A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings. Noah Webster
the produce of that country will be cheap at home, and a great profit will be made on the exportation. This profit will be returned, partly in goods and partly in money, and the country is enriched.
But the great principle, which should constitute the corner stone of government, is public justice. The fountain head should be pure, or the streams will be foul indeed. That Legislatures, or bodies politic, should make laws, annex penalties for disobedience, institute courts for deciding controversies and trying offenders, and execute punishments on those that are convicted; yet at the same time neglect to do justice themselves by paying their own debts; this is of all absurdities the most glaring. To compel individuals to perform contracts and yet break their own solemn promises; to punish individuals for neglect, and yet set a general example of delinquency, is to undermine the foundation of social confidence, and shake every principle of commutativ justice.
These are general principles in government and trade, and ought to be deeply impressed upon the minds of every American.
NEW YORK, 1788.
One of the principal objections to the new Federal Constitution, is, that it contains no Bill of Rights. This objection, I presume to assert, is founded on ideas of government that are totally false. Men seem determined to adhere to old prejudices, and reason wrong, because our ancestors reasoned right. A Bill of Rights against the encroachments of Kings and Barons, or against any power independent of the people, is perfectly intelligible; but a Bill of Rights against the encroachments of an electiv Legislature, that is, against our own encroachments on ourselves, is a curiosity in government.
The English nation, from which we descended, have been gaining their liberties, inch by inch, by forcing concessions from the crown and the Barons, during the course of six centuries.17 Magna Charta, which is called the palladium of English liberty, was dated in 1215, and the people of England were not represented in Parliament till the year 1265. Magna Charta established the rights of the Barons and clergy against the encroachments of royal perogativ; but the commons or people were hardly noticed in that deed. There was but one clause in their favor, which stipulated, that "no villain or rustic should, by any fine, be bereaved of his carts, plows and instruments of husbandry." As for the rest, they were considered as a part of the property belonging to an estate, and were transferred, as other moveables, at the will of their owners. In the succeeding reign, they were permitted to send Representativs to Parliament; and from that time have been gradually assuming their proper degree of consequence in the British Legislature. In such a nation, every law or statute that defines the powers of the crown, and circumscribes them within determinate limits, must be considered as a barrier to guard popular liberty. Every acquisition of freedom must be established as a right, and solemnly recognized by the supreme power of the nation; lest it should be again resumed by the crown under pretence of ancient prerogativ: For this reason, the habeas corpus act passed in the reign of Charles 2d, the statute of the 2d of William and Mary, and many others which are declaratory of certain privileges, are justly considered as the pillars of English freedom.
These statutes are however not esteemed because they are unalterable; for the same power that enacted them, can at any moment repeal them; but they are esteemed, because they are barriers erected by the Representativs of the nation, against a power that exists independent of their own choice.
But the same reasons for such declaratory constitutions do not exist in America, where the supreme power is the people in their Representativs. The Bills of Rights, prefixed to several of the constitutions of the United States, if considered as assigning the reasons of our separation from a foreign government, or as solemn declarations of right against the encroachments of a foreign jurisdiction, are perfectly rational, and were doubtless necessary. But if they are considered as barriers against the encroachments of our own Legislatures, or as constitutions unalterable by posterity, I venture to pronounce them nugatory, and to the last degree, absurd.
In our governments, there is no power of legislation, independent of the people; no power that has an interest detached from that of the public; consequently there is no power existing against which it is necessary to guard. While our Legislatures therefore remain electiv, and the rulers have the same interest in the laws, as the subjects have, the rights of the people will be perfectly secure without any declaration in their favor.
But this is not the principal point. I undertake to prove that a standing Bill of Rights is absurd, because no constitutions, in a free government, can be unalterable. The present generation have indeed a right to declare what they deem a privilege; but they have no right to say what the next generation shall deem a privilege. A state is a supreme corporate body that never dies. Its powers, when it acts for itself, are at all times equally extensiv; and it has the same right to repeal a law this year, as it had to make it the last. If therefore our posterity are bound by our constitutions, and can neither amend nor annul them, they are to all intents and purposes our slaves.
But it will be enquired, have we then no right to say, that trial by jury, the liberty of the press, the habeas corpus writ, and other invaluable privileges, shall never be infringed nor destroyed? By no means. We have the same right to say that lands shall descend in a particular mode to the heirs of the deceased proprietor, and that such a mode shall never be altered by future generations, as we have to pass a law that the trial by jury shall never be abridged. The right of Jury trial, which we deem invaluable, may in future cease to be a privilege; or other modes of trial more satisfactory to the people, may be devised. Such an event is neither impossible nor improbable. Have we then a right to say that our posterity shall not be judges of their own circumstances? The very attempt to make perpetual constitutions, is the assumption of a right to control the opinions of future generations; and to legislate for those over whom we have as little authority as we have over a nation in Asia. Nay we have as little right to say that trial by jury shall be perpetual, as the English, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, had, to bind their posterity forever to decide causes by fiery Ordeal, or single combat. There are perhaps many laws and regulations, which from their consonance to the eternal rules of justice, will always be good and conformable to the sense of a nation. But most institutions in society, by reason of an unceasing change of circumstances, either become altogether improper, or require amendment; and every nation has at all times, the right of judging of its circumstances and determining on the propriety of changing its laws.
The English writers talk much of the omnipotence of Parliament; and yet they seem to entertain some scruples about their right to change particular parts of their constitution. I question much whether Parliament would not hesitate to change, on any occasion, an article of Magna Charta. Mr. Pitt, a few years ago, attempted to reform the mode of representation in Parliament. Immediately an uproar was raised against the measure, as unconstitutional. The representation of the kingdom, when first established, was doubtless equal and wise; but by the increase of some cities and boroughs, and the depopulation of others, it has become extremely unequal. In some boroughs there is scarcely an elector left to enjoy its privileges. If the nation feels no great inconvenience from this change of circumstances, under the old mode of representation, a reform is unnecessary. But if such a change has produced any national evils of magnitude enough to be felt, the present form of electing the Representativs of the nation, however constitutional, and venerable for its antiquity, may at any time be amended, if it should be the sense of Parliament. The expediency of the alteration must always be a matter of opinion; but all scruples as to the right of making it are totally groundless.
Magna Charta may be considered as a contract between two parties, the King and the Barons, and no contract can be altered but by the consent of both parties. But whenever any article of that deed or contract shall become inconvenient or oppressiv, the King, Lords and Commons may either amend or annul it at pleasure.
The same reasoning applies to each of the United States, and to the Federal Republic in general. But an important question will arise from the foregoing remarks, which must be the subject of another paper.
NEW
Not that the English nation was originally in slavery; for the primitiv Saxons and Germans were free. But the military tenures, established by the Gothic conquests, depressed the people; so that under the rigor of the feudal system, about the date of Magna Charta, the King and Nobles held their tenants in extreme servitude. From this depression, the English have gradually emerged into ancient freedom.