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LOSS OF LIBERTY-WAR.

[ESSAY III. tion is, whether any given degree of restraint is necessary or not. If it is, though the restraint may be painful, the civil liberty of the community may be said to be complete. It is useless to say that it is less complete than that of another nation; for complete civil liberty is a relative and not a positive enjoyment. Were it otherwise, no people enjoy, or are likely for ages to enjoy, full civil liberty; because none enjoy so much that they could not, in a more virtuous state of mankind, enjoy more. "It is not the rigour, but the inexpediency, of laws and acts of authority, which makes them tyrannical."*

Civil liberty (so far as its present enjoyment goes) does not necessarily depend upon forms of government. All communities enjoy it who are properly governed. It may be enjoyed under an absolute monarch; as we know it may not be enjoyed under a republic. Actual, existing liberty depends upon the actual, existing administration.

One great cause of diminutions of civil liberty is war: and if no other motive induced a people jealously to scrutinize the grounds of a war, this might be sufficient. The increased loss of personal freedom to a military man is manifest; and it is considerable to other men. The man who now pays twenty pounds a year in taxes would probably have paid but two if there had been no war during the past century. If he now gets a hundred and fifty pounds a year by his exertions, he is obliged to labour six weeks out of the fifty-two, to pay the taxes which war has entailed. That is to say, he is compelled to work two hours every day longer than he himself wishes, or than is needful for his support. This is a material deduction from personal liberty; and a man would feel it as such if the coercion were directly applied,-if an officer came to his house every afternoon at four o'clock, when he had finished his business, and obliged him under penalty of a distraint to work till six. It is some loss of liberty again to a man to be unable to open as many windows in his house as he pleases, or to be forbidden to acknowledge the receipt of a debt without going to the next town for a stamp, or to be obliged to ride in an uneasy carriage unless he will pay for springs. It were to no purpose to say he may pay for windows and springs if he will, and if he can. A slave may, by the same reasoning be shown to be free; because, if he will and if he can, he may purchase his freedom. There is a loss of liberty in being obliged to submit to the alternative; and we should feel it as a loss if such things were not habitual, and if we had not receded so considerably from the liberty of nature. A housewife on the Ohio would think it a strange invasion of her liberty, if she were told that henceforth the police would be sent to her house to seize her goods if she made any more soap to wash her clothes.

Now, indeed, that war has created a large public debt, it is necessary to the general good that its interest should be paid: and in this view a man's civil liberty is not encroached upon, though his personal liberty is diminished. The public welfare is consulted by the diminution. I may deplore the cause without complaining of the law. It may upon emergency be for the public good to suspend the habeas corpus act. I should lament that such a state of things existed, but I should not complain that civil liberty was invaded. The lesson which such considerations teach is jealous watchfulness against wars for the future.

There are many other acts of governments by which civil liberty is

* Paley Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 3, b. 6, c. 5.

СНАР. 9.]

POLITICAL LIBERTY.

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needlessly curtailed, among which may be reckoned the number of laws. Every law implies restriction. To be destitute of laws is to be absolutely free; to multiply laws is to multiply restrictions, or, which is the same thing, to diminish liberty. A great number of penal statutes lately existed in this country by which the reasonable proceedings of a prosecutor were cramped, and impeded, and thwarted. A statesman to whom England is much indebted has supplied their place by one which is more rational and more simple; and prosecutors now find that they are so much more able to consult their own understandings in their proceedings, that it may, without extravagance, be said that our civil liberty is increased.

"A law being found to produce no sensible good effects is a sufficient reason for repealing it."* It is not therefore sufficient to ask in reply, What harm does the law occasion? for you must prove that it does good: because all laws which do no good do harm. They encroach upon or restrain the liberty of the community, without that reason which only can make the deduction of any portion of liberty right-the public good. If this rule were sufficiently attended to, perhaps more than a few of the laws of England would quickly be repealed.

CHAPTER III.

POLITICAL LIBERTY.

THIS is, in strictness, a branch of civil liberty. Political liberty implies the existence of such political institutions as secure, with the greatest practicable certainty, the future possession of freedom,-the existence of which institutions is one of the requisites, in a general sense, of civil liberty; because it is as necessary to proper government that securities for freedom should be framed as that present freedom should be permitted.

The possession of political liberty is of great importance. A Russian may enjoy as great a share of personal freedom as an Englishman; that is, he may find as few restrictions upon the exercise of his own will; but he has no security for the continuance of this. For aught that he knows, he may be arbitrarily thrown into prison to-morrow; and therefore, though he may live and die without molestation, he is politically enslaved. When it is considered how much human happiness depends upon the security of enjoying happiness in future, such institutions as those of Russia are great grievances; and Englishmen, though they may regret the curtailment of some items of civil liberty, have much comparative reason to think themselves politically free.

The possession of political liberty is unquestionably a right of a community. They may with perfect reason require it even of governments which actually govern well. It is not enough for a government to say, None but beneficial laws and acts of authority are adopted. It must, if it would fulfil the duties of a government, accumulate, to the utmost,

* Paley: Mor. and Pol. Phil. p. 3, b. 6, c. 5.

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POLITICAL LIBERTY.

[ESSAY III. securities for beneficial measures hereafter. In this view, it may be feared that no government in Europe fulfils all its duty to the people.

And here considerations are suggested respecting the representation of a people, a point which, if some political writers were to be listened to, was a sine qua non of political liberty. "To talk of an abstract right of equal representation is absurd. It is to arrogate a right to one form of government, whereas Providence has accommodated the different forms of government to the different states of society in which they subsist."* If an inhabitant of Birmingham should come and tell me that he and his neighbours were debarred of political liberty because they. sent no representatives to parliament, I should say that the justness of his complaint was problematical. It does not follow because a man is not represented that he is not politically free. The question is, whether as good securities for liberty exist, without permitting him to vote, as with it. If it can be shown that the present legislative government affords as good a security for the future freedom of the people as any other that might be devised, the inhabitant of Birmingham enjoys, at present, politi cal liberty. It is a very common mistake among writers to assume some particular privilege or institution as a test of this liberty, as something without which it cannot be enjoyed, and yet I suppose there is no one of their institutions or privileges under which it would not be possible to enslave a people. Simple republicanism, universal suffrage, and frequent elections might afford no better security for civil liberty than absolute monarchy. In fine, political liberty is not a matter that admits of certain conclusions from theoretical reasoning: it is a question of facts: a question to be decided, like questions of philosophy, by reasoning founded upon experience. If the inhabitant of Birmingham can show, from relevant experience, good ground to conclude that greater security for liberty would be derived from extending the representation, he has reason to complain of an undue privation of political liberty if it is not extended.

But then it is always incumbent upon the legislature to prove the probable superiority of the existing institutions, when any considerable portion of the people desire an alteration. That desire constitutes a claim to investigation; and to an alteration too, unless the existing institutions appear to be superior to those which are desired. It is not enough to show that they are as good,-for though in other respects the two plans were equally balanced, the present are not so good as the others if they give less satisfaction to the community. To be satisfied is one great ingredient in the welfare of a people: and in whatever degree a people are not satisfied, in the same degree civil government does not perfectly effect its proper ends. To deny satisfaction to a people without showing a reason is to withhold from them the due portion of civil liberty.

* William Pitt: Gifford's Life, vol. iii.

CHAP. 4.] RELIGIOUS LIBERTY-CIVIL DISABILITIES.

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CHAPTER IV.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

THE magistate may advert to subjects connected with religion, so far as the public good requires, and as Christianity permits,-or, upon these, as upon other subjects, he may endeavour to promote the welfare of the people by Christian means. What the public welfare does require, and what means for promoting it are Christian, are separate considerations. Upon which grounds, those advocates of religious liberty appear to assert too much who assert, as a fundamental principle, that a government never has, nor can have, any just concern with religious opinions. Unless these persons can show that no advertence to them is allowed by Christianity, and that none can contribute to the public good,-circumstances may arise in which an advertence would be right. No one perhaps will deny that a government may lawfully provide for the education of the people, and endeavour to diffuse just notions and principles, moral and religious, into the public mind. A government, therefore, may endeavour to discountenance unsound notions and principles. It may as reasonably discourage what is wrong as cherish what is right.

But by what means? By influencing opinions, not by punishing persons who hold them. When a man publishes a book or delivers a lecture for the purpose of enlightening the public mind, he does well. A government may take kindred measures for the same purpose, and it does well. But this is all. If our author or lecturer, finding his opinions were not accepted, should proceed to injure those who rejected them, he would act, not only irrationally, but immorally. If a government, finding its measures do not influence or alter the views of the people, injures those who reject its sentiments, it acts immorally too. A man's opinions are not alterable at his own will; and it is not right to injure a man for doing that which he cannot avoid. Besides, in religious matters especially, it is the Christian duty of a man, first, to seek truth, and next to adhere to those opinions which truth, as he believes, teaches. And so again it is not right to injure a man for doing that which it is his duty to do. When, therefore, it is affirmed, at the head of this chapter, that the magistrate may advert to subjects connected with religion, nothing more is to be understood than that he may endeavour to diffuse just sentiments, and to expose the contrary. To do more than this, although he may think his measures may promote the public welfare, would be to endeavour to promote it "by means which the moral law forbids."

To inflict civil disabilities is "to do more than this," it is " to injure a man for doing that which he cannot avoid," and "that which it is his duty to do." Here, indeed, a sophism has been resorted to in order to show that disabilities are not injuries. It is said of the dissenters of this country, that no penalty is inflicted upon them by excluding them from offices, that the state confers certain offices upon certain conditions, with which conditions a dissenter does not comply. And it is said that this

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[ESSAY III. is no more a penalty or a hardship than, when the law defines what pecuniary qualifications capacitate a man for a seat in parliament, it inflicts a penalty upon those who do not possess them. I answer, Both are penalties and hardships, and that the argument only attempts to justify one ill practice by the existence of another. It will be said that such regulations are necessary to the public good. Bring the proof. Here is a certain restraint: "The proof of the advantage of a restraint," says Dr. Paley, "lies upon the legislature." Unless, therefore, you can show, -what to me is extremely problematical,-that the public is benefited by a law that excludes a poor man from the legislature, the argument wholly fails. Consider for what purpose men unite in society," in order," says Grotius, "to enjoy common rights and advantages," of which rights and advantages, eligibility to a representative body is one. Those principles of political rectitude which determine that a law which needlessly restrains natural liberty is wrong, determine that a law which needlessly restrains the enjoyment of the privileges of society is wrong also. It is therefore not true that a dissenter suffers no hardship or penalty on account of his opinions. The only difference between disabilities and ordinary penalties is this, that one inflicts evil and the other withholds good; and both are, to all intents and purposes, penalties.

But even if the legislator thought he could show that the public were benefited by this penalty, upon conscientious dissidents, it would not be sufficient, for the penalty itself is wrong, it is not Christian; and it is vain to argue that an unchristian act can be made lawful by prospects of advantage. Here, as everywhere else, we must maintain the supremacy of the moral law.

All these reasonings proceed upon the supposition that a man does not, in consequence of his opinions, disturb the peace of society by any species of violence. If he does, he is doubtless to be restrained. It may not be more necessary for the magistrate to inquire what are a man's opinions of religion, than for a rider to inquire what are the cogitations of his horse. So long as my horse carries me well, it matters nothing to me whether he be thinking of safe paces or of meadows and corn-chests. So long as the welfare of the public is secured, it matters nothing to the magistrate what notion of Christianity a citizen accepts. But if my horse, in his anxiety to get into a meadow, leaps over a hedge, and impedes me in my journey, it is needful that I employ the whip and bridle and if the citizen, in his zeal for opinions, violates the general good, it is needful that he should be punished or restrained. And even then, he is not restrained for his opinions but for his conduct; just as I do not apply the whip to my horse because he loves a meadow, but because he goes out of the road.

And even in the case of conduct, it is needful to discriminate, accurately, what is a proper subject of animadversion and what is not. I perceive no truth in the ingenious argument, "That a man may entertain opinions, however pernicious, but he may not be allowed to disseminate them; as a man may keep poison in his house, but may not be allowed to give it to others as wholesome medicine." To support this argument you must have recourse to a petitio principii. How do you know that an opinion is pernicious? By reasoning and examination, if at all; and that is, the very end which the dissemination of an opinion attains. If the truth or falsehood of an opinion were demonstrable to the senses, as the mischief of poison is, there would be some justness in the argument;