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THE

MONTHLY MISCELLANY:

FOR MARCH, 1811.

THE FREEHOLDERS POLITICAL CATECHISM.
BY LORD BOLINGBROKE.

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[2d. Ed. 1748.]

I am T. M. a freeholder of Great Britain.

Q. What privilege enjoyest thou by being a freeholder of Great Britain ?

4. By being a freeholder of Great Britain, I am a greater man in my civil capacity than the greatest subject of an arbitrary prince, because I am governed by laws, to which I give my consent; and my life, liberty, and goods cannot be taken from me, but according to those laws. I am a freeman.

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Q. Who gave thee this liberty? 4. No man gave it me. Liberty is the natural right of every human creature. He is born to the exercise of it, as soon as he has attained to that of his reason; but that my liberty is preserved to me, when lost to a great part of mankind, is owing under God to the wisdom and valour of my ancestors, freeholders of this realm.

Q. Wherein does this liberty, which thou enjoyest, consist?

A. In laws made by the consent of the people, and the due execution of those laws. I am free not from the law, but by the law.

Q. Wilt thou stand fast in this liberty, whereunto thou are born and entitled by the laws of thy country? A. Yes verily, by God's grace, I and I thank his good provi

will;

VOL, IX.

dence that I am born a member of a community governed by laws, and not by arbitrary power.

Q. What dost thou think incumbent upon thee, to secure this blessing to thyself and posterity?

A. As I am a freeholder, I think it incumbent upon me to believe aright concerning the fundamental articles of the government, to which I am subject; to write, speak, and act on all occasions conformably to this orthodox faith; to oppose, with all the powers of my body and mind, such as are enemies of our good constitution, together with all their secret and open abettors, and to be obedient to the King the supreme magistrate of the society.

Q. Rehearse unto me the articles of thy political creed?

A. I believe that the supreme, or legislative power of this realm, resides in the King, Lords, and Commone; that his Majesty King George the Second is sovereign, or supreme executor of the law; to whom, upon that account, all loyalty is due; that each of the three members of the legislature are endowed with their particular rights, and offices; that the king, by his royal prerogative, has the power of determining and appointing the time and place of the meeting of parliament; that the consent of King, Lords, and Commons is necessary to the being of a law, and all the three make but one lawgiver; that as to the freedom of

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consent in making of laws, those three powers are independent; and that each and all the three are bound to observe the laws that are made. Q. Why is the legislative power supreme?

A. Because what gives law to all, must be supreme.

Q. What meanest thou by loyalty to the King?

A. I have heard that loy signifies law; and loyalty obedience, according to law; therefore he, who pays this obedience, is a loyal subject; and be, who executes the king's com‐ mands, when contrary to law, is disloyal and a traitor.

Q. Is it not in the law, that the king can do no wrong?

A. It is; for since kings do not act immediately by themselves, but mediately by their officers, and inferior magistrates; the wisdom of the law provides sufficiently against any undue exercise of their power, by charging all illegal acts, and all kinds of mal-administration upon their ministers; by the great regard, which is paid to the king by this maxim, laying him under an indis purable obligation not to screen his ministers from public justice, or public enquiry.

Q. What doest thou mean by the royal prerogatives?

A. A discretionary power in the king to act for the good of the people, where the laws are silent, never contrary to law, and always subject to the limitations of the law.

Q. Is not then the king above the laws?

A. By no means; for the intention of government being the security of the lives, liberties and properties of the members of the community, they never can be supposed, by the law of nature, to give an arbitrary power over their persons and estates. King is a title, which, translated into several languages, signifies a magistrate with as many different degrees of power, as there are king

doms in the world; and he can have no power but what is given him by law; yea, even the supreme, or legislative power is bound, by the rules of equity, to govern by, laws. enacted, and published in due form; for what is not legal is arbitrary.

Q. How comes it that those, who endeavour to destroy the authority and independence of any of the branches of the legislature, subvert the constitution ?

A. By the fundamental laws of the constitution, the free and impar tial consent of each of the three members is necessary to the being of a law; therefore if the consent of any of the three is wilfully omitted, or obtained by terror or corruption, the legislature is violated; and instead of three there may be really and effectually but one branch of the legislature.

Q. Can you illustrate this by any example?

A. The royal authority and that of the house of peers were both destroyed by the house of commons, and by a small part of that, in the late civil war; so that the very form of government was annihilated.

Q. Can you give me an instance, where the form of government may be kept, and yet the constitution destroyed?

A. Yes. The forms of the free government of Rome were preserved under the arbitrary government of the Emperors. There was a senate, consuls, and tribunes of the people; as one might say King, Lords, and Commons; and yet the government under the Emperors was always despotic, and often tyrannical; and indeed the worst of all governments is tyranny sanctified by the appearance of law.

Q. By what means fell that great people into this state of slavery?

A. I have read the Roman his tory, and by what I can judge, it was by faction, corruption, and standing armies.

Q. All these things might happen to Romans but did ever any parliament of this nation give up the liberty of the people?

A. Yes. A packed parliament, in Richard the Second's time, established by a law the king's arbitrary power, and with leave to name a commission with parliamentary authority. Parliaments, in Henry the Eighth's time, were slaves to his passions, and one gave the king a legislative authority. And there are many instances of parliaments making dangerous steps towards the destruction of the liberty of the people.

Q. Who were the English monarchs, who were the most indulgent to the liberties of the people?

A. The great King ALFRED, who declared, that the English nation was as free as the thoughts of man; the glorious monarch, Edward the First, Edward the Third, and Henry the Fifth, who would not let his people swear to him till he had an opportunity of swearing to them, at his coronation; and the immortal Queen Elizabeth, who declared it by law high treason, during her life, and a premunire afterwards, to deny the power of parliament in limiting and binding the descent, or inheritance of the crown, or the claim to it.

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Q. When were those slavish maxims of hereditary, indefeazable right, and prerogative, superior to law, first introduced?

A. In the time of James the First; who by endeavouring to establish them, laid the foundation of all the miseries, which have since happened to his family; and it is the greatest security to the present branch of it, that such doctrines, which sow the seed of jealousy between the King and his people, are by the present establishment quite exploded.

Q. What didst thou learn from those histories?

A. That a king of this realm in the full possession of the affections of his people, is greater than any

arbitrary prince; and that the na tion can never be effectually undone but by a wicked parliament; and lastly, to be thankful to God that under our present and most gracious king, our constitution is preserved intire, though at the same time there are many circumstances, which call loudly for vigilance.

Q. What are those?

A. Such as have been the forerunners and causes of the loss of liberty in other countries; decay of virtue and public spirit, luxury, and extravagance in expence, venality and corruption, in private and public affairs.

Q. How comes there to be a decay of public spirit, when there is more than usual a desire to serve the public?

A. If a desire to live upon the public be a public spirit, there is enough of it at this time; when extravagance makes people crave more, and the administration of a puglic revenue (perhaps treble what it was before the revolution) enables the crown to give more than formerly.

Q. What dost thou fear from this ? A. That such as serve the crown for reward may in time sacrifice the interest of their country to their wants; that greediness of public money may produce a slavish complaisance, as long as the crown can pay; and mutiny when it cannot; and, in general that motives of self-interest will prove an improper and weak foundation for our duty to our King and country. Q. What wouldst thou do for thy country?

A. I would die to procure its prosperity; and I would rather that my posterity were cut off, than that they should be slaves; as providence at present requires none of these sacrifices, I content myself to discharge the ordinary duties of my station, and to exhort my neighbours to do the same.

Q. What are the duties of your station?

A. To endeavour, as far as I am able, to preserve the public tranquility; and, as I am a freeholder, to give my vote for the candidate, whom I judge most worthy to serve his country; for if from any partial motive I should give my vote for one unworthy, I should think myself justly chargeable with his guilt.

Q. Thou hast perhaps but one vote of five hundred, and the member perhaps one of five hundred more; then your share of the guilt is but small.

A. As he, who assists at a mur der, is guilty of murder, so he, who acts the lowest part in the enslaving his country, is guilty of a much greater crime than murder?

Q. Is enslaving one's country a greater crime than murder?

A. Yes; inasmuch as the murder of human nature is a greater crime than the murder of a human creature; or as he, who debaseth and rendereth miserable the race of mane kind, is more wicked than he, who cutteth off an individual.

Q. Why is enslaving mankind murdering human nature?

A. Because mankind in a state of slavery and freedom is a different sort of creature; for proof of this I have read what the Greeks were of old, and what they are now in a state of slavery.

Q. What is become of the heroes, philosophers, orators, and free citizens of Greece?

A. They are now slaves to the great Turk.

Q. What is become of the Scipio's

and Cato's of Rome ?

A. They sing now on the English,

stage.

Q. Does not the tranquility, occasioned by absolute monarchy, make the country thrive?

4. Peace and plenty are not the genuine fruits of absolute monarchy; for absolute monarchies are more sub ject to convulsions than free govern ments, and slavery turneth the fruit

ful plains into a desert; whercas liberty, like the dew from heaven, fructifieth the barren mountains. This I have learned from travellers, who have visited countries in both conditions; therefore, as I said be fore, I should reckon myself guilty of the greatest crime human nature is capable of, if I were any ways accessary to the enslaving my country. Though I have but one vote, many units make a number; and if every elector should reason after the same manner, that he has but one, what must become of the whole? A law of great consequence, and the election of the member who voted for that law, may be both carried by one vote. Great and important services for the liberties of their country have been done by ordinary men. I have read that the institution of the tribunes of Rome, or the whole power of the commons, was owing to a word spoken in season by a

common man.

Q. Is it not lawful then to take a bribe from a person otherwise worthy to serve his country?

A. No more than for a judge to take a bribe for a righteous sentence; nor is it any more lawful to corrupt, than to commit evil that good may come of it. Corruption converts a good action into wickedness. Bri bery of all sorts is contrary to the law of God; it is a heinous sin, often punished with the severest judgments; it involves in it the sin of perjury, as the law stands now; and is besides the greatest folly and madness, Q. How is it contrary to the law of God?

A. The law of God saith expressly, thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not take a gift. If it is a sin in a judge, it is much more in a lawgiver, or an elector; because the mischiefs occasioned by the first reach only to individuals; that of the last may affect whole nations, and even the generations to come. The Psalmist describing the wicked, saith, his

right hand is full of bribes. The prophet, describing the righteous, tells us, he shaketh his hands from holding a bribe. Samuel justifying his innocence, appeals to the people, of whose hands have I taken a bribe? Then as to divine vengeance, holy Job tells us, that God shall destroy the tabernacle of bribery, Achan's avarice who had appropriated to his own use the golden wedge and the Babylonish garment, brought the judgment of God upon the whole people, so that they fled before their enemies, till the criminal was discovered and stoned to death. The leprosy adhered to Gehazi (the servant of Elisha) and his house for ever, for taking a bribe from Naaman, a rich minister of a great prince. Therefore he, that taketh a bribe, may justly expect what is threatened in holy writ; he shall not prosper in his way, neither shall his substance continue; his silver and gold shall not be able to deliver him in the day of the wrath of the Lord. Q. Why is he, that taketh a bribe, guilty of the sin of perjury?

A. Because he sweareth. I A. B.* do swear (or being one of the people called Quakers, I A. B. do solemnly affirm) I have not recewed, or had by myself or any other person whatsoever in trust for me, or for my use or benefit, directly or indirectly, any sum or sums of money, office, place, or employment, gift or reward, or any promise or security for any money, office, employment or gift, in order to give my vote at this election; and that I have not before been polled at this election.

Q. What thinkest thou of those, who are bribed by gluttony and drunkenness ?

A. That they are viler than Esau, who sold his birth-right for a mess of porridge.

*This oath is enjoined in the late glorious act, for preventing bribery and corruption at elections.

Q. Why is taking a bribe folly, of madness?

A. Because I must refund tenfold in taxes of what I take in elections; and the member who bought me, has a fair pretence to sell me; nor can I, in such a case, have any just cause of complaint.

Q. What wilt thou say then to the candidate, that offers thee a bribe? A. I will say, thy money perish with thee! As thou art now purchasing thy seat in parliament, I have just reason to suspect thou resolvest to sell thy vote. What thou offerest, and what thou promiseth may be the price of the liberties of my country. I will not only reject thy bribe with disdain, but will vote against thee.

Q. Is not the justice of a king. sufficient security for the liberty of a people?

A. The people ought to have more security for all that is valuable in the world, than the will of a mortal and fallible man. A king of Britain may make as many peers, and such as he pleaseth; therefore the last and best security for the liberties of the people, is a house of Commons genuine and independent.

Q. What meanest thou by a genuine house of Commons ?

A. One that is the lawful issue of the people, and no bastard.

Q. How is a bastard house of Commons produced ?

A. When the people by terror, corruption, or other indirect means, chuse such as they otherwise would not chuse; when such as are fairly chosen, are not returned; when such as are returned, are turned out by partial votes in controverted elec tions, and others not fairly chosen set in their places.

Q. How may a house of Com❤ mons become dependent??

A. When the freedom of voting is destroyed by threatnings, promises, punishments, and rewards; by the open force of the government, or the insults of the populace; but above

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