The Original Contract

No party in the present age can support itself without philosophical principles annexed to its political or practical one.

Thus all factions in England have thought of speculative principles to protect and cover their scheme of actions.

The people are commonly very rude builders, especially in this speculative way. This is more true when actuated by party-zeal. Their projects become a little unshapely, with marks of that violence and hurry, in which it was raised. The speculative principles of the two parties are:

• One party traces up government to the Deity. It tried to render it so sacred that it must be sacrilege to touch or invade it in the smallest article.
• The other party founds government on the people’s consent as an original contract which gives the people the power to resist their sovereign whenever he does them wrong.

Both of these are just.

Divine Rule

The Deity is the ultimate author of all government. It is impossible for humans to subsist without the protection of government. Thus, the government must have been intended by Him. But a sovereign cannot be called His vice-gerent.

Whatever actually happens is part of the general plan of providence. The following have an equal right to plead to this Deity:

• the greatest and most lawful prince
• the inferior magistrate,
• an usurper,
• a robber and pirate.

That wise Deity invested a Titus or a Trajan with authority also bestowed power on a Borgia or an Angria. The same causes, which gave rise to the sovereign power also established the petty jurisdiction and limited authority in it. A constable thus acts by a divine commission and possesses an indefeasible right.

People associate together and are to authority through their own consent.

If we trace government to its first origin in the woods, we will find that the people are the source of all power and jurisdiction. They associate together voluntarily for the sake of peace and order. They abandoned their native liberty and receive laws from their equal and companion.

This leads to the idea of the original contract which originated in human nature and in the equality of animal species. This then leads to the political authority of government

A man’s natural force is limited by his limbs and his courage. It could never let him rule the people. Men can only be ruled by:

• their own consent, and
• their sense of the advantages from peace and order

Even that consent was long very imperfect. It could not be the basis of a regular administration.

A chieftain probably acquired his influence during the war. He ruled more by persuasion than command until he could employ force to reduce disobedience. At that point, the society still did not have a civil government. No agreement was expressly formed for submission. Agreements are an idea far beyond the comprehension of savages.

Each exertion of authority in the chieftain must have been particular, and called forth by the present exigencies. These led to a sensible utility from the frequent exertions. Their frequency gradually produced an habitual and voluntary acquiescence in the people.

Philosophers who have embraced a party are not contented with these concessions. They assert:

• that government in its earliest infancy arose from consent
• that government still rests on consent.
• that all men are born equal and do not owe allegiance to any prince or government unless bound by a promise.

No one would let go of his native liberty and subject himself to the will of another for no benefit. This promise is always understood to be in exchange for the justice and protection from his sovereign. If the sovereign fails in this, then he has broken his part of the articles of engagement. He thereby frees his subject from obligations to allegiance.

These philosophers say is the foundation of

• the authority in every government, as well as
• the right of resistance of every subject

This idea is unique to England.

On the contrary, everywhere:

• princes claim their subjects as their property
• the subjects suppose themselves born under obligations of obedience to a certain sovereign, similar to their obedience to their parents.

These connections are always independent of our consent, whether in Persia, China, France, Spain, Holland, or England. Obedience becomes so familiar, that most men never ask on its origin or cause, more than about the principle of gravity, resistance, or the most universal laws of nature.

Even if they ask, they will discover that they have been subject to government, as their family, ever since. They immediately acquiesce, and acknowledge their obligation to allegiance.

If you preached that political connections are founded on voluntary consent or a mutual promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you for the sedition of loosening the ties of obedience. Your friends would lock you up for being delirious.

If savages really did first associate through agreement then that agreement would not longer have any authority. The thousand changes of government will obliterate it. An original contract would mean that the fathers consented to bind the children and their offspring. This is no proof for this anywhere.

All governments have been founded originally, either on usurpation or conquest, or both. They were not formed from any fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people.

When an artful and bold man is placed at the head of an army or faction, he easily uses violence or false pretences to establish his dominion over his rivals. He hides the number or force of his army. His deception keeps him secure.

Many governments have been established in this way through force and violence, and not through any original contract.

Where is the mutual agreement or voluntary association so much talked of?

The smoothest way for a nation to receive a foreign master is by marriage or a will. But it is not extremely honourable for the people because it treats them as something to be disposed of, like a dowry or a legacy, according to the pleasure or interest of their rulers.

An alternative is to use elections which is either:

• the combination of a few great men, who decide for the whole, and will allow of no opposition: Or
• the fury of a multitude who follow a seditious ringleader who is known only to a dozen of them. He owes his advancement merely to his own impudence or to the momentary caprice of his fellows.

These disorderly elections do not have such mighty authority as to be the only lawful foundation of all government and allegiance.

In reality, the most terrible event is the total dissolution of government to be replaced the liberty to the multitude who decides that the new government depends on the votes of most of the people in the country.

Every wise man then wishes a general at the head of a powerful and obedient army to quickly:

• seize the prize,
• give to the people a master who they are so unfit to chuse for themselves.

Those philosophical notions do not match reality.

Even the Glorious Revolution did not match these refined ideas because it only changed the regal succession of the government. The Revolution was decided only by 700 people who determined that change for nearly 10 million people. Those 10 million did not acquiesce willingly to such an outcome, otherwise the conflict would have never ended.

Athens was the most extensive democracy in history. Yet even its formation was caused by 10% of their population only. Even its foreign dominions, which they claimed by right of conquest, were decided by a few people.

Popular assemblies in Athens were always full of licence and disorder, despite the institutions and laws that checked them.

The Achæans enjoyed the freest and most perfect democracy of all antiquity. Yet Polybius tells us that they employed force to oblige some cities to enter into their league.

Henry 4th and 7th of England only came to power by parliamentary election. Yet they never would acknowledge it since it would weaken their authority. This would be strange, if the only real foundation of all authority were consent and promise!

It is in vain to say that all governments are or should be, at first founded on necessary popular consent. I assert that human affairs will never admit of this consent. Instead, the origin of almost all the new governments is that conquest or usurpation force that dissolves the ancient governments.

Consent might have taken place in a few cases. But such cases are so irregular, confined, or intermixed with fraud or violence, that it cannot have any great authority.

The consent of the people is surely the best and most sacred of any foundation of government. But it has very seldom happened and never happened in its full extent.

There are other foundations of government. must also be admitted.all men possessed of so inflexible a regard to justice, that, of themselves, they would totally abstain from the properties of others; they had° for ever remained in a state of absolute liberty, without subjection to any magistrate or political society:

But this is a state of perfection, of which human nature is justly deemed incapable. Again; were all men possessed of so perfect an understanding, as always to know their own interests, no form of government had ever been submitted to, but what was established on consent, and was fully canvassed by every member of the society: But this state of perfection is likewise much superior to human nature.

All political societies have had an origin much less accurate and regular; and were one to choose a period of time, when the people’s consent was the least regarded in public transactions, it would be precisely on the establishment of a new government.

In a settled constitution, their inclinations are often consulted. But during the fury of revolutions, conquests, and public convulsions, military force or political craft usually decides the controversy.

• A new government is established, by whatever means.
• The people obey more from fear and necessity, than from any idea of allegiance or of moral obligation.
• The prince is watchful of any new insurrection.

Time gradually removes all these difficulties. It accustoms the nation to regard the conquering family as their lawful or native leaders.

In order to found this opinion, they have no recourse to any notion of voluntary consent or promise, which, they know, never was, in this case, either expected or demanded.

The original establishment was formed by violence, and submitted to from necessity. The subsequent administration is also supported by power, and acquiesced in by the people, not as a matter of choice, but of obligation.

They imagine not, that their consent gives their prince a title: But they willingly consent, because they think, that, from long possession, he has acquired a title, independent of their choice or inclination.

it be said, that, by living under the dominion of a prince, which one might leave, every individual has given a tacit consent to his authority, and promised him obedience; it may be answered, that such an implied consent can only have place, where a man imagines, that the matter depends on his choice.

But where he thinks (as all mankind do who are born under established governments) that by his birth he owes allegiance to a certain prince or certain form of government; it would be absurd to infer a consent or choice, which he expressly, in this case, renounces and disclaims.we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artizan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires?

By remaining in a ship, a man freely consents to the captain’s dominion even if he was loaded onto the ship while he was asleep.

If the prince forbid his subjects to quit his dominions; as

In Tiberius’ time, it was a crime for a Roman knight to try to flee to the Parthians in order to escape Tiberius tyranny.

Did a prince observe, that many of his subjects were seized with the frenzy of migrating to foreign countries, he would doubtless, with great reason and justice, restrain them, in order to prevent the depopulation of his own kingdom. Would he forfeit the allegiance of all his subjects, by so wise and reasonable a law?

Yet the freedom of their choice is surely, in that case, ravished from them.company of men, who should leave their native country, in order to people some uninhabited region, might dream of recovering their native freedom; but they would soon find, that their prince still laid claim to them, and called them his subjects, even in their new settlement.

And in this he would but act conformably to the common ideas of mankind.

The truest tacit consent of this kind is when a foreigner settles in any country, and is beforehand acquainted with the government to which he must submit. His allegiance is more voluntary

, much less expected or depended on, than that of a natural born subject.

On the contrary, his native prince still asserts a claim to him. And if he punish not the renegade, when he seizes him in war with his new prince’s commission; this clemency is not founded on the municipal law, which in all countries condemns the prisoner; but on the consent of princes, who have agreed to this indulgence, in order to prevent reprisals.

One generation of men go off the stage at once, and another succeed, as is the case with silk-worms and butterflies, the new race, if they had sense enough to choose their government, which surely is never the case with men, might voluntarily, and by general consent, establish their own form of civil polity, without any regard to the laws or precedents, which prevailed among their ancestors.

But human society is in perpetual flux. One man every hour is leaving and another one is entering.

To preserve stability in government, the new brood should:

• conform to the established constitution, and
• follow the path which their fathers, treading in the footsteps of theirs, had marked out to them.

Some innovations must necessarily have place in every human institution. and it is happy where the enlightened genius of the age give these a direction to the side of reason, liberty, and justice: but violent innovations no individual is entitled to make:

They are even dangerous to be attempted by the legislature. More ill than good is ever to be expected from them.

If history affords examples to the contrary, they are not to be drawn into precedent, and are only to be regarded as proofs, that the science of politics affords few rules, which will not admit of some exception, and which may not sometimes be controuled by fortune and accident.

The violent innovations during the reign of Henry 8th, an imperious monarch, were suppored by legislative authority.

Those in the reign of Charles I. were derived from faction and fanaticism;

and both of them have proved happy in the issue: But even the former were long the source of many disorders, and still more dangers; and if the measures of allegiance were to be taken from the latter, a total anarchy must have place in human society, and a final period at once be put to every government., that an usurper, after having banished his lawful prince and royal family, should establish his dominion for ten or a dozen years in any country, and should preserve so exact a discipline in his troops, and so regular a disposition in his garrisons, that no insurrection had ever been raised, or even murmur heard, against his administration:

Can it be asserted, that the people, who in their hearts abhor his treason, have tacitly consented to his authority, and promised him allegiance, merely because, from necessity, they live under his dominion?

Suppose again their native prince were restored by a foreign army. His foundation for his rule would be popular consent.

They receive him with joy and exultation, and shew plainly with what reluctance they had submitted to any other yoke. What is the foundation for the prince’s title? It is not based on . The people willingly acquiesce in his authority, they never imagine, that their consent made him sovereign.

They consent because they see him to be already, by birth, their lawful sovereign.

Tacit consent is inferred from their living under his dominion. But this is no more than what they formerly gave to the tyrant and usurper.

All lawful government arises from the consent of the people, we certainly do them a great deal more honour than they deserve, or even expect and desire from us.

After the Roman dominions became too unwieldly for the republic, the people were extremely grateful to Augustus for that authority which he established by violence.

They shewed an equal disposition to submit to the successor, whom he left them, by his last will and testament. It was afterwards their misfortune, that there never was, in one family, any long regular succession; but that their line of princes was continually broken, either by private assassinations or public rebellions.

The prætorian bands, on the failure of every family, set up one emperor. The legions in the East a second. Those in Germany, perhaps, a third. The sword alone could decide the controversy.

The people then are to be pitied, not because the choice of the emperor was never left to them (that was impracticable), but because they never had long political stability.

Every new government led to violence, wars, and bloodshed. There were not then immoral because they were inevitable. The house of Lancaster ruled Britain about 60 years. Yet the partizans of the white rose seemed daily to multiply in England.

The present government has lasted still longer. Have all views of right in another family been utterly extinguished; even though scarce any man now alive had arrived at years of discretion, when it was expelled, or could have consented to its dominion, or have promised it allegiance?

A sufficient indication surely of the general sentiment of mankind on this head. We do not blame the partizans of the abdicated family.

, merely on account of the long time, during which they have preserved their imaginary loyalty.

We blame them for adhering to a family which has been justly expelled.

, and which, from the moment the new settlement took place, had forfeited all title to authority.

We would we have a more regular and philosophical refutation of this principle of an original contract or popular consent.

Moral duties may be divided into two kinds:

1. Those from a natural instinct, independent of all ideas of obligation, and of all views, either to public or private utility.

Examples are:

• love of children,
• gratitude to benefactors,
• pity to the unfortunate.

Such humane instincts benefit society. This gives them moral approbation and esteem in our eyes. But the person who has those instincts feels their power and influence without thinking of their beneficial effects.

2. Those not from any original instinct of nature, but are performed entirely from a sense of obligation. This sense arises when we feel for the necessities of human society that can only be addressed by such duties. .

Examples are:

• justice
• the regard to the property of others
• fidelity or the observance of promises

These duties become obligatory and acquire an authority over mankind.

Every man loves himself better than any other person. He is naturally impelled to extend his acquisitions as much as possible. Nothing can restrain him in this propensity, but reflection and experience, by which he learns:

• the pernicious effects of that licence, and
• the total dissolution of society from it.

His original instinct is here checked and restrained by a subsequent judgment. This is precisely the same with the political or civil duty of allegiance, as with the natural duties of justice and fidelity.

Our primary instincts lead us, either to indulge ourselves in unlimited freedom, or to seek dominion over others. It is reflection only, which engages us to sacrifice such strong passions to the interests of peace and public order.

Society cannot possibly be maintained without the authority of magistrates. This authority would fall into contempt, where exact obedience is not paid to it.

The observation of these general and obvious interests is the source of all allegiance, and of that moral obligation, which we attribute to it.

Necessity, therefore, is there:

• to found the duty of allegiance or obedience to magistrates on that of fidelity or a regard to promises
• to suppose, that it is the consent of each individual, which subjects him to government.

Both allegiance and fidelity stand precisely on the same foundation. They are both submitted to by people because of the apparent interests and necessities of human society.

They say that we are bound to obey our sovereign because we have given a tacit promise to that purpose. But why are we bound to observe our promise?

It must here be asserted, that the commerce and intercourse of mankind, which are of such mighty advantage, can have no security where men pay no regard to their engagements.

Men could not live in society without laws, magistrates, and judges. The obligation to allegiance being of like force and authority with the obligation to fidelity, we gain nothing by resolving the one into the other.

The general interests or necessities of society are sufficient to establish both.

We should obey the government because society could not otherwise subsist. Shallow people say that we should obey government because we should keep our word. But why are we bound to keep our word?

People answer that our present sovereign directly inherits authority from ancestors who have governed us for many ages. But the first authority of those ancestors came from usurpation and violence.

The property and ownership of durable objects is founded on fraud and injustice.

In the end, many of the rules established by our ancestors are uncertain, ambiguous, and arbitrary. This includes:

• the succession and rights of princes, and
• forms of government.

In the infancy of any constitution, some laws are have no justice and equity.

Historian Rapin pretends that the controversy between Edward 3rd and Philip de Valois was of this nature, and could be decided only by an appeal to heaven, that is, by war and violence.

Should Germanicus or Drusus have succeeded to Tiberius?

Should the right of adoption to be received as equivalent to that of blood, in a nation, where it had the same effect in private families, and had already, in two instances, taken place in the public?

Should Germanicus be esteemed the elder son because he was born before Drusus; or the younger, because he was adopted after the birth of his brother? Ought the right of the elder to be regarded in a nation, where he had no advantage in the succession of private families?

Should the Roman empire at that time to be deemed hereditary, because of two examples;

or ought it, even so early, to be regarded as belonging to the stronger or to the present possessor, as being founded on so recent an usurpation?

mounted the throne after a pretty long succession of excellent emperors, who had acquired their title, not by birth, or public election, but by the fictitious rite of adoption.

That bloody debauchee being murdered by a conspiracy suddenly formed between his wench and her gallant, who happened at that time to be Prætorian Præfect; these immediately deliberated about choosing a master to human kind, to speak in the style of those ages; and they cast their [484] eyes on Pertinax.

Before the tyrant’s death was known, the Præfect went secretly to that senator, who, on the appearance of the soldiers, imagined that his execution had been ordered by Commodus. He was immediately saluted emperor by the officer and his attendants; chearfully proclaimed by the populace; unwillingly submitted to by the guards; formally recognized by the senate; and passively received by the provinces and armies of the empire. discontent of the Prætorian bands broke out in a sudden sedition, which occasioned the murder of that excellent prince: And the world being now without a master and without government, the guards thought proper to set the empire formally to sale. Julian, the purchaser, was proclaimed by the soldiers, recognized by the senate, and submitted to by the people; and must also have been submitted to by the provinces, had not the envy of the legions begotten opposition and resistance.

Pescennius Niger in Syria elected himself emperor. He gained the tumultuary consent of his army and was attended with the secret good-will of the senate and people of Rome.

Albinus in Britain found an equal right to set up his claim. but Severus, who governed Pannonia, prevailed in the end above both of them. That able politician and warrior, finding his own birth and dignity too much inferior to the imperial crown, professed, at first, an intention only of revenging the death of Pertinax. He marched as general into Italy; defeated Julian; and without our being able to fix any precise commencement even of the soldiers’ consent, he was from necessity acknowledged emperor by the senate and people; and fully established in his violent authority by subduing Niger and Albinus.

instances of a like nature occur in the history of the emperors; in that of Alexander’s successors; and of many other countries: Nor can any thing be more unhappy than a despotic government of this kind; where the succession is disjointed and irregular, and must be determined, on every vacancy, by force or election.

In a free government, the matter is often unavoidable and is also much less dangerous.

The interests of liberty may there frequently lead the people, in their own defence, to alter the succession of the crown.

The constitution, being compounded of parts, may still maintain a sufficient stability, by resting on the aristocratical or democratical members, though the monarchical be altered, from time to time, in order to accommodate it to the former.an absolute government, when there is no legal prince, who has a title to the throne, it may safely be determined to belong to the first occupant. Instances of this kind are but too frequent, especially in the eastern monarchies. jWhen any race of princes expires, the will or destination of the last sovereign will be regarded as a title. Thus the edict of Lewis the XIVth, who called the bastard princes to the succession in case of the failure of all the legitimate princes, would, in such an event, have some authority.

Thus, the will of Charles 2nd disposed of the whole Spanish monarchy. The cession of the ancient proprietor, especially when joined to conquest, is likewise deemed a good title. The general obligation, which binds us to government, is the interest and necessities of society; and this obligation is very strong. The determination of it to this or that particular prince or form of government is frequently more uncertain and dubious.

Present possession has considerable authority in these cases, and greater than in private property. This is because of the disorders which attend all revolutions and changes of government shall only observe, before we conclude, that, though an appeal to general opinion may justly, in the speculative sciences of metaphysics, natural philosophy, or astronomy, be deemed unfair and inconclusive, yet in all questions with regard to morals, as well as criticism, there is really no other standard, by which any controversy can ever be decided.

And nothing is a clearer proof, that a theory of this kind is erroneous, than to find, that it leads to paradoxes, repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind, and to the practice and opinion of all nations and all ages. The doctrine, which founds all lawful government on an original contract, or consent of the people, is plainly of this kind; nor has the most noted of its partizans, in prosecution of it, scrupled to affirm, that absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all and that the supreme power in a state cannot take from any man, by taxes and impositions, any part of his property, without his own consent or that of his representatives.

What authority any moral reasoning can have, which leads into opinions so wide of the general practice of mankind, in every place but this single kingdom, it is easy to determine.monly passage I meet with in antiquity, where the obligation of obedience to government is ascribed to a promise, is in Plato’s Crito: where Socrates refuses to escape from prison, because he had tacitly promised to obey the laws.21 Thus he builds a tory consequence of passive obedience, on a whig foundation of the original contract.discoveries are not to be expected in these matters. If scarce any man, till very lately, ever imagined that government was founded on compact, it is certain, that it cannot, in general, have any such foundation.crime of rebellion among the ancients was commonly expressed by the terms νεωτερίζειν, novas res moliri.