The idea of constitutional government has its witnesses in the Middle Ages, democratic theories are common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is not till the eighteenth century that France, aflame to realise a political ideal, proves that democracy has passed from the books of schoolmen and philosophers, and is to be put in practice by a nation in arms.
In the thirteenth century the friars rallied to Simon of Montfort and preached, not democracy, but constitutional liberty.[70]Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican doctor, became the chief exponent of political theory, and maintained that sovereignty expressed in legislative power should be exercised for the common good, and that a mixed government of monarch, nobles, and people, with the Pope as a final Court of Appeal, would best attain that end.[71]
A hundred years later, John Ball and his fellow agitators preached a gospel of social equality that inspired the Peasant Revolt. But communism was the goal of the peasant leaders in 1381, and freedom from actual oppression the desire of their followers. No conception of political democracy can be found in the speeches and demands of Wat Tyler.
In the sixteenth century Robert Ket in Norfolk renewed the old cries of social revolution, and roused the countryside to stop the enclosures by armed revolt. And again the popular rising is an agrarian war to end intolerable conditions, not a movement for popular government.
The theory of a pact or contract between the Government and the people became the favourite assumption of political writers from the sixteenth century onward, and it was this theory that Rousseau popularised in his "Social Contract," the theory, too, which triumphed for a season in the French Revolution.
The theory is, of course, pure assumption, without any basis in history, and resting on no foundation of fact. It assumes that primitive man was born with enlightened views on civil government, and that for the greater well-being of his tribe or nation he deposited the sovereign authority which belonged to himself, in a prince or king—or in some other form of executive government—retaining the right to withdraw his allegiance from the government if the authority is abused, and the contract which conferred sovereignty violated. It was not maintained that the contract was an actually written document; it was supposed to be a tacit agreement. The whole theory seems to have sprung from the study of Roman law and the constitutions of Athens and Sparta. Nothing was known of primitive man or of the beginnings of civilisation till the nineteenth century. The Bible and the classical literature of Greece and Rome are all concerned with civilised, not primitive, man, and with slaves and "heathens" who are accounted less than men. The "sovereign people" of Athens and Sparta became the model of later republican writers, while the choosing of a king by the Israelites recorded in the Old Testament sanctioned the idea, for early Protestant writers, that sovereignty was originally in the people.
The Huguenot Languet, in hisVindiciae contra Tyrannos(1579), maintained on scriptural grounds that kingly power was derived from the will of the people, and that the violation by the king of the mutual compact of king and people to observe the laws absolved the people from all allegiance.[72]The Jesuit writers, Bellarmine and Mariana, argued for the sovereignty of the people as the basis of kingly rule; and when the English divines of the Established Church were upholding the doctrine of the divine right of kings, the Spanish Jesuit, Suarez, was amongst those who attacked that doctrine, quoting a great body of legal opinion in support of the contention that "the prince has that power of law giving which the people have given him." Suarez, too, insists that all men are born equal, and that "no one has a political jurisdiction over another." Milton, in his "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" (1649), had taken a similar line: the people had vested in kings and magistrates the authority and power of self-defence and preservation. "The power of kings and magistrates is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the people to the common good of all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural birthright." Hooker, fifty years earlier (1592-3), in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., had affirmed the sovereignty or legislative power of the people as the ultimate authority, and had also declared for an original social contract, "all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful." Hobbes made the social contract a justification for Royal absolutism, and Locke, with a Whig ideal of constitutional government, enlarged on the right of a people to change its form of government, and justified the Revolution of 1688. The writings of Hobbes and Locke have had a lasting influence, and Locke is really the source of the democratic stream of the eighteenth century. It rises in Locke to become the torrent of the French Revolution.
But Huguenots and Jesuits, Hooker and Milton—what influence had their writings on the mass of English people? None whatever, as far as we can see. Milton could write of "the power" of "the people" as a "natural birthright," but the power was plainly in Cromwell's army, and "the people" had no means of expression concerning its will, and no opportunity for the assertion of sovereignty. Lilburne and the Levellers held that democracy could be set up on the ruins of Charles I.'s Government, and the sovereignty of the people become a fact; and with a ready political instinct Lilburne proposed the election of popular representatives on a democratic franchise. Cromwell rejected all Lilburne's proposals; for him affairs of State were too serious for experiments in democracy; and Lilburne himself was cast into prison by the Commonwealth Government. Lilburne's pamphlets were exceedingly numerous, and his popularity, in London particularly, enormous. He was the voice of the unrepresented, powerless citizens in whom the republican theorists saw the centre of authority. The one effort to persuade the Commonwealth Republic to give power to the people was made by John Lilburne, and it was defeated. The Whig theory that an aristocratic House of Commons, elected by a handful of people, and mainly at the dictation of the landowners, was "the People," triumphed. The bulk of the English people were left out of all account in the political struggles of Whigs and Tories, and democracy was not dreamed of till America was free and France a republic. The industrial revolution compelled the reform of the British House of Commons, and democracy has slowly superseded aristocracy, not from any enthusiasm for the "sovereign people," but from the traditional belief that representative government means the rule of the people.
Precedent, not theory, has been the argument for democracy in England.
The writings of Hobbes are important, because they state the case for absolute rule, or "a strong government," as we call it to-day. Hobbes was frankly rationalist and secular. Holding the great end of government to be happiness, he made out that natural man lived in savage ill-will with his fellows. To secure some sort of decency and safety men combined together and surrendered all natural rights to a sovereign—either one man, or an assembly of men—and in return civil rights were guaranteed. But the sovereignty once established was supreme, and to injure it was to injure oneself, since it was composed of "every particular man." The sovereign power was unlimited, and was not to be questioned. Whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy was the form of government was unimportant, though Hobbes preferred monarchy, because popular assemblies were unstable and apt to need dictators. Civil laws were the standard of right and wrong, and obedience to autocracy was better than the resistance which led to civil war or anarchy—the very things that induced men to establish sovereignty. Only when the safety of the state was threatened was rebellion justifiable.
At bottom, the objection to the theories of Hobbes is the same objection that must be taken to the theories of Locke and Rousseau. All these writers assume not only the fiction of a social contract, but astaticview of society. Society is the result of growth: it is not a fixed and settled community. Mankind proceeds experimentally in forms of government. To Hobbes and his followers, security of life and property was the one essential thing for mankind—disorder and social insecurity the things to be prevented at all cost. Now, this might be all very well but for evolution. Mankind cannot rest quietly under the strongest and most stable government in the world. It will insist on learning new tricks, on thinking new thoughts, and if it is not allowed to teach itself fresh habits, it will break out in revolt, and either the government will be broken or the subjects will wither away under the rule of repression.
Hobbes may be quoted as a supporter of the rule of the Stuarts, and equally of the rule of Cromwell. Every kind of strong tyranny may be defended by his principles.
In the nineteenth century Carlyle was the finest exponent of "strong" government, and generally the leaders of the Tory party have been its advocates, particularly in the attitude to be taken towards subject races.
Locke, setting out to vindicate the Whig Revolution of 1688, rejects Hobbes' view of the savagery of primitive man, and invents "a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and preservation"—equally, as we know to-day, far from the truth. Locke's primitive men have a natural right to personal property—"as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property"—but they are as worried and as fearful as Hobbes' savages. So they, too, renounce their natural rights in favour of civil liberty, and are happy when they have got "a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected on it."
According to Hobbes, once having set up a government, there was no possible justification for changing it—save national peril; and a bad government was to be obeyed rather than the danger of civil war incurred.
But Locke never allows the government to be more than the trustee of the people who placed it in power. It rules by consent of the community, and may be removed or altered when it violates its trust. Hobbes saw in the break-up of a particular government the dissolution of society. Locke made a great advance on this, for he saw that a change of government could be accomplished without any very serious disturbance in the order of society or the peace of a nation. Hobbes did not believe that the people could be trusted to effect a change of government, while Locke had to justify the change which had just taken place in 1688.
Only when we have dropped all Locke's theories of primitive man's happiness, and the social-contract fiction, does the real value of his democratic teaching become clear, and the lasting influence of his work become visible.
Mankind is compelled to adopt some form of government if it is to sleep at nights without fear of being murdered in its bed, or if it wishes to have its letters delivered by the postman in the morning. As the only purpose of government is to secure mutual protection, mankind must obey this government, or the purpose for which government exists will be defeated. But the powers of government must be strictly limited if this necessary consent of the governed is to continue, and if the government has ceased to retain the confidence that gives consent, then its form may be changed to some more appropriate shape.
Now all this theory of Locke's has proved to be true in the progress of modern democracy. It was pointed out that the danger of his doctrine—that a nation had the right to choose its form of government, and to change or adapt its constitution—lay in the sanction it gave to revolution; but Locke answered that the natural inertia of man was a safeguard against frequent and violent political changes, and as far as England was concerned Locke was right. The average Englishman grumbles, but only under great provocation is he moved to violent political activity. As a nation, we have acknowledged the right of the majority to make the political changes that have brought in democracy, and we have accepted the changes loyally. Occasionally, since Locke, the delay of the government in carrying out the wishes of the majority has induced impatience, but, generally, the principle has been acted upon that government is carried on with the consent of the governed, and that the Parliamentary party which has received the largest number of votes has the authority from the people to choose its ministry, and to make laws that all must obey.
The power of the people is demonstrated by the free election of members of Parliament, and, therefore, democracy requires that its authority be obeyed by all who are represented in Parliament. There is no social contract between the voter and the government; but there is a general feeling that it is not so much participation in politics as the quiet enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship that obliges submission to the laws. The extension of the franchise was necessary whenever a body of people excluded from the electorate was conscious of being unrepresented and desired representation. Otherwise the consent of the voteless governed was obviously non-existent, and government was carried on in defiance of the absence of that consent.
It is not Locke's theories that have guided politically the great masses of the people, for Locke's writings have had no very considerable popularity in England. But it has happened that these theories have influenced the conduct of statesmen, and with reason, since they offer an explanation of political progress, and constrain politicians to act, experimentally indeed, but with some reasonable anticipation of safety to the nation. British statesmen and politicians have made no parade of Locke's opinions; they have done nothing to incur the charge of "theorist," but the influence of Locke can be seen all the same—chiefly in the loyal acceptance of political change, in the refusal to be shocked or alarmed at a "leap in the dark," and by a willingness to adjust the machinery of government to the needs of the time. In England Locke's influence has been less dynamic than static; it has helped us to preserve a moderation in politics; to be content with piecemeal legislation, because to attempt too much might be to alienate the sympathies of the majority; to keep our political eye, so to speak, on the ebb and flow of public opinion—since it is public opinion that is the final court of appeal; to tolerate abuses until it is quite plain a great number of people are anxious to have the abuse removed; and above all to settle down in easy contentment under political defeat, and make the best of accomplished reforms, not because we like them, but because a Parliamentary majority has decreed them.
For England, in fact, the essence of Locke's teaching has helped to produce a deference almost servile to political majorities and to public opinion, a reluctance to make any reform until public opinion has pronounced loudly and often in favour of reform, and an emphatic assurance that every reform enacted by Parliament is the unmistakable expression of the will of the people. Locke has discouraged us from hasty legislation and from political panics.
Locke's influence in France and in America has been altogether different. Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot were all students and admirers of Locke, and his political theories were at the base of Rousseau's "Social Contract." A return to nature, a harking back to an imaginary primitive happiness of mankind, the glorification of an ideal of simplicity and innocence,—supposed to have been the ideal of early politics—the restoration of a popular sovereignty built up on natural rights alleged to have been lost: these were the articles of faith Rousseau preached with passionate conviction in his "Discourses" and in the "Social Contract." Individual man was born naturally "free," and had become debased and enslaved by laws and civilisation. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," is the opening sentence of the "Social Contract." This liberty and equality of primitive man was acclaimed as a law of nature by eighteenth century writers in France, and to some extent in England too. Pope could write, "The state of nature was the reign of God." Instead of a forward movement the business of man was to recover the lost happiness of the childhood of the world, to bring back a golden age of liberty and equality. Locke's "state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and preservation" is to be the desire of nations, and with wistful yearning Rousseau's disciples gazed on the picture painted by their master.
It was all false, all a fiction, all mischievous and misleading, this doctrine of a return to an ideal happiness of the past, and it was the most worthless portion of Locke's work. To-day it is easy for us to say this, when we have learnt something of the struggle for existence in nature, something of the habits and customs of primitive man, and something of man's upward growth. But Locke and Rousseau were born before our limited knowledge of the history of man and his institutions had been learnt; before science, with patient research, had revealed a few incidents in the long story of man's ascent. Even the history of Greece and Rome, as Rousseau read it, was hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete. Therefore, while we can see the fallacy in all the eighteenth century teaching concerning the natural happiness of uncivilised man, we must at the same time remember it as a doctrine belonging to a pre-scientific era. The excuse in France, too, for its popularity was great. Civilisation weighed heavily on the nation. The whole country groaned under a misrule, and commerce and agriculture were crippled by the system of taxation. It seemed that France was impoverished to maintain a civilisation that only a few, and they not the most useful members of the community, could enjoy.
How mankind had passed from primitive freedom to civilised slavery neither Locke nor Rousseau inquired. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," cries Rousseau, in sublime disregard of facts. For man was not born free in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome that Rousseau revered; children were not born free in his day any more than they are in ours; and any assembly or community of people necessarily involves mutual consideration and forbearance which are at once restrictive.
The truth is, of course, that man is not born free, but is born with free will to work out political freedom or to consent to servitude. He is not born with "natural" political rights, but born to acquire by law political rights.
The fiction of primitive man's happiness and of the natural goodness and freedom of man did little harm in England, for Locke was not a popular author, and Wesley's religious revival in the eighteenth century laid awful stress on man's imperfections. The sovereign people ruled in an unreformed House of Commons, and the "contract" theory was exhibited by ministers holding office on the strength of a majority in the Commons.
Rousseau's writings depicted, with a clearness that fascinated the reader, the contrast between the ideal state that man had lost and the present condition of society with its miseries and corruption; and by its explanation of the doctrines of a contract and the sovereignty of the people, suggested the way to end these miseries and corruptions. The "Social Contract" became the text-book of the men who made the French Revolution, and if the success of the Revolution is due to the teaching of Rousseau more than to that of any other French philosopher, the crimes and mistakes of the Revolution are directly to be traced to his influence, and this in spite of Rousseau's deprecation of violence.[73]
As there is a certain tendency in England to-day to attempt the resuscitation of Rousseau's theories of popular sovereignty and the natural rights of man, and as so distinguished a writer as Mr. Hilaire Belloc is at pains to invite the English working class to seek illumination from Rousseau and to proceed to democracy guided by the speculative political doctrines of the eighteenth century rather than on the tried experimental lines of representative government and an extended franchise, it is necessary to devote to Rousseau and his "Social Contract" more space than the subject deserves.
The "Social Contract" is full of inaccuracies in its references to history; it is often self-contradictory, and it has not even the merit of originality. From Hobbes Rousseau borrowed the notion of authority in the State; from Locke the seat of this authority; the nature of the original pact and of citizenship from Spinoza; from the Huguenot Languet the doctrine of fraternity; and from Althusius the doctrine of the inalienability of citizenship. Where Locke was content to maintain that the people collectively had the right to change the form of government, Rousseau would give the community continual exercise in sovereignty, while voting and representation are signs of democratic decadence in Rousseau's eyes. The sovereign people governing, not through elected representatives but by public meeting, has only been found possible in small slave-ridden states.
At the Revolution France had to elect its deputies. But the theory of the sovereignty of the people has over and over again, in France, upset the Government, and destroyed the authority of the deputies. In England we accept the rule of Parliament, and are satisfied that the election of representatives by an enfranchised people is the most satisfactory form of democracy, though we retain a healthy instinct of criticism of the Government in power. In France has happened what Locke's critics foretold: the sovereign people never wholeheartedly delegates its powers to its deputies, and indulges in revolution when impatient of government. During the Revolution the passionate clamour of the sovereign people overpowered the votes and voices of elected representatives, and revolution and reaction were the rule in France from 1793 to 1871.
We may be frankly against the Government all the time in England; we may resist it actively and passively, for the purpose of calling attention to some political grievance, some disability that needs removal. But we never forget that it is the Government, or believe that it can be overturned save by the votes of the electorate. At the time of the European revolutions of 1848, when crowns were falling, and ministers flying before the rage of the sovereign people, Chartism never seriously threatened the stability of the British Government, and its great demonstrations were no real menace to the existing order. Nothing seems able to shake the British confidence in its elected representatives, and in the Government that is supported by a majority of those representatives. We have never accepted the gospel of Jean Jacques Rousseau; Priestley and Price are almost the only names that can be mentioned as disciples of Rousseau before the advent of Mr. H. Belloc.
France, still following Rousseau, does not associate political sovereignty with representation as England does. It never invests the doings of its Cabinet with a sacred importance, and it readily transfers the reins of government from Ministry to Ministry. France has submitted to the sovereignty of an Emperor and to the rule of kings since the great Revolution, and though its Republic is now forty years old, and at present there are no signs of dictatorship on the horizon, the Government of the Republic is never safe from a revolutionary rising of the sovereign people, and only by the strength of its army has revolution been kept at bay. If Louis XVI. had possessed the army of modern France he too might have kept the revolution at bay. All this revolution and reaction, disbelief in the authority of representative government, and lively conviction that sovereignty is with the citizens, and must be asserted from time to time—to the confusion of deputies and delegates—is Rousseau's work, the reaping of the harvest sown by the "Social Contract." Let us sum up the character of Rousseau's work, and then leave him and his doctrines for ever behind us.
"Rousseau's scheme is that of a doctrinaire who is unconscious of the infinite variety and complexity of life, and its apparent simplicity is mainly due to his inability to realise and appreciate the difficulties of his task. He evinced no insight into the political complications of his time; and his total ignorance of affairs, together with his contempt for civilised life, prevented him from framing a theory of any practical utility. Indeed, the disastrous attempt of the Jacobins to apply his principles proved how valueless and impracticable most of his doctrines were. He never attempted to trace social and political evils to their causes, in order to suggest suitable modifications of existing conditions. He could not see how impossible it was to sweep away all institutions and impose a wholly new social order irrespective of the natures, faculties, and desires of those whom he wished to benefit; on the contrary, he exaggerates the passivity and plasticity of men and circumstances, and dreams that his model legislator, who apparently is to initiate the new society, will be able to repress all anti-social feelings. He aims at order and symmetry, oblivious that human nature does not easily and rapidly bend to such treatment. It is his inability to discover the true mode of investigation that accounts for much of Rousseau's sophistry. His truisms and verbal propositions, his dogmatic assertions and unreal demonstrations, savour more of theology than of political science, while his quasi-mathematical method of reasoning from abstract formulæ, assumed to be axiomatic, gives a deceptive air of exactness and cogency which is apt to be mistaken for sound logic. He supports glaring paradoxes with an array of ingenious arguments, and with fatal facility and apparent precision he deduces from his unfounded premises a series of inconsequent conclusions, which he regards as authoritative and universally applicable. At times he becomes less rigid, as when (under the influence of Montesquieu) he studies the relations between the physical constitution of a nation, its territory, its customs, its form of government, and its deep-rooted opinions, or avows that there has been too much dispute about the forms of government. But such considerations are not prominent. In certain cases his inconsistencies may be due to re-handling, but he is said to have observed that those who boasted of understanding the whole contract were more clever than he."[74]
This may sound very severe, but it is entirely just. The "Social Contract" consists of four books: (1) The founding of the civilized state by a social pact. (2) The theory of the sovereignty of the people. (3) and (4). The different forms of government; the indestructible character of the general will of the community; and civil religion.
The whole work teems with generalisations, mostly ill-founded, and the details are not in agreement. The one thing of permanent value is the conception that the State represents the "general will" of the community. How that "general will" finds expression and gets its way is of great importance to democracy. Even more important is the nature of that "general will." Individualist as Rousseau was in his views about personal property (following Locke in an apparent ideal of peasant proprietorship), he insisted on the subjection of personal rights to the safety of the Commonwealth.
The resistance of the American colonies to the British Government did not commence with any spirit of independence. The tea incident at Boston took place in 1773, and it was not till three years later that the Declaration of Independence was drawn up. The Whig principles of 1688 are at the foundation of American liberties, and Locke's influence is to be seen both in the Declaration of Independence and in the American constitution. The colonists from the first had in many states a Puritanism that was hostile to the prerogatives of governors, and appeals to the British Government against the misuse of the prerogative were generally successful. The colonists wanted no more, and no less, than the constitutional rights enjoyed by Englishmen in Great Britain, and while the Whigs were in power these rights were fairly secure. George III., attempting a reversion to monarchist rule, drove the colonists to war and to seek independence; with the aid of France this independence was won.
If the French officers who assisted the Americans brought the doctrines of Rousseau to the revolted colonists, which is possible, it is quite certain that the establishment of the American Republic, and the principles of La Fayette and Paine, who had fought in the American War, were not without effect in France.
The American Constitution was the work of men who believed in democratic government as Locke had defined it, and America has been the biggest experiment in democracy the world has seen. The fact that the President and his Cabinet are not members of Congress makes the great distinction between the British and American Constitution. The College of Electors is elected only to elect the President; that done, its work is over. Congress, consisting of members elected from each state, and the Senate, consisting of representatives from each state, need not contain a majority of the President's party, and the President is in no way responsible to Congress as the British Prime Minister is to the House of Commons. The relation of the State Governments to the Federal Government has presented the chief difficulty to democracy in America.
The Whigs, or Republicans, as they came to be called, stood for a strong Federal Government; the Democrats were jealous for the rights of State Governments. The issue was not decided till the Civil War of 1861-1865, when the southern slave-holding States, seeing slavery threatened, announced their secession from the United States. Abraham Lincoln, the newly-elected President, declared that the Government could not allow secession, and insisted that the war was to save the union. Slavery was abolished and the Union saved by the defeat of the Secessionists; but for a time the fortunes of the Union were more desperate than they had been at any time since the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton was the real founder of the Republican party, as Jefferson was of the Democrats. Both these men were prominent in the making of the American Constitution in 1787, and Jefferson was the responsible author of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin and Paine made large contributions to the democratic independence of America.
Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney-General of the United States, was on Washington's staff at the beginning of the War, and he ascribed independence in the first place to George III., but next to "Thomas Paine, an Englishman by birth."[75]
Paine's later controversies with theological opponents have obscured his very considerable services to American Independence, to political democracy in England, and to constitutional government in the French Revolution; and as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in politics, Paine is remembered rather as an "infidel"—though he was a strong theist—than as a gifted writer on behalf of democracy and a political reformer of original powers.
Paine—who came of a Suffolk Quaker family—reached America in 1774, on the very threshold of the war. His Quaker principles made him attack negro slavery on his arrival, and he endeavoured, without success, to get an anti-slavery clause inserted in the "Declaration of Independence." He served in the American ranks during the war, and was the friend of Washington, who recognised the value of his writings. For Paine's "Common Sense" pamphlet and his publication, "The Crisis," had enormous circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of independence alive in the dark years of the war. They were fiercely Republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innocence, they struck a valiant note of self-reliance, and emphasised the importance of the average honest man. "Time makes more converts than reason," wrote Paine. Of monarchy he could say, "The fate of Charles I. hath only made kings more subtle—not more just"; and, "Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived."
Paine was in England in 1787, busy with scientific inventions, popular in Whig circles and respected. The fall of the Bastille won his applause, as it did the applause of Fox and the Whigs, but it was not till the publication of Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France," in 1790, that Paine again took up his pen on behalf of democracy.
Burke had been the hero of Paine and the Americans in the War of Independence, and his speeches and writings had justified the republic. And now it was the political philosophy of Hobbes that Burke seemed to be contending for when he insisted that the English people were bound for ever to royalty by the act of allegiance to William III.
Paine replied to Burke the following year with the "Rights of Man" which he wrote in a country inn, the "Angel," at Islington. It was not so much to demolish Burke as to give the English nation a constitution that Paine desired; for it seemed to the author of "Common Sense" that, America having renounced monarchy and set up a republican form of government, safely guarded by a written constitution, England must be anxious to do the same thing, and was only in need of a constitution.
The flamboyant rhetoric of the American Declaration of Independence—"We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"—was not the sort of language that appealed to English Whigs (America itself cheerfully admitted the falseness of the statement by keeping the negro in slavery), and the glittering generalities of the "Rights of Man" made no impression on the Whig leaders in Parliament. Paine was back in the old regions of a social contract, and of a popular sovereignty antecedent to government. It was all beside the mark, this talk of a popular right inherent in the nation, a right that gave the power to make constitutional changes notthroughelected representatives in Parliament, but by a general convention. Parliament in the sight of the Whigs was the sovereign assembly holding its authority from the people, and only by a majority in the House of Commons could the people express its will. What made the "Rights of Man" popular with the English democrats of the "Constitutional Society" and the sympathisers with the French Revolution was not so much the old pre-historic popular "sovereignty" fiction—though it is true that there were many Englishmen, of whom Godwin was one, who could see no hope of Parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchisement to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for compelling Parliament to move towards a more liberal constitution—as the programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the honest defence of the proceedings in Paris. That Parliament had no right to bind posterity, as Burke maintained, and that if the revolution of 1688 was authoritative, why should a revolution in 1788 be less authoritative? were matters of less interest than the clear statement of events in France, and the proposals for a democratic constitution in England and for social reform. Fifty thousand copies of the "Rights of Man" were quickly sold, and it obtained a large number of readers in America, and was translated into French. The total sales were estimated at 200,000 in 1793. Paine followed it up with Part II. while he was an elected member of the National Convention in Paris, and in 1792, when a cheap edition of the "Rights of Man" was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence convicted and outlawed.
Part I. of the "Rights of Man," while relying on the popular "sovereignty" fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition of representative government. It showed that government by democracy—i.e. by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies—must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity. A representative government was the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the Rights of Man were the rights of all to this representation.
As a nation we have never admitted any "natural" political rights to man, but we have steadily insisted on the constitutional right of representation in Parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by taxation to the national revenue.
Paine attacked all hereditary authority and all titles, but approved a double chamber for Parliament. He claimed that the whole nation ought to decide on the question of war with a foreign country, and urged that no member of Parliament should be a government pensioner.
In Part II. there is a confident announcement that "monarchy and aristocracy will not continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe," so sure was Paine that civilised mankind would hasten to follow the examples of France and America, and summon national conventions for the making of republican constitutions. As the old form of government had been hereditary, the new form was to be elective and representative. The money hitherto spent on the Crown was to be devoted to a national system of elementary education—all children remaining at school till the age of 14—and to old-age pensions for all over 60. It is in these financial proposals and the suggested social reforms that Paine is seen as a pioneer of democracy. A progressive income tax is included in this Part II., the tax to be graduated from 3d. in the £ on incomes between £50 to £500; 6d. on incomes between £500 and £1,000; an additional 6d. up to £4,000; and then 1s. on every additional £1,000 until we get to an income tax of 20s. in the £ on an income of £22,000 a year.
The popularity of Paine's proposals in England and the Reign of Terror in France frightened the British Government into a policy of fierce persecution against all who bought, sold, lent or borrowed the "Rights of Man." "Constitutional Societies" were suppressed, and all who dared openly express sympathy with revolutions or republics were promptly arrested.
Paine, outlawed by the British Government, contended in the National Convention for a republican constitution for France, did his best to prevent the execution of Louis XVI., fell with the Girondins, was thrown into prison, and only escaped with his life by an accident. Then, under the very shadow of the guillotine Paine wrote his "Age of Reason," to recall France from atheism to a mild humanitarian theism. This book was fatal to Paine's reputation. Henceforth the violent denunciation of theological opponents pursued him to the grave, and left his name a byword to the orthodox. As Paine's contribution to the body of democratic belief in the "Rights of Man" was submerged in the discussion on his religious opinions, so was his early plea for what he called "Agrarian Justice." On his release from a prison cell in the Luxembourg, in 1795, Paine published his "Plan for a National Fund." This plan was an anticipation of our modern proposals for Land Reform. Paine urged the taxation of land values—the payment to the community of a ground-rent—and argued for death duties as "the least troublesome method" of raising revenue. It was in the preface to this pamphlet on "Agrarian Justice" that Paine replied to Bishop Watson's sermon on "The Wisdom and Goodness of God in having made both Rich and Poor." "It is wrong," wrote Paine, "to say God made rich and poor; He made only male and female, and gave them the earth for their inheritance."
Napoleon organised the plebiscite, which conferred on him the Consulate for life, in 1802, and the French Revolution and Constitution making having yielded to a military dictatorship, Paine returned to America, and died in New York in 1809.
John Cartwright, the "Father of Reform," is notable as the first of the English "Radical Reformers." His direct influence on politics was small—none of his writings had the success of the "Rights of Man"—but, like Paine, he laboured to turn England by public opinion from aristocracy to democracy, and for more than forty years Cartwright was to the fore with his programme of Radical reform. The problem for Cartwright and the Radical reformers was how to get the changes made which would give political power to the people—with whom was the sovereignty, as they had learnt from Locke—and make Parliament the instrument of democracy. A hundred years and more have not sufficed to get this problem answered to everybody's satisfaction, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, to the minds of simple, honest men, it seemed enough that the argument should be stated plainly and reasonably; it would follow that all mankind would be speedily convinced; so great was the faith in the power of reason.
What neither Cartwright nor Paine understood was, that it was not the reasonableness of a proposed reform but the strength of the demand that carried the day. The revolt and independence of the American Colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. They were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in London, to shout for "Wilkes and Liberty," but the time had not yet come for the working class to believe that enfranchisement was a remedy for the ills they endured.
Major Cartwright was an exceedingly fine type of man; conscientious, public spirited, humane, and utterly without personal ambition. He resigned his commission in the Navy because he believed it wrong to fight against the American Colonies, and he organised a county militia for the sake of national defence. On the pedestal beneath his statue in Cartwright Gardens, just south of Euston Road, in London, the virtues of the "Father of Reform" are described at length, and he is mentioned as "the firm, consistent and persevering advocate ofuniversal suffrage, equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual Parliaments." It was in 1777 that Cartwright published his first pamphlet entitled "Legislative Rights Vindicated," and pleaded for "a return to the ancient and constitutional practice of Edward III." and the election of annual Parliaments. Long Parliaments were the root of all social political evil, Cartwright argued. War, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery—these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year—on June 1st—a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen—by ballot and without any plural voting—and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"—no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise—but, unlike his contemporaries, the Major was a stout Christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of Christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. By the political axiom that "no man shall be taxed but with his own consent, given either by himself or his own representative in Parliament," Cartwright may be quoted as one who had some perception of what democracy meant in England; but he is off the track again in arguing that personality, and not the possession of property, was the sole foundation of the right of being represented in Parliament. It was the possession of property that brought taxation, and with taxation the right to representation. We cannot repeat too often that in England the progress to democracy has never been made on assumptions of an abstract right to vote. We have come to democracy by experience, and this experience has taught us that people who are taxed insist, sooner or later, on having a voice in the administration of the national exchequer. But we have never admitted "personality" as a title to enfranchisement.