Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“ We observe, fire! a second source of war in that noisy and incessant abuse of your majesty's measures; which it has become a fashion of state for a few men to pour forth in the legislature, and by which they make known their desires to be admitted to a share of your royal bounties. This abuse, springing altogether from their angry disappointment, or their eager hopes, or their impatient necessities, is mixed up with the noblest sentiments borrowed from the works of the enlightened and unluxurious ancients, and falsely and dangerously applied to these times and this nation. ”

“ Admirable exceptions! and truly consoling to the six millions who inhabit "that part of Great Britain called England." The unrestrained Right of petitioning against grievances confined to Lord Lieutenants, Sheriffs of Counties, and Bodies Corporate! to men and to sets of men, against whom as being themselves an heavy grievance, we should do well to petition. And to Justices of Peace; men appointed in a moment by Government and displaced in a moment: whose office is absolutely dependent on the will of the Crown, and who are therefore nothing more or less than a scattered Army of King's Guards! ”

“ In whose hands can the public welfare be safely entrusted, if not to the heads of the Army, the Navy, and the Law? men receiving much and expecting more, men, who must have cut and squared their notions and feelings to the grand scheme of getting forward in the world? to answer one question by another, in whose hands could it be worse intrusted? are not men who are the servants of Government out of the house, likely to prove its very convenient friends within the house? ”

“ A government indeed we should have had: there is not a slave-plantation in the world that has not a government! but a Constitution, if it mean any thing, signifies certain known Laws, which limit the expectations of the people and the discretionary powers of the legislature. Such is the Bill of Rights; the most essential article of which would have been annulled: this clause therefore could not have become a law, or have been entitled to moral obedience. ”

“ Alas! it is the vice of this nation, that if a minister merely promise to increase the comforts or enlarge the liberties of the people, he instantly conjures up such a wild and overwhelming popularity, as enables him to execute with impunity the most ruinous schemes against both. ”

“ No political information from the Press can previously enlighten the people; and if they meet, the deliberation must be engrossed by the hireling defenders of that scheme of cruelty and imposture, which the ministry chuse to call our Constitution. We can no longer consult in common on common grievances. Our assemblies will resemble a silent and sullen mob of discontented slaves who have surrounded the palace of some eastern tyrant. ”

“ For first, the taxes are not levied in equal proportions, so that without directly injuring himself a legislator may vote away the pittance of the poor: secondly, where the actual, efficient, independent legislators are so few, and the revenues of Government so immense, the administration can always put into a great man's pocket incalculably more than they take from his estate: thirdly, his wealth so far from lifting him above temptation exposes him to it. A man of large fortune lives in a splendour and luxury, which long habit makes him consider essential to happiness. ”

“ But not only are the exertions of living genius to be smothered by the operation of this execrable clause! All names of past ages dear to liberty are equally proscribed! He who prints and publishes against monarchy, as well as he who writes against it, is a traitor. The future editions will be treasonable. If the legislature can pass, if the people can endure such a law, it will soon pass, they will easily endure a domiciliary inquest, which will go through our private and our public libraries with the expurgatorial besom! ”

“ Government over the people is known by the name of Despotism, or arbitrary Government: which term does not necessarily imply that one man possesses exclusively the power and direction of the state, for this is no where the case. ”

“ But to declare by authority of parliament that the offenders are so numerous, and the abuse of so spreading and dangerous nature, that the severe penalties already enacted are inadequate to the preventing it, will not this suggest to every unprejudiced man the dread, that enemies so numerous could not have arisen without previous oppression, and that abuse so calculated to spread must have some foundation in truth? ”

“ If then it can be proved, that the people at large "have proxies," or "debate by representation," or have "the choice of representatives," the question will decide in your favour who assert the British Constitution to be the second or mixed mode of Government. If these points cannot be proved, in favour of us who suspect it to be a Despotism. Now we are of opinion, not only that such points cannot be made evident, but that the contrary may be demonstrated. The people (you say) exercise a legislative power by proxies, that is, by the majority in the House of Commons. ”

“ Our ancestors were wisely cautious in framing the bill of treason; they would not admit words as sufficient evidences of intention. How often does the tongue utter what the moment after the heart disapproves! these indiscretions are blameable in the individual, but the frequency of them was honorable to the nation at large, as it demonstrated the unsuspecting spirit of a free government, too proud to be jealous!—Besides, words are easily mistated without ill-intention; how easily then, where Power can pay Perjury? ”

“ Pale-hearted men, who cannot approve, yet who dare not oppose a most foul ministry, is it come to this, that Britons should depend on clemency not justice, that Britons should whine to Ministers to stand between them and the law? But if honest pride and burning indignation prevent not the question in you, experience answers—that wherever it shall suit the purposes of a corrupt and abandoned ministry, these Acts will be administered to the utmost stretch of possible implication. ”

“ Parliament cannot annul the Constitution. The Constitution is the Law paramount, and prevents the supreme from becoming an arbitrary power. Whenever the Constitution shall be violated, then the Right of resistance will commence; a Right restricted only by prudence, that is, a knowledge of the means. Such sentiments "amount to legal Treason," exclaims our minister. ”

“ Is it possible, that this man should remain the confidential servant of a free nation? that a nation should admit one encroachment on Freedom from a wretch who dared menance its total destruction? Is it possible, that a Matron should court the company and suffer the lesser loves of the foul-hearted Libertine, whom she had with difficulty repelled from the last violence? ”

“ Sages and patriots that being dead do yet speak to us, spirits of Milton, Locke, Sidney, Harrington! that still wander through your native country, giving wisdom and inspiring zeal! the cauldron of persecution is bubbling against you,—the spells of despotism are being muttered! ”

“ WE have entrusted to Parliament the guardianship of our liberties, not the power of surrendering them. Shame fall on the mitred mufti, who aims to persuade us, that it is the Almighty's will that the greatest part of mankind should come into the world with saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, and the remaning few ready booted and spurred for the purpose of riding them. ”

“ To promulge what we believe to be truth is indeed a law beyond law; but now if any man should publish, nay, if even in a friendly letter or in social conversation any should assert a Republic to be the most perfect form of government, and endeavour by all argument to prove it so, he is guilty of High Treason: for what he declares to be the more perfect, and the most productive of happiness, he recommends ”

“ The old Treason Laws are superseded by the exploded commentaries of obsequious Crown lawyers, the commentary has conspired against the text: a vile and useless slave has conspired to dethrone its venerable master. "If any person within the realm or without shall compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend death or destruction, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maim or wounding, imprisonment or restraint of the person of our sovereign Lord, the King, or if he levy war against his Majesty, or move or stir any foreigner or stranger to invasion—he shall be adjudged a traitor." ”

“ The Treason and Sedition Bills are so framed, that they include all men who recommend reform by the only possible mode of recommendation, the detection of a defectiveness in our Constitution, and of iniquity and abuse in our Government. The selection of particular persons for punishment depends entirely on the minister. The Bills are a vast aviary, and all the honest are incaged within it. ”

“ When it occurs, it may ameliorate our service, but (unless the mode of representation be improved) it cannot make us freemen; I mean, that although it may occasionally procure good laws, it cannot secure to us the permanence of them. It is security which distinguishes liberty from a virtuous Despotism: and this security never exists unless when the legislative power is in the hands of those, whose worldly self-interests manifestly preponderate in favour of the incorrupt use of it. ”

“ Do ye not know, that our nature is liable to corruption? and that to be delivered from evil we must not be led into temptation? Have we not then the authority of Christ for asserting that men, who have been made Judges by a ministry and hope to be made Lord Chancellors, may and sometimes will be the creatures of that ministry? But enough, of so contemptible an argument for Bills so big with rain? ”

“ And from the same source it arises, that Government which ought to employ itself for the benefit of the people, is engrossed by the anxieties of self-preservation, and that legislative power, which might have been successfully exerted to the cure and prevention of national immorality, is wasted in degrading hostilities against libels and treason. ”

“ Any man, whom a magisterial neighbour chuses to insult under pretext of suspicion, is liable to a domiciliary inquest. Our houses are no longer our castles. 2. A justice of peace [1] cannot indeed immediately disperse an assembly of petitioners, but he can prevent them from deliberating: he can stop every speech and seize every speaker, if he chuse to suspect it or him to be seditious:—and if by the wanton and moorish exercise of this privilege he can ensnare the assembly into marks of indignation, then the clause (withdrawn only in appearance) commences its bloody work. ”

“ Punishment is unjust in proportion as the invective is true; punishment is unnecessary in proportion as the invective is false. For it confutes itself, and striking against a rock flies back, and repeating the diminished calumny proclaims only its own repulse. ”

“ By dismissing them from a participation of the sovereignty, we should therefore lose nothing: and we should gain much. For to them we do owe in great measure the weight and multitude of our taxes, the frequency of wars, and the decay of virtue and piety among us. ”

“ Henceforward we expect, that the treasures which are yearly scrambled for by the sons of clamour, will either remain with the people and increase their domestic comforts, or be drawn out for the reward of genius and virtue, and the promotion of arts, sciences, and true religion. Countless millions will no longer be expended to shed blood and bring famine and pestilence. ”

“ The whole work should be in the possession of every lover of freedom; its remarks on laws and government are as profound as they are pointed, and it is an invaluable treasure to these, whose occupations allow them but little time for reading, on account of the multitude and pertinence of historic facts collected. ”

“ And after that these are subtracted, with regard to the yet remaining members, it would be an insult to common sense to assert, they are elected by the people at large. The voters are so contemptibly few, that for this reason only they are almost or altogether useless: and from non-residence, taking up of freedoms, complicated rights, &c. &c. their charges for voting are so enormous, that they become worse than useless: since in order to be elected by them many men ruin themselves. ”

“ From, their first state it is made evident beyond all power of doubt, what are the wishes and intentions of the present Ministers; and their wishes and intentions having been so evidenced, if the legislature authorize, if the people endure one sentence of such Bills from such manifest conspirators against the Constitution, that legislature will by degrees authorize the whole, and the people endure the whole—yea, that legislature will be capable of authorising even worse, and the people will be unworthy of better. ”

“ That I truly believe, there is only one herd of abandoned miscreants in his majesty's dominions capable of committing so wicked and treasonable an attack on the first magistrate of the land, those purjured conspirators against the lives and liberties of the people, the disbanded troops of spies and informers who, since the late state trials, had been out of employment. ”

“ For this said summum bonum as it at present exists, doth evidently prevent little evil and produce much. An omnipotent Devil in a good humour would grant a much better extreme of possible good. But if the present Conititution be progressive, if its only excellence, if its whole endurableness consist in motion; if that which it is be only good as being the step and mode of arriving at something better; if these be truths (and Despotism shall dote on the wretch who dares call them falsehoods,) then are our ministers most unnaturally dwarfing what they dare not at once destroy. ”