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BISE OF THE CONTINENTALand practical introduction into other states shall be expresslydetermined upon, and loudly proclaimed? Does not theduty of self-preservation then step in ? Will it not then berequisite even to take up arms in self-defence, and to combat those principles?These cases occurred as soon as the French revolutiontook itsproper direction. This was founded upon the sovereignty of the people ; but the sovereignty of the peoplestands in direct oppositionto the monarchical principle.Now only one sovereign can exist in a state, not two. Eitherthe people are the sovereign, and then is the state a republic,or the monarch, whatever may be his title. If he ceases tobe so, then he sinks directly to the level of a mere magistrate ;whether he preserve the title of king or"not. It is,"says Pitt, in one of those powerful speeches, from which Ishall have frequent occasion to quote, (and what higher authority can be cited than that of such a statesman at thehead of the freest of all monarchies"?)It is agross perversion of the principles of all political society, to suppose thatthere exists continually, in every government, a sovereigntyin abeyance (as it were) on the part of the people, ready to"be called forth on every occasion, or rather, on every pretence, when itmay suit the purposes of the party or factionwho are the advocates of this doctrine, to suppose an occasion for its exertion. It is in those false principles that arecontained the seeds of all the misery, desolation, and ruin,which in the present day have spread themselves over solarge a portion of the habitable globe. I have said moreupon this subject than I should have thought necessary, ifI had not felt that this false and dangerous mockery of thesovereignty of the ispeople in truth one of the chief elements of Jacobinism, one of the favourite impostures to mislead the understanding, and to flatter and inflame the passionsof the mass of mankind, who have not the opportunity ofexamining and exposing it, and that, as such, on every occasion and in every shape in which it appears, it ought tobe combated and resisted by every friend to common order,and to the peace and happiness of mankind." 1But if this principle were directly opposed to the Britishconstitution, a constitution which is a pre-eminent example1Speeches, iii. p. 58, etc.