ships undergone are not fufficient finally to produce civil commotions, yet in proportion to their frequency and magnitude the prosperity of the State will be impaired and retarded.

That in the whole code of British Laws there is not an individual statute, which men accustomed to the investigation of moral principles can fairly charge with any deviation from the line of ftrict juftice, is a pofition for the validity of which it would be too much to contend. It is not likely that such an assertion could be maintained with refpect to any Government exifting. But that the British Conftitution bears in every part of it the broad and ftrong characters of justice, is a truth fo prominent and obvious, that it fhould feem entitled to the immediate affent of every rational advocate for the duty of civil obedience, on whatever theory he may be difpofed to reft the obligation. If he founds the rights of government on the genuine and folid ground of national confent expreffed or implied, he fees that the British Government

that in each of the three branches it is fanctioned not merely by the paffive concurrence, but by the avowed and zealous approbation of the great mafs of the Community; that it is regarded with an attachment, which, being established on the wifeft principles, and confirmed by the experience of ages, is, we trust, more likely to increase than to abate, and may equally preclude from all hopes of fuccefs the favourers of a republican form of government on the one hand, and the fupporters of the indefeasible rights of kings on the other. If he contents himself with looking to expediency alone, and measures the title of Civil Governors to the fubmiffion of their fubjects folely by the fcale of the general welfare; he discovers perfons and property fecured, industry encouraged and rewarded, and public and private happiness permanently enjoyed in Great Britain, in a degree fcarcely if ever paralleled in any other part of the earth.

One leading circumftance however in the British Conftitution, the ftate of Popular Representation, has been repeatedly ftigmatised as incompatible with the fundamental principles

in

of juftice. It is undoubtedly true that a very large majority of the inhabitants of this kingdom has no elective voice in the appointment of the members of the Houfe of Commons ; other words, most of the people of Great Britain have no fuffrage in the nomination of the perfons who are to enact the laws, by which non-electors in common with the reft of the nation are to be governed. But the limited. diffufion of the elective franchife cannot fairly be affirmed to be neceffarily a breach (d) of juftice. The right of voting for a member of parliament is a public trust; it is as truly a civil office as the most confpicuous employment in the State; and, humble as it may feem, is a civil cffice of confiderable importance. All public offices and trufts being constituted in this kingdom for the general good of the whole; it is juft that they fhould be conferred under fuch political conditions as the general good may demand; and be devolved to those perfons alone, who poffefs the political qualifications deemed effential to the proper discharge

(d) Whether the limitation of the right of voting be repugnant to found policy, is a queftion which will be confidered hereafter in its proper place.

of the duties attached to them. Of thefe conditions and qualifications the nation is the judge. In exercifing its judgment, it is bound not to establish invidious diftinctions founded on unreasonable and partial grounds of preference. The medium which ought to be studied in the establishment of every civil qualification is to lay no greater reftraint on the rights of any individual than is manifeftly defirable for the general benefit of the community. But when the nation has fixed according to its best views of public utility the terms on which each public office fhall be conferred, and the defcription of perfons to whom it fhall be entrufted; no man who is deftitute of the civil qualifications prescribed has any plea for com→ plaining of injuftice in being precluded from filling the poft. It would be as unreasonable in a perfon thus difqualified to contend that he is treated with injuftice in not being permitted to be an elector, as it would be to affirm that - he is unjustly treated in not being permitted to be king. The king and the elector are alike public officers; and the nation has the fame right to appoint citizens of a particular description to choose members of parliament, as

it has to appoint a particular family to occupy

the throne.

We have alfo heard of late a direct charge of injuftice urged against the whole of the British Conftitution, on the ground of the Government being hereditary. The fubftance of the argument is, that to establish a particular family with hereditary powers is defpotifin, because it operates to preclude the confent of fucceeding generations; that the generation which first felects a perfon, and invests him with fovereignty, acs according to its own free deter mination, and lives under a Government chofen and established by itself; but in establishing hereditary fucceffion it affumes a character to which it has no right; it changes itself from a Legislator to a Teftator, and affects to make its will, thereby to take from each fubfequent race of men the right which itself had exercifed, of choosing any form of government deemed advifable, and to force on them a previously appointed form against their consent (e). This

(e) Had they, who urge this argument, pointed their accufations not against the abftract inftitution of hereditary