第39章 Letter X(3)

False appearances of reason for it will never be wanting,as long as there are pretenders to the crown;though nothing can be more absurd than to employ,in defence of liberty,an instrument so often employed to destroy it;though nothing can be more absurd than to maintain that any government ought to make use of the same expedient to support itself,as another government,on the ruins of which this government stands,was subverted for using;though nothing can be proved more manifestly by experience than these two propositions:

that Britain is enabled,by her situation,to support her government,when the bulk of her people are for it,without employing any means inconsistent with her constitution;and that the bulk of the people are not only always for the government,when the government supports the constitution,but are even hard and slow to be detached from it,when the government attacks or undermines the constitution,and when they are by consequence both justified in resisting,and even obliged in conscience to resist the government.

I have heard it argued lately,that pretenders abroad are a security at home,and that a government exposed to their attacks,will never venture to attack the constitution.I have been told too,that these notions were entertained by some who drew many political consequences from them at the Revolution.But if any of those persons are still alive,I persuade myself that they have altered this opinion,since such a situation will furnish at all times pretences or danger;since pretences of danger to a government,whether real of imaginary,will be always urged with plausibility,and generally with success,for obtaining new powers,or for straining old ones;and since whilst those who mean well to the government,are imposed upon by those who mean ill to the constitution,all true concern for the latter is lost in a mistaken zeal for the former,and the most important is ventured to save the least important,when neither one nor the other would have been exposed,if false alarms had not been rashly and too implicitly taken,or if true alarms had not given unnecessary strength to the government,at the expense of weakening the constitution.

Notwithstanding what hath been said,I do not imagine that an army would be employed by these men,directly and at first,against the nation and national liberty.I am far from thinking that any men can arise in future times,capable of attempting,in this manner,what some men in our age,who call themselves friends to the government,have been so weak and so imprudent as to avow in print,and publish to the nation.To destroy British liberty with an army of Britons,is not a measure so sure of success as some people may believe.

To corrupt the Parliament is a slower,but might prove a more effectual method;and two or three hundred mercenaries in the two Houses,if they could be listed there,would be more fatal to the constitution,than ten times as many thousands in red and in blue out of them.Parliaments are the true guardians of liberty.For this principally they were instituted;and this is the principal article of that great and noble trust,which the collective body of the people of Britain reposes in the representative.But then no slavery can be so effectually brought and fixed upon us as parliamentary slavery.By the corruption of Parliament,and the absolute influence of a King,or his minister,on the two Houses,we return into that state,to deliver or secure us from which Parliaments were instituted,and are really governed by the arbitrary will of one man.Our whole constitution is at once dissolved.Many securities to liberty are provided,but the integrity which depends on the freedom and the independency of Parliament,is the key-stone that keeps the whole together.