Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/496

486 if the act of their representatives is the act of the people, representation constitutes a sovereignty incapable of limitation. Necessity compels us to consider our policy or constitutions upon a supposition, that these opinions are true or false. If they are true, these constitutions are subject to the sovereign representation. If they are false, then the existence of a sovereignty over representation, is demonstrated.

The imperative style of our political decalogues called constitutions, implies the existence of some superior power, whose organs they are; whilst the doctrine, that this power, by having thought and spoken once, had lost the right of thinking and speaking forever, is equivalent to an assertion, that the Deity, by prescribing the Mosaick dispensation, had forfeited the right of prescribing the Christian. If a sovereign power, by one declaration of its will, does not lose its sovereignty, it must retain also an unlimited freedom, in whatsoever is necessary towards any future declaration of its will; otherwise its first will, must be its last will.

An intellectual political being, differs essentially from an intellectual physical being. The first can only think by speaking and writing, as it is compounded of many individuals. If it is not allowed to think freely, it can never decide or act according to its own will, since its will can only be discovered by freedom of expression. This position is demonstrated by considering the process, necessary to form the opinions of a body politick and of an individual. A comparison of ideas is necessary in both cases. The body politick being composed of many distinct minds, cannot compare its ideas, except by collecting them through the external mediums of speaking and writing, or by free discussion whereas an individual can compare his ideas, by the internal operation of thought. An individual may therefore decide, or discover his opinion, because no human law can prevent him from thinking or comparing his ideas ; but a body politick may be prevented from knowing or exercising