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knows your constitution better than you do the lawyer will pretend you do not understand law, and he must manage your property-the priest will settle your accounts with God-the draper will choose your cloth and the taylor your fashion --and if you can but find money and implicit faith, back and legs to bear the burden, you may have the honour of ambling through the world, and carrying out of the dirt single, double, or treble, as many cunning men as choose to ride you. When a Jewish prince of this character died, he was buried with the burial of an ass.

TUESDAY.

CONSTITUTION.

George. OUR subject to day, Sir, is Constitution, the British constitution I suppose.

Parent. You have profited by yesterday's conversation, and are going to set out right by defining your terms, and by precisely settling what we are to talk about?

G. If I were going to travel eastward, and were to set the first step westward, every succeeding step in the same line would place me at a greater distance from my journey's end.

P. True. You have been thinking about the British constitution I perceive?

G. I have, but thinking seems dangerous to self-sufficiency, for I always find I know less of a subject when I aim at precision, than I fancied I did.

P. What difficulty have you met with?

G. I have dipped into Judge Blackstone's commentaries, and I find in one place he calls king, lords, and commons the British constitution, and in another he says members of parliament are guardians of the constitution.

P. Distinguish between government and governors, and you will perceive both his expressions are right.

G. How Sir!

P. Do not you perceive a difference between à rule of action, and a ruler who enforces the rule; between regulation and regulator, government and governor?

G. I do. But I do not immediately comprehend the application,

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P. Patience! What is it to constitute?

G. To make any thing what it is.

P. And what is constitution?

G. It is the act of making any thing what it is.
P. And what is the British constitution?
G. I fear I am aground. Why, British consti-
tution is that in Britain, which is what it is.

P. Is it not necessary to determine what thing you are inquiring into the constitution, or make of?

G. Pardon me, Sir, it may be necessary for you: but nobody can necessitate me to perform an impossibility. I protest I do not know what I am talking of.

P. You are talking of the British constitution; you say, constitution is the act of making something what it is, and I ask what this something is. G. And I declare I do not know.

P. Suppose we try the word law, understanding by it rule of action, regulation of rights, or civil government? And suppose I were to affirm, thaṭ the municipal law of Great Britain is constituted, or made up of just and virtuous political princi

ples; principles conformable to those of the eternal immutable and infallible law of nature? Would that elucidate the subject?

G. I should then perfectly comprehend how king, lords, and commons were guardians of the constitution, for it would mean, that they were the expositors, superintendants, protectors, and administrators of the law of nature, that is, the just rights of mankind.

P. The question, then, is, what are the NATURAL RIGHTS of mankind, for the preservation of which British law is constituted, or made up?

G. Certainly mankind have natural rights. P. When an infant is born, has any man a right to kill him?

G. It would be murder. He has a right to life.

P. As the child grows up has he a right to the free use of his eyes, hands, and legs, all the senses of his body, and all the powers of his mind?

G. He has a right to liberty, and it would be wrong either to imprison his body, or to shackle

his mind.

P. If he apply himself to labour, or to traffick, has he a right to enjoy and dispose of the profits of his own industry?

G. His property is truly his own. It is right he should enjoy it without fear.

P. If any man should deprive him of any of his rights by fraud or force, ought not justice to be done in his behalf?

G. Surely.

P. Man, then you allow, has a right to exercise and enjoy his own life, limbs, health, reputa tion, liberty, property, and conscience, and it is just to protect him in the enjoyment of his rights: or, to be more concise, every man has a natural right to personal security, personal liberty, and private property.

G. I allow the whole.

P. When you speak of the English constitution, then, you mean, that the law or the rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power to all the inhabitants of this kingdom, is made up of these just first principles?

G. I do.

P. And look you

ment.

G. Yes.

upon

this to be civil govern

P. And you consider governors, or the supreme power in this kingdom as guardians of this constitution, or body of right?

G. I do.

P. What does a member of parliament call his electors?

G. His constituents.

P. What is a constituent?

G. One who constitutes, or appoints another to be his deputy.

P. Do the electors of Great Britain appoint, or constitute the rights of mankind?

G. No surely. The rights of mankind are natural, and prior to all appointments.

P. Why then do you pretend to be constituents?

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