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

Duty oj Submission explained. S~ 7
idea, of any of which history has preserved the account
or memory. I refer to the establishment of
the United States of North-America. We saw the
pcoplc assembled to elect deputies, fOf the avowed
pnrpose of framing the constitution of a new empire.
We saw this deputation of the people deliberating
and resolving upon a form of government,
erecting a permanent legislatur~, distributing the
functions of sovereignty, establishing and promuigat ..
ing a code of fundamental ordinances, which were
to be considered by suceeding generations, not
merely as laws and acts of the state, but as the very
terms and conditions of the confederation; as bind ..
ing not only upon the subjects and magistrates of the
state, but as limitations of power, which were to
control and regulate the future Iegis1ature. Yet
even here much was presupposed. In settling the
constitution many important parts were presumed
to be already settled. The qualifications of the CODstituents
who were admitted to vote in the election
of members of congress, as well as the mode of
electing the representatives, were taken from tr~e
old forms of government. That was wanting from
'. which every social union should set off, and which
alone makes the resolutions of the society the act of
the individual, the unconstrained consent of all to
be bound by the decisfion of the majority; and yet,
without this previous' consent, the revolt, and the
regulations which followed it, were compo-Isorv
• • II
upon dIssentIents.
But the original compact, we are told, is not proposed
as a fact, but as a fiction, which furnishes a
commodious explication of the mutual tights and
duties of sovereigns and subjects. In answer to this
representation of the matter, \ve observe, that the
original COUlpact, if it be llot a fact, is nothing;
can confer no actual authority l upon laws or
magistrates, nor ~Jrord any foundation to rights,
which are supposed to be real and existing. But
the truth is, that in the book~, and in the apprehension
of tho~e who deduce Qm' civil rights and obli..