the Roman Republic, of which more complete accounts have been left us, affords striking proof of the former part of this obfervation. What What was, for inftance, the confequence of that great Revolution by which the Kings were driven from Rome, and in which the Senate and Patricians acted as the advifers and leaders of the People? The confequence was, as we find in Diony-. fius of Halicarnaffus, and Livy, that the Senators immediately affumed all thofe powers lately fo much complained of by themselves, which the Kings had exercifed. The execution of their future decrees was intrufted to two Magiftrates, taken from their own body, and entirely dependent on them, whom they called Confuls, and who were made to bear about them all the enfigns of power which had formerly attended the Kings. Only, care was taken that the axes and fafces, the fymbols of the power of life and death over the Citizens, which the Senate now claimed to itself, fhould not be carried before both Confuls at once, but only before one at a time, for fear, fays Livy, of doubling the terror of the People *. Nor was this all: the Senators drew over to their party thofe Men who had the most interest at that time among the People, and admitted * "Omnia jura (Regum), omnia infignia, primi Confules "tenuere; id modò cautum eft, ne, fi ambo fafces haberent, ❝ duplicatus terror videretur." Tit. Liv. lib. ii. § 1. them them as Members into their own body *; which indeed was a precaution they could not prudently avoid taking. But the interefts of the great Men in the Republic being thus provided for, the Revolution ended. The new Senators, as well as the old, took care not to leffen, by making provifions for the liberty of the People, a power which was now become their own. Nay, they presently stretched this power beyond its former tone; and the punishments which the Conful inflicted in a military manner on a number of those who still adhered to the former mode of Government, and even upon his own children, taught the People what they had to expect for the future, if they prefumed to oppose the power of those whom they had thus unwarily made their Masters. Among the oppreffive laws, or ufages, which the Senate, after the expulfion of the Kings, had permitted to continue, thofe which were most complained of by the People, were those by which thofe Citizens who could not pay their debts with the intereft (which at Rome was enormous) at the appointed time, became flaves to their Creditors, and were delivered over to them * These new Senators were called conscripti: hence the name of Patres Confcripti, afterwards indifcriminately given. to the whole Senate.-Tit. Liv, ibid. bound |