The Whig reader may make his
choice between the two doctrines.
The doctrine, then, propagated by these societies, which gentlemen think
they ought to be very tender in discouraging, as nearly as possible in
their own words, is as follows: That in Great Britain we are not only
without a good Constitution, but that we have "no Constitution";--that,
"though it is much talked about, no such thing as a Constitution exists
or ever did exist, and consequently that _the people have a Constitution
yet to form_;--that since William the Conqueror the country has never
yet _regenerated itself_, and is therefore without a Constitution;--that
where it cannot be produced in a visible form there is none;--that a
Constitution is a thing antecedent to government; and that the
Constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of a
people constituting a government;--that _everything_ in the English
government is the reverse of what it ought to be, and what it is said to
be in England;--that the right of war and peace resides in a metaphor
shown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling apiece;--that it signifies
not where the right resides, whether in the crown or in Parliament; war
is the common harvest of those who participate in the division and
expenditure of public money;--that the portion of liberty enjoyed in
England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by
despotism.
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