PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

316 Duty Dj Submission e.'(plained.
regulations; and then to have constituted, either in
one person, or in an assembly (the rule of succession
or appointment beIng :It the same time determined)
a standing legislature, to whom, unci ~r these pre-established
restrictions, the government of the state was
thenceforward committed, and whose laws the several
members of the convention were, by their first
undertaking, thus persc\qally engaged to obey~ This
transaction is sometimes called the social compact, and
these supposed original regulations compose what are
meant by the constitution, the Jundanzclztallaws of tbe
constitution; and form, on one side, the inl'crent indefeasible
prerogative oj the crown: and, on the other, the
unalienable imprescriptible birth right of the ~ubject.
Secondly, A tocit or implied c'Dmpact, by ail succeeding
members of the state, who by a(~cepting its
protection, consent to be bound by its laws; in like
manner] as whoever 'Voluntarily enters into a private
society) is understood, without any other or more
explicit stipulation, to promise a confornrity with the
rules, and obedience to the government of that society,
as the known conditions upon which he is ad.
luitted to a participation of its privileges.
rfhis account of the subject, although specious,
and patronized by names the nlost respectable, appears
to labour under the following objections; that
it is founded upon a supposition false in fact; and
leading to dangerous conclusions. No social compact,
similar to what is ,here described, was ever
made or entered into in reality; no such original
~onvelltion of tIle people was ever actually held, or
in any country could be held, antecedent to the
existellce of civil governnlent in that country. It is
to suppose it possible to call savages out of caves and
deserts, to deliberate and vote upon topics, which
the expE-!"i~nce, alld studies, and refinements of civil
life alone suggest. Therefore no government in the
universe began from this original. Some imitation of
a cocial compact may have taken place at a revolution.
The present age has been witness to a transaction,
which bears the nearest resemblance to this politkal