They have changed not their laws, but their legislature; not their enjoyment, but their safety; not their present burthens, but their profpects of future grievances: and this we pronounce a change from the condition of freemen to that of flaves. In like manner, in our own country, the act of parliament, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which gave to the king's proclamation the force of law, has properly been called a complete and formal surrender of the liberty of the nation; and would have been fo, although no proclamation were iffued in pursuance of these new powers, or none but what was recommended by the highest wisdom and utility. The fecurity was gone. Were it probable that the welfare and accommodation of the people would be as ftudioufly, and as providently, confulted in the edicts of a defpotic prince, as by the refolutions of a popular affembly, then would an abfolute form of government be no less free than the pureft democracy. The different degree of care and knowledge of the public intereft which may reasonably be expected from the different form and compofition of the legiflature, conftitutes the diftinction, in respect of liberty, as well between thefe two extremes, as

between

between all the intermediate modifications of

civil government.

The definitions which have been framed of civil liberty, and which have become the fubject of much unneceffary altercation, are most of them adapted to this idea. Thus one political writer makes the very effence of the subject's liberty to confift in his being governed by no laws but thofe to which he hath actually con ́fented; another is fatisfied with an indirect and virtual confent; another again places civil liberty in the feparation of the legislative and executive offices of government; another in the being governed by law, that is, by known, preconftituted, inflexible rules of action and adjudication; a fifth in the exclufive right of the people to tax themselves by their own representatives; a fixth in the freedom and purity of elections of reprefentatives; a feventh in the control which the democratic part of the conftitution poffeffes over the military establishment. Concerning which, and fome other fimilar accounts of civil liberty, it may be observed, that they all labour under one inaccuracy, viz. that they describe not fo much liberty itself as the fafeguards and prefervatives of liberty: for ex

ample,

ample, a man's being governed by no laws, but those to which he has given his confent, were it practicable, is no otherwife neceffary to the enjoyment of civil liberty, than as it affords a probable fecurity against the dictation of laws, impofing fuperfluous restrictions upon his pri

vate will. This remark is applicable to the reft, The diversity of these definitions will not furprise us, when we confider that there is no contrariety or opposition amongst them whatever; for, by how many different provisions and precautions civil liberty is fenced and protected, fo many different accounts of liberty itself, all fufficiently confiftent with truth and with each other, may, according to this mode of explaining the term, be framed and adopted.

Truth cannot be offended by a definition, but propriety may, In which view thofe definitions of liberty ought to be rejected, which, by making that effential to civil freedom which is unattainable in experience, inflame expectations that can never be gratified, and difturb the public content with complaints, which no wifdom or benevolence of government can remove.

It will not be thought extraordinary, that an idea, which occurs fo much oftener as the fubject of panegyric and careless declamation, than of

just

juft reasoning or correct knowledge, should be attended with uncertainty and confufion; or that it fhould be found impoffible to contrive a definition, which may include the numerous, unsettled, and ever varying fignifications, which the term is made to ftand for, and at the fame time accord with the condition and experience of focial life.

Of the two ideas that have been ftated of civil liberty, whichever we affume, and whatever reafoning we found upon them, concerning its extent, nature, value, and prefervation, this is the conclufion—that that people, government, and conftitution, is the freeft, which makes the best provifion for the enacting of expedient and falutary laws.

CHAP.

CHAP. VI.

OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

A

S a feries of appeals must be finite, there neceffarily exifts in every government a power from which the conftitution has provided no appeal; and which power, for that reafon, may be termed abfolute, omnipotent, uncontrolable, arbitrary, defpotic; and is alike fo in all

countries.

The perfon, or affembly, in whom this power refides, is called the fovereign, or the fupreme power of the state.

Since to the fame power univerfally appertains the office of eftablishing public laws, it is called alfo the legislature of the flate.

A government receives its denomination from the form of the legiflature; which form is likewife what we commonly mean by the conftitution of a country.

Political writers enumerate three principal forms of government, which, however, are to be regarded