sat for any greater number of years, or for life. The bill which the present Mr. Pitt brought into parliament some years ago, to reform parliament, was on the same erroneous principle. The right of reform is in the nation, in its original character, and the constitutional method would be by a general convention elected for the purpose. There is, moreover, a paradox in the idea of vitiated bodies reforming themselves.—(Rights of Man.) 304. A lawful constitution emanating from an unlawful one, is therefore, in political science, of all absurdities the greatest,it being the right of the nation alone to establish, alter, or supersede the constitution ;-and, as has been said, of the legislative and executive to execute the trust delegated to them by the nation. This is all that even a lawful government can do. And all that an unlawful government can do, is wholly to supersede itself in the most expeditious manner, that comports with the good of the nation.

305. The code of laws must in every thing strictly conform with the divine law, (1-23,) because the nation whence the legislative and executive derive all their authority, have no licence from the Most High to delegate such authority for any other object.

306. Ås to the duration of laws,-some must be as lasting as the existence of the nation itself: as, for example, the Hebrew enactment-Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' That the character of immutability is applicable to a particular description of enactments, is evident from considering that the whole Hebrew code was directed by God to remain unaltered. And it did so continue during the whole period of the existence of the Hebrews as a separate nation, for about fifteen centuries. Some enactments are susceptible of alteration. Thus, suppose a great agricultural country ordinarily growing more corn than it requires, were to prohibit importation ;-if a scarcity were to arise, a temporary enactment might allow the ports to be opened. A collection of the former class of enactments being made, it might not inaptly be styled THE BOOK OF THE LAW.

307. This class, when once made in accordance with the divine law, can scarcely require alteration, and should be of everlasting obligation. For as the evils members of a nation can bring on themselves by offences against religion, so far as they are remediable by law, are easily definable, as will be hereafter noticed; and as all other evils are injuries sustainable by one or more from their countrymen or foreigners; and as the relations between men are unchangeable, so ought also the laws which are remedial of such injuries. (36.) To the first or unchangeable description of enactments, the name Laws should be confined; the second being called by some other title, as Na

tional Regulations; that two things so materially differing should not be confounded under a common name.

308. All statutes remain in force only until repealed by the existing or any subsequently elected legislative body. Consequently, the acts of those legislative bodies which precede, retain their authority only by virtue of those bodies which follow allowing them to remain unrepealed. Nothing can be clearer, then, than that a legislature is absolute, uncontrollable, and accountable to its constituents and the Divine Being for the execution of the trust with which it is invested. However, therefore, generations which precede, may interfere with the concerns of those that succeed; no acts of the former are binding on the latter, until ratified by them: that is, by being allowed to remain unrepealed. Although, says Paine, laws made in one generation often continue in force through succeeding generations, yet they continue to derive their force from the consent of the living. A law not repealed, continues in force, not because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed. And the non-repealing passes for consent.-(Rights of Man.)

309. It is, therefore, one of the earliest duties of a newly appointed legislative body, to examine the statute-book left by its predecessors, and repeal all enactments that do not accord with the divine law. That the legislatures of different nations, in succeeding ages, suffer unrighteous enactments to remain unrepealed, arises from the lawmakers being unlawfully appointed, and holding their power for the great purpose of making unrighteous enactments! (177.)

310. If it were possible to collect all the constitutions and codes that ever existed in the world, whatever was found in them contravening the divine law, so far from being righteous law; would be only a mournful monument of the iniquity of those who suffered, or who now suffer, this holy law to be set at nought.

311. All, therefore, who, in any country or age, directly or indirectly uphold unrighteous constitutions or codes, may be thus addressed.-Whatever is of God ye cannot overthrow, lest haply ye be found even to fight against him; in so doing, you shall not prosper :-a truth which has been verified in the history of all the nations that have ever existed in the world, and the state of those that now exist in it. As, however, they may have differed, or do now differ, as to the degrees of their prosperity; it is too obvious to need insisting on, that no one has ever yet arisen in the world, whose state of prosperity and happiness has ever at all approached to what it would, if the divine law had fully governed the formation of its constitution and code; and men had lived in conformity with this holy rule as to those parts of their conduct of which human laws do not take cognizance.

312. Consequently, whatever miscalled rights, any men, in any nation or age, may pretend to-of making, assisting to make, or executing the laws, by virtue of a constitution not formed in rigorous accordance with the divine law, i. e., emanating from a great electoral assembly of all the adult males of a nation, such miscalled rights are utterly invalid to all intents and purposes whatever, (as far as the object of righteous governing is concerned); the form of the constitution, and its age, being utterly unimportant, the purely democratic being that which alone is lawful in all nations and throughout all their ages.

313. Whatever miscalled right some may pretend to, of holding land under an illegal constitution, though such land may have been possessed by the holders' ancestors for a hundred generations, such miscalled right is utterly invalid, to all intents and purposes whatever. For, if men could set up enactments that could make wrong right, however many ages, prior to such enactments being passed, the illegal titles to land accrued; they could do so though the illegal titles were but a day old.

314. Those, therefore, who hold land under an unlawful constitution, having no right to it themselves, cannot transfer a right to their heirs or others; as a man cannot assign to another what he has not himself.

315. A man may assign the possession, but he cannot assign the right.

316. The possession of land conformably with unrighteous human laws, and the right to it in accordance with human laws agreeing with the law of God, are obviously essentially different. (1-49.)

317. When men hold land under a constitution and code conforming with the divine law, they have both the possession and the right.

318. When men hold land under a constitution and code not conforming with the divine law, they have the possession but not the right.

319. Those, consequently, who, by a constitution and code not conforming with the divine law, have the land abstracted from them, have the right but not the possession.

320. Power without right may take from men the possession, but it can in no manner affect their right. This accrues to every man by virtue of his political right, emanating to him immediately from God, and necessarily, therefore, irrespective of all human influence.

321. Whatever, therefore, there is in the constitution or code of laws of any nation now existing, in contravention of the divine law, whether having been continued through many ages, or only recently enacted, should be immediately superseded by a constitution or code, or both, rigorously according

with the divine law. This holy law, making it imperative on all nations of the world, and in every age, originally to establish righteous constitutions and codes; obviously obliges them to supersede every thing unrighteous, either in their constitutions or codes. To affirm the contrary, being equivalent to asserting that, though men are obliged, by the law of God, to abstain from drunkenness, lying, thieving, or any other vice; yet, after they have begun the practice of them, they are not bound to relinquish them. The wrath of God is, however, revealed from Heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

322. Nothing, therefore, can be more clear than, that in the sight of Heaven, the maintenance of an illegal constitution and code, or any illegality of the latter, is equally criminal with the original establishment.

323. As to foreign conquest,-one nation cannot declare war, and much less invade another, but on just grounds. Without such grounds, therefore, one nation invading or interfering at all with the rights of another, is manifestly a contravention of the divine law. What are just grounds of invasion, will be considered in the proper place. Even after lawful invasion, the rights of men cannot be permanently affected. This will appear from considering, that if a nation has the right to subjugate another, and altogether supersede its existing government, its authority can only be maintained for a limited period; as the utmost punishment that can lawfully be inflicted on any nation, however it may have violated international law, is to keep its living generation in a certain degree of subjection, until such generation becomes extinct. After that period, the constitution must be appointed in strict accordance with the divine law; that is, by the conquerors evacuating the subjugated country, or taking their places in the great electoral assembly with all the rest of the adult males, thereby sharing, in the ratio of their numbers, the whole political right with such males. We do not say that conquerors can do as here mentioned: all we affirm is, that this is the utmost limit of punishment that can be inflicted on a subjugated nation.

324. How iniquitously the rights of a conquered people have been dealt with, history furnishes abundance of sad examples; one may here suffice. The Spaniards having invaded South America, upon no justifiable grounds whatever, we learn from Dr. Robertson, that after taking Guatimozin, the sovereign of Mexico, and becoming masters of the capital; they supposed that the king of Castile entered on possession of all the rights of the captive monarch, and affected to consider every effort of the Mexicans to assert their own independence, as the rebellion of vassals against their sovereign, or the mutiny of slaves against their master. Under the sanction of those ill-founded maxims, they violated every right that should be held sacred

between hostile nations. After each insurrection, they reduced the common people in the provinces which they subdued, to the most humiliating of all conditions, that of personal servi tude. Their chiefs, supposed to be more criminal, were punished with greater severity, and put to death in the most ignominious, or the most excruciating mode, that the insolence or cruelty of their conquerors could devise. In almost every district of the Mexican empire, the progress of the Spanish arms is marked with blood. In the country of Panuco, sixty caziques, or leaders, and four hundred nobles, were burned at one time. Nor was this shocking barbarity perpetrated in any sudden sally of rage, or by a commander of inferior note. It seems hardly possible to exceed in horror this dreadful example of severity, but it was followed by another which affected the Mexicans still more sensibly; as it gave them a most feeling proof of their own degradation, and of the small regard which their haughty masters retained for the ancient dignity and splendour of their state. On a slight suspicion, confirmed by very imperfect evidence, that Guatimozin had formed a scheme to shake off the yoke, and to excite his former subjects to take arms; Cortes, without the formality of a trial, ordered the unhappy monarch, together with the caziques of Tezeuco and Tacuba, the two persons of greatest eminence in the empire, to be hanged; and the Mexicans, with astonishment and horror, beheld this disgraceful punishment inflicted upon persons, to whom they were accustomed to look up with reverence hardly inferior to that which they paid to the gods themselves.-(Hist. Amer.)

325. In the ancient world, says a historian, those who made conquests treated the conquered people in different manners, according to their various tempers and interests: some looking, on themselves as absolute masters of the vanquished, and thinking it was enough to grant them life, stripped them of every thing else, and reduced them to the state of slavery; condemning them to the meanest offices and the most laborious employments, which introduced the distinction between freemen and slaves ever since kept up in the world. Others introduced the custom of transporting the conquered nations entirely into new countries, where they assigned them settlements, and lands to cultivate. Others, yet more moderate, contented themselves with obliging the conquered to purchase their liberty by a ransom; and allowed them the enjoyment of their own laws and privileges, on payment of an annual tribute; sometimes even leaving their kings on the throne, and only obliging them to acknowledge the superiority of their conqueror, by certain marks of homage and submission. The wisest and most politic gained the affections of their new subjects, by admitting them to an equality with their old ones, and granting them the same