Such persons thought, that all general
speculative declarations of the legislature, either for or against
resistance, were equally impolitic and could serve to no other purpose
than to signalize in their turn the triumph of one faction over another:
that the simplicity retained in the ancient laws of England, as well as
in the laws of every other country, ought still to be preserved, and
was best calculated to prevent the extremes on either side: that the
absolute exclusion of resistance, in all possible cases, was founded on
false principles; its express admission might be attended with dangerous
consequences; and there was no necessity for exposing the public to
either inconvenience: that if a choice must necessarily be made in the
case, the preference of utility to truth in public institutions was
apparent; nor could the supposition of resistance, beforehand and in
general terms, be safely admitted in any government: that even in mixed
monarchies, where that supposition seemed most requisite, it was yet
entirely superfluous; since no man, on the approach of extraordinary
necessity, could be at a loss, though not directed by legal
declarations, to find the proper remedy: that even those who might at a
distance, and by scholastic reasoning, exclude all resistance, would yet
hearken to the voice of nature, when evident ruin, both to themselves
and to the public, must attend a strict adherence to their pretended
principles: that the question, as it ought thus to be entirely excluded
from all determinations of the legislature, was, even among private
reasoners, somewhat frivolous, and little better than a dispute of
words: that the one party could not pretend that resistance ought ever
to become a familiar practice; the other would surely have recourse to
it in great extremities; and thus the difference could only turn on
the degrees of danger or oppression which would warrant this irregular
remedy; a difference which, in a general question, it was impossible by
any language precisely to fix or determine.
Pages:
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254