Page:Common sense - addressed to the inhabitants of America.djvu/16

8 the Commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again uppoes that the King is wier than thoe, whom it has already uppoed to be wier than him. A mere aburdity!

There is omething exceedingly ridiculous in the compoition of Monarchy; it firt excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in caes where the highet judgment is required.—The tate of a King huts him from the world, yet the buines of a King requires him to know it thoroughly: Wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally oppoing and detroying each other, prove the whole character to be aburd and ueles.

Some writers have explained the Englih contitution thus; the King, ay they, is one; the People another; the Peers are an houe in behalf of the King; the Commons in behalf of the People; but this hath all the ditinctions of an houe divided againt itelf; and though the expreions be pleaantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous: And it will always happen, that the nicet contruction that words are capable of, when applied to the decription of omething which either cannot exit, or is too incomprehenible to be within the compas of decription, will be words of ound only, and though they may amue the ear, they cannot inform the mind: For this explanation includes a previous quetion, viz. How came the King by a power which the People are afraid to trut, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wie people, neither can any power which needs checking be from God: Yet the proviion which the contitution makes, uppoes uch a power to exit.

But the proviion is unequal to the tak; the means either cannot or will not accomplih the end, and the whole affair is a felo de e: For as the greater weight will always carry up the les, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the contitution has the mot weight, for that will govern: And though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrae is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet o long as they cannot top it, their endeavours will be ineffectual: The firt moving power will at lat have its way, and what it wants in peed is upplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the Englih contitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole conequence merely from being the giver of places and penions is elf-evident; wherefore, though we have been wie enough to hut and lock a door againt abolute Monarchy, we at the ame time have been foolih enough to put the Crown in poeion of the key.

The prejudice of Englihmen in favour of their own government, by King, Lords and Commons, aries as much or more from national pride than reaon. Individuals are undoubtedly afer in England than in ome other countries: But