But this natural and just order of things is too often in terrupted and broken. Usurpation may either occupy the place of those rulers, whether supreme or subordinate, whom alone the people acknowledge as lawful ; or tyranny may characterise the conduct of those rulers themselves. In both cases, the administration of government, and, as an usual, or rather almost necessary consequence, the form of government itself, have undeniably become ; and the people, if they can yet command sufficient force, or whenever they choose to risk the attempt, may, with perfect justice, endeavour to displace and punish the usurper and tyrant. Should they neither command suffi cient force, nor choose to risk the attempt, the govern ment of the usurper may become legitimate, by the justice with which it is afterwards administered, and by reiterated acts of sufficiently implied consent on the part of the peo ple : but that of the tyrant can never become so. He may hold his people in a precarious subjection, if they choose to remain in his territory, by the principle of fear ; but none of his enactments, or of their involuntary compliances, can ever render his authority legitimate, or deprive the people of the right to displace and punish him when they can, and to substitute another governor, as well as to ap point another form of government more equitable and friendly to liberty.
Second, That consent of the people, they further main tained, which is direct and expressly conventional, although by no means of such frequent occurrence in the history of civil government as the former species of consent, is yet sufficiently frequent to prove its existence, and give an idea of its nature. Among rude tribes, we find instances of general assemblies of the people, met for the express purpose of electing their rulers by a majority of suffrages. The great civil magistrates of several of the states of Greece, and particularly the archons and other civil officers of Athens, together with the consuls and most of the other magistrates of Rome, were appointed periodically by the act of the people. Most of the ancient colonies also, whe titer they originated from Greece, Rome, or Carthage, were left at liberty to establish such a form of civil polity, and to choose such inlet's, as the colonists themselves thought best ; the respective mother countries claiming no authority over them, but only soliciting from their friend ship, consanguinity, or bounty, assistance in times of gene ral difficulty and danger. The government established by the United Provinces in the reign of Philip Il I. of Spain, by America in 1782, and, proud reflection ! by Great Bri tain herself in 1688, may be quoted as further examples, in which this direct and expressly conventional consent of the people was exercised.
But as the theory of Filmer was fated to fall before the opposition of Sidney and Locke, so the system which these distinguished men had set up in its stead, was, in its turn, exposed to an attack, which, if less efficacious, proceeded notwithstanding from a quarter not less respectable. About the middle of the last century, Mr Hume and some other writers undertook to shew, that the doctrine of the consent of the people, as the only basis of legitimate government, was altogether erroneous and visionary.
If it be meant, said they, that the contract, implied or direct, between the sovereign and the people, is the agree ment by which men in a savage state form the social union, and from which every community is originally derived, we admit the accuracy of the fact, but deny its obligation on men in the advanced stages of society : Every- govern ment that has endured for any period, has undergone the most entire changes since its first establishment ; nor can a consent or voluntary acquiescence, which was given some centuries ago, be binding under a totally different aspect of the political arrangement.
Again, in those instances, they further observed, which seem the most favourable to the doctrine of the consent of the people, the real exercise of the right has been alto gether imperfect or illusory. In the most perfect and ex tensive republics of antiquity, not a tenth part of the peo ple voted either for the original establishments, or on the enactment of any subsequent law ; and even at the boasted Revolution of 1688 itself, the Prince of Orange was brought over, and seated on the throne, by a mere junto of the Eng lish people. But, it was further said, if, even in these instances, the principle has in fact no place, how much less shall we find it realized in any of the other govern ments, which either actually exist, or which history has recorded ? In perhaps all of them, it is not difficult to trace the sovereign authority to conquest, usurpation, donation by testament, or some other mode of fraud or violence. Hereditary descent prevails the most generally ; yet it would be bold to affirm that none of these governments were lawful, or that the people were never sensible of any obligation to submit to their authority. In fine, " though an appeal," says Mr Hume, in the concluding part of his Essay on the Original Contract, " though an appeal to general opinion may justly, in the speculative sciences of metaphysics, natural philosophy, or astronomy, be deemed unfair and inconclusive, yet in all questions with regard to morals, as well as criticism, there is really no other stand ard by which any controversy can ever be decided ; and nothing is a clearer proof that a theory of this kind is erroneous, than to find that it leads to paradoxes repug nant to the common sentiments of mankind, and to the practice and opinion of all nations and all ages. The doc trine which founds all lawful government on an original contract, or consent of the people, is plainly of this kind ; nor has the most noted of its partizans, in pt osecution of it, scrupled to affirm, that absolute monarchy is inconsis tent with civil society, and so can be no of civil go vernment at all, and that the supreme powtr in a state can not take from any man, by taxes and impositions, any hart of his property,without his own consent, or that of his repre sentatives.* \Vnat authority," continues Mr Flume, " any moral reasoning can have, which leads into opinions so wide • of the general practice of mankind, in every place but this single kingdom, it is easy to determine." In the remarks which we have already made, when de tailing what we conceive to be the just and fair state of the doctrine of the consent of the people, we have already, perhaps, anticipated the proper answer to some of these objections. We shall, therefore, only very briefly take further notice of them.