intrigue, would stimulate the leaders of the people to adopt an attitude worthy of their exalted position. He would cherish most tenderly every institution which tended to preserve the historical dignity of the constitution, whilst removing the morbid growths which had accumulated in darkness and stagnation. A different spirit, however, was beginning to stir the political surface; and the method by which Burke encountered it can best be expounded by his attitude towards the American and the French Revolutions. The influence of the American War of Independence upon European politics is an interesting subject, to which, perhaps, full justice has hardly been done. The early leaders of the French movement were undoubtedly stimulated by the American precedent. The names of Lafayette and Beaumarchais, of Franklin and Tom Paine, of Priestley and Price, suggest different links of connection between the American outbreak and the advance of democracy in Europe. The philosophers for once saw what appeared to be a realisation of their dreams. A great nation was casting aside the relics of feudalism and monarchy, and founding a new constitution upon first principles. The social contract of theory seemed to be translating itself into history. And yet the immediate causes of the struggle were in the oldfashioned English creed, rather than in any new development of doctrine. If men like Franklin and Jefferson sympathised with the French philosophy, Washington seemed to be an American reproduction of Hampden, and Hamilton and the Federalists were believers in Montesquieu, and ardent admirers of the British Constitution. The social order in America was democratic enough to satisfy the abstract theorists; but it had developed itself peacefully and imperceptibly; and the descendants of the Puritans could appeal to the immemorial privileges of British subjects. Thus two distinct forces were blended in the general result; and the views taken by the supporters of the Americans were characteristically different. 112. On the immediate questions at issue, indeed, there could be little room for dispute amongst men not blinded by the bigotry of patriotism. The essence of the dispute was simply that the English Government had managed the colonies in the shopkeeping' spirit, and yet were not shopkeepers enough to adopt Tucker's recommendation to treat their customers civilly. The colonies were regarded as factories, whose trade was retained for English merchants by the elaborate system of navigation laws. No one thought of protesting against the system; and even the Americans acquiesced, until English statesmen proposed to tax them directly as well as to monopolise their trade. That they were justified in protesting was obvious even then to men who could think. With the two exceptions of Johnson and Gibbon,' says Wraxall, 'all the eminent and shining talents of the country led on by Burke were marshalled in support of the colonies.' The expensive and wicked blunder of the war was, of course, popular, like other such blunders, with the mass of the country. In 1777 Burke, writing to Lord Rockingham, reckons amongst the opponents of their views, the weight of King, Lords, and Commons,' nearly all the loungers, the chief part of the commercial and landed interests, and the whole Church in a manner,' besides the army and navy.2 The mass was decided by passion and by narrow prejudice; and the misfortune of the English people was its incapacity to take a view of affairs commensurate with its position. 'I think,' said Burke in 1788, 'I can trace all the calamities of this country to the single source of not having had steadily before our eyes a general, comprehensive, and well-proportioned view of the whole of our dominions, and a just sense. of their true bearings and relations.' Here, as in domestic politics, the governing classes from whom Burke expected so much were miserably contracted in their views. When the rulers of a vast empire treated whole continents in the spirit of petty traders, it was no wonder if they had to write off enormous losses in their ledgers. In this case the attempt to inspire a new spirit by removing abuses was too late. Blunders all but irretrievable had already been committed; and the only hope was to persuade the legislature to retract whilst there was yet time. The abolition of the offensive taxes was of course necessary; but on what principles were the future relations of the empire to be adjusted? This was the problem with which Burke attempted to deal, and his 3 1 Wraxall's 'Historical Memoirs,' ii. 79. 2 Burke, ix. 167. Ib. iv. 201, 'Nabob of Arcot's Debts.' solution brought him into conflict with the other wing of the conciliatory party. 113. His first effort was to clear the whole discussion from the confusion imparted into it by the theory of abstract rights. The endless wranglings upon these insoluble metaphysical questions entangled and embittered every part of the argument. Johnson and a host of other writers asserted the indefeasible right of England to govern America. Lyttelton, in the House of Lords, quoted the social compact to prove that the Americans had tacitly consented to the absolute rule of Parliament;' Pownall inferred from the theory of essential and indefeasible rights' that the Americans ought to have representatives in the English Parliament; Chatham, the most weighty, but the most wayward, defender of the colonies, declared that the colonists had an absolute right to arrange their own internal taxation; but that the mother-country had an absolute right to levy taxes for the regulation of commerce. And, meanwhile, Americans were rapidly learning that they had an absolute and indefeasible right to independence. Burke alone desired to sweep aside the whole controversy as so much frivolous logomachy. If only he could persuade men to see that the question was simply a question of expediency, it would answer itself. Men might wrangle till doomsday over the question of abstract right; nobody but a fool would support a policy of simple oppression, stripped bare of the delusive figment of abstract right. 114. On this ground Burke supported the Declaratory Act, passed by the Rockingham Ministry concurrently with the repeal of the compact. In a history of events, especially if it included the history of what might have been, it might be worth enquiring whether Chatham's policy would not have been better than that which Burke supported. Possibly the recognition of some right in the matter would have satisfied the popular instincts, when Burke's almost nervous desire to transfer the question from the ground of right to the ground of expediency exposed him to some misinterpretation. Indeed, the assertion of the absolute supremacy of the Imperial Government, coupled with an abandonment of the measures 1 Phillimore's 'Life of Lyttelton,' p. 693. 1 passed in virtue of its supremacy, resembled, at first sight, one of those abstract rights which Burke so intensely hated. But Burke's own view-whether suited or not to the timewas perfectly clear and coherent. Chatham's plan of distinguishing between the legitimate and the illegitimate action of the supreme legislature, of 'parcelling out its powers by argumentative distinctions, would have raised a host of delicate and indeterminable questions. The Declaratory Act merely expressed the first principle of jurisprudence, the omnipotence of the sovereign. Parliament is omnipotent in England, and yet England is a free country. Parliament might, if it pleased, restore the High Commission Court or the Star Chamber,' and once more alter the established religion, without any breach of the constitution. Our security is not that such actions would be illegal, but that they would be mad. The ultimate guarantee in all cases is the commonsense of the country; and it is useless to trammel ourselves beforehand by definitions which tie our hands in unforeseen contingencies. Legislative omnipotence might be necessary for imperial as well as for national purposes; it might be required to coerce negligent or violent members of the empire into measures adopted for the common defence; the power should not be abolished, but should be kept in reserve; 'its repose may be the preservation of its existence, and its existence may be the means of saving the constitution itself un an occasion worthy of bringing it forth.'3 Thus, to declare the unity of the sovereign power was necessary to the unity of the empire, and was as different as possible from proposing to use those rights for tyrannical purposes. 'I look,' he says, 'on the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world.' Thus, in Burke's mind, the Declaratory Act was intended to remove the question of abstract right altogether out of the arena of discussion, and to leave all the matters at issue to be settled by expediency. 115. This once granted, the wise mode of treatment was palpable. Without entering into the wretched quibbles about 3 1 virtual representation and all the hopeless confusion produced by the importation of legal fictions and metaphysical refinements into a plain matter of policy, it was abundantly clear that a great people who have their property, without any reserve, disposed of by another people at an immense distance from them, will not think themselves in the enjoyment of liberty.' That was the only question worthy of a statesman's notice. If any ask me what a free government is, I answer that, for practical purposes, it is what the people think it, and that they and not I are the natural, lawful, and competent judges in this matter.' The definition excited Johnson's contempt. 'I will let the King of France govern me on those conditions,' he said, 'for it is to be governed just as I please.' The only alternative, according to him and others, lies between other men doing just what I please and doing just what they please. The difference between an arbitrary and a responsible authority, between an authority which imposed its own views upon its subjects and one which held itself rigidly to the test afforded by their contentment, was one which could not be driven into the heads of the English people. So long at least as they were themselves the governors, they could not comprehend Burke's maxim, 'to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.' In vain he explained to them, with admirable force, the true character of their subjects. The origin of the people, their form of government, their religion, their attitude in presence of a slave population, their love of law, their distance from the central authority, were, he said, so many causes of their fierce spirit of liberty and so many reasons for breaking their spirit was the answer of men who could see no difference between claiming supreme power and using it for their own purposes. The incapacity of the sovereign people for appreciating Burke's reasoning should perhaps have been an argument for restraining them by Chatham's proposed restriction, however unsatisfactory in theory; instead of inviting them to assume 4 Burke, iii. 180, Sheriffs of Bristol.' |