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

Dut! of Supmissi(Jn explained. 319
~; nor do they apprehend that the validity or au.
thorityof the laws depends at ail upon their recognition
or consent~ In all stipulations, whether they
be expressed or implied, private or public, formal or
constructive, the parties stipulating must both possess
the liberty of assent and refusal, and also be con·
scious of tl1is liberty; \v hich cannot \vith truth be
affirmed of the suhjects of civil government, as govel~nment
is now, or ever ,,·as actually administered.
'!'his is a defect, \vhich. no arguments can excuse or
iupply: all presumptions of consent, without this
consciou~iness, or in opposition to it, are \~ain and
erroneous. Still less is it possible to reconcile with
any idea of stipulation the practice in which all European
nations agree, of founding allegiance upon
the circum5tance of nativity,. that is, of clainling
and treating as subjects all those who are born with.
in the confines of their dominions, although removed
to another country in their youth or infancy.
In this instance certainly, the state does not··presume
a compact. Also if the subject be bound only by
his own CORsent, and if the voluntary abiding in the
country be the proof and illtimation of that consent,
by what arguments shall we defend the right, which
sovereigns universally assume, of prohibiting, when
they please, the departure cf their subjects out of the
realm? -
Again, when it is contended that the taking and
holding possession of land amounts to an acknowledgment
of the sovereign, and a virtual promise of
aUegiance to his laws, it is necessary to the validity
of the argument to prove, that the inhabitants,· who
first composed and constituted the state, collectively
posse~sed :l right to the soil of the country-a right
to parcel it out to whom tIley pleased, and to annex
to the donation what conditions they thought fit.
l-Iow came they by this right? An agreement
among~~'t t}1cn1selves would not confer it: that could
~nly aJjust what already belonged to them. A so ...
'7,i(Jt:\, of Inf?n vote thcll1scl,'es ta b~ the c\vners of a
R P.