This is their affair, and they will make their option.
These new Whigs hold that the sovereignty, whether exercised by one or
many, did not only originate _from_ the people, (a position not denied
nor worth denying or assenting to,) but that in the people the same
sovereignty constantly and unalienably resides; that the people may
lawfully depose kings, not only for misconduct, but without any
misconduct at all; that they may set up any new fashion of government
for themselves, or continue without any government, at their pleasure;
that the people are essentially their own rule, and their will the
measure of their conduct; that the tenure of magistracy is not a proper
subject of contract, because magistrates have duties, but no rights;
and that, if a contract _de facto_ is made with them in one age,
allowing that it binds at all, it only binds those who are immediately
concerned in it, but does not pass to posterity. These doctrines
concerning _the people_ (a term which they are far from accurately
defining, but by which, from many circumstances, it is plain enough they
mean their own faction, if they should grow, by early arming, by
treachery, or violence, into the prevailing force) tend, in my opinion,
to the utter subversion, not only of all government, in all modes, and
to all stable securities to rational freedom, but to all the rules and
principles of morality itself.
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