Passive Obedience

What are the practical consequences, deduced by each party, with regard to obedience to sovereigns?

Justice is founded entirely on the interests of society, which require mutual abstinence from property, in order to preserve peace. Whenever law enforcement has very pernicious consequences during emergencies, justice must be suspended and give way to public utility.

The maxim ’let justice be performed, even if it destroys the universe’ is false. It sacrifices the end to the means and shews a preposterous idea of the subordination of duties.

A town governor will burn the suburbs to prevent them from being used by the enemy. A general does not abstain from plundering a neutral country when it is needed by his army.

The case is the same with the duty of allegiance. Common sense teaches us, that, as government binds us to obedience only because of public utility. In extraordinary cases when obedience will cause the public ruin, that duty must always yield.

The maxim ’the safety of the people is the supreme law’ is agreeable universally.

Even our high monarchical party is forced, in such cases, to judge, feel, and conform to the rest of mankind.

Resistance, therefore, is allowed in extraordinary emergencies. But what degree of necessity can justify resistance?

I side with those who have a bond of allegiance.

Civil war commonly follows an insurrection.

One chief cause of the disposition to rebel is the tyranny in the rulers.

• This forces the people into violent measures.

Thus, tyrannicide or assassination was approved of by ancient maxims.

This made the tyrants and usurpers ten times more fierce and unrelenting, instead of keeping them in awe.

This is why assassination has been:

• abolished by the laws of nations
• universally condemned as a base and treacherous method of bring justice

Obedience is our duty in the common course of things. It should chiefly be inculcated.

It is most preposterous to list all the cases where resistance may be allowed.

Similarly, a philosopher can acknowledge that justice may be ignored in cases of urgent necessity.

But we should not waste time on a preacher or casuist who chiefly finds out such cases, and enforce them with vehement arguments.

It would be better for him to inculcate the general doctrine.

A party among us has very much propagated the maxims of resistance.

• These maxims have been so pernicious and destructive of civil society.

There are 2 reasons in their defence:

1. Their antagonists carry the doctrine of obedience too far.

They exclude the exceptions to obedience in extraordinary cases.

It became necessary for the party to:

• insist on these exceptions
• defend the rights of injured truth and liberty

2. The nature of the British constitution and form of government

This is the better reason.

Our constitution peculiarly establishes a first magistrate with high pre-eminence and dignity.

Though he is limited by the laws, he:

• is above the laws his own person
• can neither be questioned nor punished for any injury or wrong which he might commit

His ministers alone, or those who act by his commission, are obnoxious to justice.

The prince is thus allured by the prospect of personal safety to give the laws their free course.

An equal security is, in effect, obtained by the punishment of lesser offenders.

At the same time, a civil war is avoided.

But the constitution can never reasonably be understood, by that maxim, to have determined its own destruction, or to have established a tame submission, where he protects his ministers, perseveres in injustice, and usurps the whole power of the commonwealth.

This case is never expressly put by the laws.

This is because it is impossible for the laws to:

• provide a remedy for it, or
• establish any superior magistrate to chastise the prince’s exorbitancies

But a right without a remedy would be an absurdity.

The remedy here is the extraordinary one of resistance.

When affairs go to that extreme, the constitution can be defended by resistance alone.

Resistance therefore must become more frequent in the British government than in others which are simpler and consist of fewer parts and movements.

Where the king is an absolute sovereign, he has little temptation to commit such enormous tyranny that would provoke rebellion.

But where he is limited, his imprudent ambition might run him into that perilous situation.

This happened with Charles 1st.

After animosities are ceased, this also happened with James 2nd.

Those princes were good and harmless.

But they mistook the nature of our constitution, and so they engrossed the whole legislative power.

It became necessary to oppose them vehemently.