Advice to Young Men Part 8

312. There is, too, another most abominable principle that runs through them all, namely, that there is in _high birth_, something of _superior nature_, instinctive courage, honour, and talent. Who can look at the two _royal youths_ in CYMBELINE, or at the _n.o.ble youth_ in DOUGLAS, without detesting the base parasites who wrote those plays? Here are youths, brought up by _shepherds_, never told of their origin, believing themselves the sons of these humble parents, but discovering, when grown up, the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirsting for military renown, even while tending their reputed fathers' flocks and herds! And, why this species of falsehood? To cheat the ma.s.s of the people; to keep them in abject subjection; to make them quietly submit to despotic sway.

And the infamous authors are guilty of the cheat, because they are, in one shape or another, paid by oppressors out of means squeezed from the people. A _true_ picture would give us just the reverse; would show us that '_high birth_' is the enemy of virtue, of valour, and of talent; would show us, that with all their incalculable advantages, royal and n.o.ble families have, only by mere accident, produced a great man; that, in general, they have been amongst the most effeminate, unprincipled, cowardly, stupid, and, at the very least, amongst the most useless persons, considered as individuals, and not in connexion with the prerogatives and powers bestowed on them solely by the law.

313. It is impossible for me, by any words that I can use, to express, to the extent of my thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to form their opinions from the writings of poets and romances. Nine times out of ten, the morality they teach is bad, and must have a bad tendency. Their wit is employed to _ridicule virtue_, as you will almost always find, if you examine the matter to the bottom. The world owes a very large part of its sufferings to tyrants; but what tyrant was there amongst the ancients, whom the poets did not place _amongst the G.o.ds_?

Can you open an English poet, without, in some part or other of his works, finding the grossest flatteries of royal and n.o.ble persons? How are young people not to think that the praises bestowed on these persons are just? DRYDEN, PARNELL, GAY, THOMSON, in short, what poet have we had, or have we, POPE only excepted, who was not, or is not, a pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the wretched dependent of some part of the Aristocracy? Of the extent of the powers of writers in producing mischief to a nation, we have two most striking instances in the cases of Dr. JOHNSON and BURKE. The former, at a time when it was a question whether war should be made on America to compel her to submit to be taxed by the English parliament, wrote a pamphlet, ent.i.tled, '_Taxation no Tyranny_,' to urge the nation into that war. The latter, when it was a question, whether England should wage war against the people of France, to prevent them from reforming their government, wrote a pamphlet to urge the nation into _that_ war. The first war lost us America, the last cost us six hundred millions of money, and has loaded us with forty millions a year of taxes. JOHNSON, however, got a _pension for his life_, and BURKE a pension for his life, and for _three lives after his own_! c.u.mBERLAND and MURPHY, the play-writers, were pensioners; and, in short, of the whole ma.s.s, where has there been one, whom the people were not compelled to pay for labours, having for their princ.i.p.al object the deceiving and enslaving of that same people? It is, therefore, the duty of every father, when he puts a book into the hands of his son or daughter, to give the reader a true account of _who_ and _what_ the writer of the book was, or is.

314. If a boy be intended for any particular calling, he ought, of course, to be induced to read books relating to that calling, if such books there be; and, therefore, I shall not be more particular on that head. But, there are certain things, that all men in the middle rank of life, ought to know something of; because the knowledge will be a source of pleasure; and because the want of it must, very frequently, give them pain, by making them appear inferior, in point of mind, to many who are, in fact, their inferiors in that respect. These things are _grammar, arithmetic, history_, accompanied with _geography_ Without these, a man, in the middle rank of life, however able he may be in his calling, makes but an awkward figure. Without _grammar_ he cannot, with safety to his character as a well-informed man, put his thoughts upon paper; nor can he be _sure_, that he is speaking with propriety. How many clever men have I known, full of natural talent, eloquent by nature, replete with every thing calculated to give them weight in society; and yet having little or no weight, merely because unable to put correctly upon paper that which they have in their minds! For me not to say, that I deem _my English Grammar_ the best book for teaching this science, would be affectation, and neglect of duty besides; because I know, that it is the best; because I wrote it for the purpose; and because, hundreds and hundreds of men and women have told me, some verbally, and some by letter, that, though (many of them) at grammar schools for years, they really never _knew_ any thing of grammar, until they studied my book. I, who know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I read books upon the subject, can easily believe this, and especially when I think of the numerous instances in which I have seen _university_-scholars unable to write English, with any tolerable degree of correctness. In this book, the principles are so clearly explained, that the disgust arising from intricacy is avoided; and it is this disgust, that is the great and mortal enemy of acquiring knowledge.

315. With regard to ARITHMETIC, it is a branch of learning absolutely necessary to every one, who has any pecuniary transactions beyond those arising out of the expenditure of his week's wages. All the books on this subject that I had ever seen, were so bad, so dest.i.tute of every thing calculated to lead the mind into a knowledge of the matter, so void of principles, and so evidently tending to puzzle and disgust the learner, by their sententious, and crabbed, and quaint, and almost hieroglyphical definitions, that I, at one time, had the intention of writing a little work on the subject myself. It was put off, from one cause or another; but a little work on the subject has been, partly at my suggestion, written and published by Mr. THOMAS SMITH of Liverpool, and is sold by Mr. SHERWOOD, in London. The author has great ability, and a perfect knowledge of his subject. It is a book of principles; and any young person of common capacity, will learn more from it in a week, than from all the other books, that I ever saw on the subject, in a twelve-month.

316. While the foregoing studies are proceeding, though they very well afford a relief to each other, HISTORY may serve as a relaxation, particularly during the study of grammar, which is an undertaking requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of our own country is of the most importance; because, for want of a thorough knowledge of what _has been_, we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for _what is_, and still more at a loss, to be able to show what _ought to be_.

The difference between history and romance is this; that that which is narrated in the latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can apply to present or future circ.u.mstances and events; while the former, when it is what it ought to be, leaves the mind stored with arguments for experience, applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs of life. The history of a country ought to show the origin and progress of its inst.i.tutions, political, civil, and ecclesiastical; it ought to show the effects of those inst.i.tutions upon the state of the people; it ought to delineate the measures of the government at the several epochs; and, having clearly described the state of the people at the several periods, it ought to show the cause of their freedom, good morals, and happiness; or of their misery, immorality, and slavery; and this, too, by the production of indubitable facts, and of inferences so manifestly fair, as to leave not the smallest doubt upon the mind.

317. Do the histories of England which we have, answer this description?

They are very little better than romances. Their contents are generally confined to narrations relating to battles, negociations, intrigues, contests between rival sovereignties, rival n.o.bles, and to the character of kings, queens, mistresses, bishops, ministers, and the like; from scarcely any of which can the reader draw any knowledge which is at all applicable to the circ.u.mstances of the present day.

318. Besides this, there is the _falsehood_; and the falsehoods contained in these histories, where shall we find any thing to surpa.s.s?

Let us take one instance. They all tell us, that William the Conqueror knocked down twenty-six parish churches, and laid waste the parishes in order to make the New Forest; and this in a tract of the very poorest land in England, where the churches must then have stood at about one mile and two hundred yards from each other. The truth is, that all the churches are still standing that were there when William landed, and the whole story is a sheer falsehood from the beginning to the end.

319. But, this is a mere specimen of these romances; and that too, with regard to a matter comparatively unimportant to us. The important falsehoods are, those which misguide us by statement or by inference, with regard to the state of the people at the several epochs, as produced by the inst.i.tutions of the country, or the measures of the Government. It is always the object of those who have power in their hands, to persuade the people that they are better off than their forefathers were: it is the great business of history to show how this matter stands; and, with respect to this great matter, what are we to learn from any thing that has. .h.i.therto been called a history of England!

I remember, that, about a dozen years ago, I was talking with a very clever young man, who had read twice or thrice over the History of England, by different authors; and that I gave the conversation a turn that drew from him, unperceived by himself, that he did not know how t.i.thes, parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition of trial by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be in England; and, that he had not the smallest idea of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came to possess the power of taxing our cabbages in Covent-Garden. Yet, this is history. I have done a great deal, with regard to matters of this sort, in my famous History of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION; for I may truly call that famous, which has been translated and published in all the modern languages.

320. But, it is reserved for me to write a complete history of the country from the earliest times to the present day; and this, G.o.d giving me life and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, beginning on the first of September, and in which I shall endeavour to combine brevity with clearness. We do not want to consume our time over a dozen pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, picking up a lady's garter, and making that garter the foundation of an order of knighthood, bearing the motto of '_Honi soit qui mal y pense_? It is not stuff like this; but we want to know what was the state of the people; what were a labourer's wages; what were the prices of the food, and how the labourers were dressed in the reign of that great king. What is a young person to imbibe from a history of England, as it is called, like that of Goldsmith? It is a little romance to amuse children; and the other historians have given us larger romances to amuse lazy persons who are grown up. To destroy the effects of these, and to make the people know what their country has been, will be my object; and this, I trust, I shall effect. We are, it is said, to have a History of England from SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH; a History of Scotland from SIR WALTER SCOTT; and a HISTORY OF IRELAND from Tommy Moore, the luscious poet. A Scotch lawyer, who is a pensioner, and a member for Knaresborough, which is well known to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the great t.i.thes of twenty parishes in Ireland, will, doubtless, write a most impartial _History of England_, and particularly as far as relates to _boroughs_ and _t.i.thes_.

A Scotch romance-writer, who, under the name of _Malagrowther_, wrote a pamphlet to prove, that one-pound-notes were the cause of riches to Scotland, will write, to be sure, a most instructive _History of Scotland_. And, from the pen of a Irish poet, who is a sinecure placeman, and a protege of an English peer that has immense parcels of Irish confiscated estates, what a beautiful history shall we not then have of _unfortunate Ireland_! Oh, no! We are not going to be content with stuff such as these men will bring out. Hume and Smollett and Robertson have cheated us long enough. We are not in a humour to be cheated any longer.

321. GEOGRAPHY is taught at schools, if we believe the school-cards. The scholars can tell you all about the divisions of the earth, and this is very well for persons who have leisure to indulge their curiosity; but it does seem to me monstrous that a young person's time should be spent in ascertaining the boundaries of Persia or China, knowing nothing all the while about the boundaries, the rivers, the soil, or the products, or of the any thing else of Yorkshire or Devonshire. The first thing in geography is to know that of the country in which we live, especially that in which we were born: I have now seen almost every hill and valley in it with my own eyes; nearly every city and every town, and no small part of the whole of the villages. I am therefore qualified to give an account of the country; and that account, under the t.i.tle of Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales, I am now having printed as a companion to my history.

322. When a young man well understands the geography of his own country; when he has referred to maps on this smaller scale; when, in short, he knows all about his own country, and is able to apply his knowledge to useful purposes, he may look at other countries, and particularly at those, the powers or measures of which are likely to affect his own country. It is of great importance to us to be well acquainted with the extent of France, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Turkey, and Russia; but what need we care about the tribes of Asia and Africa, the condition of which can affect us no more than we would be affected by any thing that is pa.s.sing in the moon?

323. When people have nothing useful to do, they may indulge their curiosity; but, merely to _read books_, is not to be industrious, is not to study, and is not the way to become learned. Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers. A book is an admirable excuse for sitting still; and, a man who has constantly a newspaper, a magazine, a review, or some book or other in his hand, gets, at last, his head stuffed with such a jumble, that he knows not what to think about any thing. An empty c.o.xcomb, that wastes his time in dressing, strutting, or strolling about, and picking his teeth, is certainly a most despicable creature, but scarcely less so than a mere reader of books, who is, generally, conceited, thinks himself wiser than other men, in proportion to the number of leaves that he has turned over. In short, a young man should bestow his time upon no book, the contents of which he cannot apply to some useful purpose.

324. Books of travels, of biography, natural history, and particularly such as relate to agriculture and horticulture, are all proper, when leisure is afforded for them; and the two last are useful to a very great part of mankind; but, unless the subjects treated of are of some interest to us in our affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, when there are so many duties demanded at our hands by our families and our country. A man may read books for ever, and be an ignorant creature at last, and even the more ignorant for his reading.

325. And, with regard to young women, everlasting book-reading is absolutely _a vice_. When they once get into the habit, they neglect all other matters, and, in some cases, even their very dress. Attending to the affairs of the house: to the washing, the baking, the brewing, the preservation and cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry and the garden; these are their proper occupations. It is said (with what truth I know not) of the _present Queen_ (wife of William IV), that she was an active, excellent manager of her house. Impossible to bestow on her greater praise; and I trust that her example will have its due effect on the young women of the present day, who stand, but too generally, in need of that example.

326. The great fault of the present generation, is, that, in _all_ ranks, the _notions of self-importance are too high_. This has arisen from causes not visible to many, out the consequences are felt by all, and that, too, with great severity. There has been a general _sublimating_ going on for many years. Not to put the word _Esquire_ before the name of almost any man who is not a mere labourer or artisan, is almost _an affront_. Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every dealer, if at all rich, is an _Esquire_; squires' sons must be _gentlemen_, and squires' wives and daughters _ladies_. If this were _all_; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil would not be great; but, unhappily, words lead to acts and produce things; and the '_young gentleman_' is not easily to be moulded into a _tradesman_ or a _working farmer_. And yet the world is too small to hold so many _gentlemen_ and _ladies_. How many thousands of young men have, at this moment, cause to lament that they are not carpenters, or masons, or tailors, or shoemakers; and how many thousands of those, that they have been bred up to wish to disguise their honest and useful, and therefore honourable, calling! ROUSSEAU observes, that men are happy, first, in proportion to their virtue, and next, in proportion to their _independence_; and that, of all mankind, the artisan, or craftsman, is the most independent; because he carries about, _in his own hands_ and person, the means of gaining his livelihood; and that the more common the use of the articles on which he works, the more perfect his independence. 'Where,' says he, 'there is one man that stands in need of the talents of the dentist, there are a hundred thousand that want those of the people who supply the matter for the teeth to work on; and for one who wants a sonnet to regale his fancy, there are a million clamouring for men to make or mend their shoes.' Aye, and this is the reason, why shoemakers are proverbially the most independent part of the people, and why they, in general, show more public spirit than any other men. He who lives by a pursuit, be it what it may, which does not require a considerable degree of _bodily labour_, must, from the nature of things, be, more or less, a _dependent_; and this is, indeed, the price which he pays for his exemption from that bodily labour. He _may_ arrive at riches, or fame, or both; and this chance he sets against the certainty of independence in humbler life. There always have been, there always will be, and there always ought to be, _some_ men to take this chance: but to do this has become the _fashion_, and a fashion it is the most fatal that ever seized upon a community.

327. With regard to young women, too, to sing, to play on instruments of music, to draw, to speak French, and the like, are very agreeable qualifications; but why should they _all_ be musicians, and painters, and linguists? Why _all_ of them? Who, then, is there left to _take care of the houses_ of farmers and traders? But there is something in these 'accomplishments' worse than this; namely, that they think themselves _too high_ for farmers and traders: and this, in fact, they are; much _too high_; and, therefore, the servant-girls step in and supply their place. If they could see their own interest, surely they would drop this lofty tone, and these lofty airs. It is, however, the fault of the parents, and particularly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent them from imbibing such notions, and to show them, that the greatest honour they ought to aspire to is, thorough skill and care in the economy of a house. We are all apt to set too high a value on what we ourselves have done; and I may do this; but I do firmly believe, that to cure any young woman of this fatal sublimation, she has only patiently to read my COTTAGE ECONOMY, written with an anxious desire to promote domestic skill and ability in that s.e.x, on whom so much of the happiness of man must always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that until she read COTTAGE ECONOMY she had never _baked in the house_, and had seldom had _good beer_; that, ever since, she had looked after both herself; that the pleasure she had derived from it, was equal to the profit, and that the latter was very great. She said, that the article '_on baking bread_,' was the part that roused her to the undertaking; and, indeed, if the facts and arguments, _there_ made use of, failed to stir her up to action, she must have been stone dead to the power of words.

328. After the age that we have now been supposing, boys and girls become _men_ and _women_; and, there now only remains for the _father_ to act towards them with _impartiality_. If they be numerous, or, indeed, if they be only two in number, to expect _perfect harmony_ to reign amongst, or between, them, is to be unreasonable; because experience shows us, that, even amongst the most sober, most virtuous, and most sensible, harmony so complete is very rare. By nature they are rivals for the affection and applause of the parents; in personal and mental endowments they become rivals; and, when _pecuniary interests_ come to be well understood and to have their weight, here is a rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, require more affection and greater disinterestedness than fall to the lot of one out of one hundred families. So many instances have I witnessed of good and amiable families living in harmony, till the hour arrived for dividing property amongst them, and then, all at once, becoming hostile to each other, that I have often thought that property, coming in such a way, was a curse, and that the parties would have been far better off, had the parent had merely a blessing to bequeath them from his or her lips, instead of a will for them to dispute and wrangle over.

329. With regard to this matter, all that the father can do, is to be _impartial_; but, impartiality does not mean positive _equality_ in the distribution, but equality _in proportion_ to the different deserts of the parties, their different wants, their different pecuniary circ.u.mstances, and different prospects in life; and these vary so much, in different families, that it is impossible to lay down any general rule upon the subject. But there is one fatal error, against which every father ought to guard his heart; and the kinder that heart is, the more necessary such guardianship. I mean the fatal error of heaping upon one child, to the prejudice of the rest; or, upon a part of them. This partiality sometimes arises from mere caprice; sometimes from the circ.u.mstance of the favourite being more favoured by nature than the rest; sometimes from the nearer resemblance to himself, that the father sees in the favourite; and, sometimes, from the hope of preventing the favoured party from doing that which would disgrace the parent. All these motives are highly censurable, but the last is the most general, and by far the most mischievous in its effects. How many fathers have been ruined, how many mothers and families brought to beggary, how many industrious and virtuous groups have been pulled down from competence to penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness.

Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to abandon long-cherished hopes, compa.s.sion for the sufferings of your own flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to justice; all these beat at your heart, and call on you to give way: but, you must resist them all; or, your ruin, and that of the rest of your family, are decreed. Suffering is the natural and just punishment of idleness, drunkenness, squandering, and an indulgence in the society of prost.i.tutes; and, never did the world behold an instance of an offender, in this way, reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment; particularly, if the society of prost.i.tutes made part of the offence; for, here is something that takes the _heart from you_. n.o.body ever yet saw, and n.o.body ever will see, a young man, linked to a prost.i.tute, and retain, at the same time, any, even the smallest degree of affection, for parents or brethren. You may supplicate, you may implore, you may leave yourself pennyless, and your virtuous children without bread; the invisible cormorant will still call for more; and, as we saw, only the other day, a wretch was convicted of having, at the instigation of his prost.i.tute, _beaten his aged mother_, to get from her the small remains of the means necessary to provide her with food. In HERON'S collection of G.o.d's judgments on wicked acts, it is related of an unnatural son, who fed his aged father upon orts and offal, lodged him in a filthy and crazy garret, and clothed him in sackcloth, while he and his wife and children lived in luxury; that, having bought sackcloth enough for two dresses for his father, the children took away the part not made up, and _hid it_, and that, upon asking them what they could _do this for_, they told him that they meant to keep it _for him_, when he should become old and walk with a stick! This, the author relates, pierced his heart; and, indeed, if _this_ failed, he must have had the heart of a tiger; but, even _this_ would not succeed with the a.s.sociate of a prost.i.tute. When _this vice_, this love of the society of prost.i.tutes; when this vice has once got fast hold, vain are all your sacrifices, vain your prayers, vain your hopes, vain your anxious desire to disguise the shame from the world; and, if you have acted well your part, no part of that shame falls on you, unless you _have administered to the cause of it_. Your authority has ceased; the voice of the prost.i.tute, or the charms of the bottle, or the rattle of the dice, has been more powerful than your advice and example: you must lament this: but, it is not to bow you down; and, above all things, it is weak, and even criminally selfish, to sacrifice the rest of your family, in order to keep from the world the knowledge of that, which, if known, would, in your view of the matter, bring shame on yourself.

330. Let me hope, however, that this is a calamity which will befall very few good fathers; and that, of all such, the sober, industrious, and frugal habits of their children, their dutiful demeanor, their truth and their integrity, will come to smooth the path of their downward days, and be the objects on which their eyes will close. Those children must, in their turn, travel the same path; and they may be a.s.sured, that, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land,' is a precept, a disregard of which never yet failed, either first or last, to bring its punishment. And, what can be more just than that signal punishment should follow such a crime; a crime directly against the voice of nature itself? Youth has its pa.s.sions, and due allowance justice will make for these; but, are the delusions of the boozer, the gamester, or the harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a disregard of the source of your existence? Are those to be pleaded in apology for giving pain to the father who has toiled half a lifetime in order to feed and clothe you, and to the mother whose breast has been to you the fountain of life? Go, you, and shake the hand of the boon-companion; take the greedy harlot to your arms; mock at the tears of your tender and anxious parents; and, when your purse is empty and your complexion faded, receive the poverty and the scorn due to your base ingrat.i.tude!

LETTER VI

TO THE CITIZEN

331. Having now given my Advice to the YOUTH, the grown-up MAN, the LOVER, the HUSBAND and the FATHER, I shall, in this concluding Number, tender my Advice to the CITIZEN, in which capacity every man has rights to enjoy and duties to perform, and these too of importance not inferior to those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, as son, parent, husband or father. The word _citizen_ is not, in its application, confined to the mere inhabitants of cities: it means, a _member of a civil society, or community_; and, in order to have a clear comprehension of man's rights and duties in this capacity, we must take a look at the _origin of civil communities_.

332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, for instance, laid claim to all things in it, without the words _owner_ or _property_ being known. G.o.d had given to _all_ the people all the land and all the trees, and every thing else, just as he has given the burrows and the gra.s.s to the rabbits, and the bushes and the berries to the birds; and each man had the good things of this world in a greater or less degree in proportion to his skill, his strength and his valour. This is what is called living under the LAW OF NATURE; that is to say, the law of self-preservation and self-enjoyment, without any restraint imposed by a regard for the good of our neighbours.

333. In process of time, no matter from what cause, men made amongst themselves a compact, or an agreement, to divide the land and its products in such manner that each should have a share to his own exclusive use, and that each man should be protected in the exclusive enjoyment of his share by the _united power of the rest_; and, in order to ensure the due and certain application of this united power, the whole of the people agreed to be bound by regulations, called LAWS. Thus arose civil society; thus arose _property_; thus arose the words _mine_ and _thine_. One man became possessed of more good things than another, because he was more industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more frugal: so that LABOUR, of one sort or another, was the BASIS of all property.

334. In what manner civil societies proceeded in providing for the making of laws and for the enforcing of them; the various ways in which they took measures to protect the weak against the strong; how they have gone to work to secure wealth against the attacks of poverty; these are subjects that it would require volumes to detail; but these truths are written on the heart of man: that all men are, by nature, _equal_; that civil society can never have arisen from any motive other than that of the _benefit of the whole_; that, whenever civil society makes the greater part of the people _worse off_ than they were under the Law of Nature, the civil compact is, in conscience, dissolved, and all the rights of nature return; that, in civil society, the _rights and the duties go hand in hand_, and that, when the former are taken away, the latter cease to exist.

335. Now, then, in order to act well our part, as citizens, or members of the community, we ought clearly to understand _what our rights are_; for, on our enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights going before duties, as value received goes before payment. I know well, that just the contrary of this is taught in our political schools, where we are told, that our _first duty_ is to _obey the laws_; and it is not many years ago, that HORSLEY, Bishop of Rochester, told us, that the _people_ had _nothing_ to do with the laws but to _obey_ them. The truth is, however, that the citizen's _first duty_ is to maintain his rights, as it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has contracted.

336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there is, in fact, _no right_, is, the right of _taking a part in the making of the laws by which we are governed_. This right is founded in that law of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil society; for what _compact_, what _agreement_, what _common a.s.sent_, can possibly be imagined by which men would give up all the rights of nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and their minds, in order to subject themselves to rules and laws, in the making of which they should have nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon them without their a.s.sent? The great right, therefore, of _every man_, the right of rights, is the right of having a share in the making of the laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit.

337. With regard to the means of enabling every man to enjoy this share, they have been different, in different countries, and, in the same countries, at different times. Generally it has been, and in great communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act _in behalf of the many_: and, as there will hardly ever be _perfect unanimity_ amongst men a.s.sembled for any purpose whatever, where fact and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the _majority_, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be that of the whole. _Minors_ are excluded from this right, because the law considers them as infants, because it makes the parent answerable for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal incapacity to make any compact. _Women_ are excluded because husbands are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and because the very nature of their s.e.x makes the exercise of this right incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society. Men stained with _indelible crimes_ are excluded, because they have forfeited their right by violating the laws, to which their a.s.sent has been given. _Insane persons_ are excluded, because they are dead in the eye of the law, because the law demands no duty at their hands, because they cannot violate the law, because the law cannot affect them; and, therefore, they ought to have no hand in making it.

338. But, with these exceptions, where is the ground whereon to maintain that _any man_ ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before, out of the same source with civil society itself? Am I told, that _property_ ought to confer this right? Property sprang from _labour_, and not labour from property; so that if there were to be a distinction here, it ought to give the preference to labour. All men are equal by nature; n.o.body denies that they all ought to be _equal in the eye of the law_; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin by suffering _some_ to enjoy this right and refusing the enjoyment to _others_? It is the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty imposed by the law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is the duty of _every man_, if you deny to _some_ men the enjoyment of a share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for _equality_ here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and a soul as well as the rich man; like the latter, he has parents, wife and children; a bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to the rich man; there are hearts to ache and tears to flow for him as well as for the squire or the lord or the loan-monger: yet, notwithstanding this equality, he is to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be denied an equality of rights! If, in such a state of things, the artisan or labourer, when called out to fight in defence of his country, were to answer: 'Why should I risk my life? I have no possession but my _labour_; no enemy will take that from me; you, the rich, possess all the land and all its products; you make what laws you please without my partic.i.p.ation or a.s.sent; you punish me at your pleasure; you say that my want of property excludes me from the right of having a share in the making of the laws; you say that the property that I have in my labour _is nothing worth_; on what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my life?' If, in such a case, such questions were put, the answer is very difficult to be imagined.

339. In cases of _civil commotion_ the matter comes still more home to us. On what ground is the rich man to call the artisan from his shop or the labourer from the field to join the sheriff's posse or the militia, if he refuse to the labourer and artisan the right of sharing in the making of the laws? Why are they to risk their lives here? To _uphold the laws_, and to protect _property_. What! _laws_, in the making of, or a.s.senting to, which they have been allowed to have no share? _Property_, of which they are said to possess none? What! compel men to come forth and risk their lives for the _protection of property_; and then, in the same breath, tell them, that they are not allowed to share in the making of the laws, because, and ONLY BECAUSE, _they have no property_! Not because they have committed any crime; not because they are idle or profligate; not because they are vicious in any way; out solely because they have _no property_; and yet, at the same time, compel them to come forth and _risk their lives_ for the _protection of property_!

340. But, the PAUPERS? Ought _they_ to share in the making of the laws?

And why not? What is a _pauper_; what is one of the men to whom this degrading appellation is applied? A _very poor_ man; a man who is, from some cause or other, unable to supply himself with food and raiment without aid from the parish-rates. And, is that circ.u.mstance alone to deprive him of his right, a right of which he stands more in need than any other man? Perhaps he has, for many years of his life, contributed directly to those rates; and ten thousand to one he has, by his labour, contributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under such circ.u.mstances, he receives, _is his right_; he receives it not as _an alms_: he is no mendicant; he begs not; he comes to receive that which _the law of the country awards him_ in lieu of the _larger portion_ a.s.signed him by the _law of Nature_. Pray mark that, and let it be deeply engraven on your memory. The audacious and merciless MALTHUS (a parson of the church establishment) recommended, some years ago, the pa.s.sing of a law to _put an end to the giving of parish relief_, though he recommended no law to put an end to the enormous taxes paid by poor people. In his book he said, that the poor should be left to the _law of Nature_, which, in case of their having nothing to buy food with, _doomed them to starve_.

They would ask nothing better than to be left to the _law of Nature_; that law which knows nothing about _buying_ food or any thing else; that law which bids the hungry and the naked _take_ food and raiment wherever they find it best and nearest at hand; that law which awards all possessions to the _strongest_; that law the operations of which would clear out the London meat-markets and the drapers' and jewellers' shops in about half an hour: to this law the parson wished the parliament to leave the poorest of the working people; but, if the parliament had done it, it would have been quickly seen, that this law was far from 'dooming them to be starved.'

341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to express a hope, that barbarous thoughts like those of Malthus and his tribe will never be entertained by any young man who has read the previous Numbers of this work, let me return to my _very, very poor man_, and ask, whether it be consistent with justice, with humanity, with reason, to deprive a man of the most precious of his political rights, because, and _only because_, he has been, in a pecuniary way, _singularly unfortunate_? The Scripture says, 'Despise not the poor, _because_ he is poor;' that is to say, despise him not _on account of his poverty_. Why, then, deprive him of his right; why put him out of the pale of the law, on account of his poverty? There are _some_ men, to be sure, who are reduced to poverty by their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering; but, the far greater part by bodily ailments, by misfortunes to the effects of which all men may, without any fault, and even without any folly, be exposed: and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to add to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them of their political rights? How many thousands of industrious and virtuous men have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of competence to that of pauperism! And, is it just to strip such men of their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at ELY, last spring, there were in that neighbourhood, _three paupers_ cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only rate-payers, but _overseers of the poor_, within seven years of the day when I was there. Is there any man so barbarous as to say, that these men ought, merely on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of their political rights? Their right to receive relief is as perfect as any right of property; and, would you, merely because they claim _this right_, strip them of _another right_? To say no more of the injustice and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense in this? What!

if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined as to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book, would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel the degrading loss of his political rights?

342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; _here is the point_ on which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead the cause of the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the fallen great; but, be it your part to show compa.s.sion for those who labour, and to maintain _their rights_. Poverty is not _a crime_, and, though it sometimes arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, to be visited by punishment beyond that which it brings with itself. Remember, that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man. The Scripture says, that 'the poor shall never cease from out of the land;' that is to say, that there shall always be some very poor people. This is inevitable from the very nature of things. It is necessary to the existence of mankind, that a very large portion of every people should live by manual labour; and, as such labour is _pain_, more or less, and as no living creature likes pain, it must be, that the far greater part of labouring people will endure only just as much of this pain as is absolutely necessary to the supply of their _daily wants_. Experience says that this has always been, and reason and nature tell us, that this must always be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when untoward circ.u.mstances of any sort, stop or diminish the daily supply, _want comes_; and every just government will provide, from the general stock, the means to satisfy this want.

343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its _useful effects_ in society.

To the practice of the virtues of abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality, industry, and even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement of talent, the two great motives are, to get upwards in riches or fame, and _to avoid going downwards to poverty_, the last of which is the most powerful of the two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with compa.s.sion, that we should look on those, whose state is one of the decrees of nature, from whose sad example we profit, and to whom, in return, we ought to make compensation by every indulgent and kind act in our power, and particularly by a defence of their rights. To those who labour, we, who labour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink and wear; all that shades us by day and that shelters us by night; all the means of enjoying health and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess talent for the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if we omit any effort within our power to prevent them from being _slaves_; and, disguise the matter how we may, _a slave_, a _real slave_, every man is, who has no share in making the laws which he is compelled to obey.

344. _What is a slave_? For, let us not be amused by _a name_; but look well into the matter. A slave is, in the first place, a man who has _no property_; and property means something that he _has_, and that n.o.body can take from him without his leave, or consent. Whatever man, no matter what he may call himself or any body else may call him, can have his money or his goods taken from him _by force_, by virtue of an order, or ordinance, or law, which he has had no hand in making, and to which he has not given his a.s.sent, has _no property_, and is merely a depositary of the goods of his master. A slave has _no property in his labour_; and any man who is compelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another, at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in his labour, and is, therefore, a slave, whether the fruit of his labour be taken from him directly or indirectly. If it be said, that he gives up this fruit of his labour by his own will, and that it is _not forced from him_. I answer, To be sure he _may_ avoid eating and drinking and may go naked; but, then he must _die_; and on this condition, and this condition only, can he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; 'Die, wretch, or surrender as much of your income, or the fruit of your labour as your masters choose to take.' This is, in fact, the language of the rulers to every man who is refused to have a share in the making of the laws to which he is _forced_ to submit.

345. But, some one may say, slaves are _private property_, and may _be bought and sold_, out and out, like cattle. And, what is it to the slave, whether he be property of _one_ or of _many_; or, what matters it to him, whether he pa.s.s from master to master by a sale for an indefinite term, or be let to hire by the year, month, or week? It is, in no case, the flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the _labour_; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, is not that man _a slave_, though you sell it for only a short time at once? And, as to the principle, so ostentatiously displayed in the case of the _black_ slave-trade, that '_man_ ought not to have _a property in man_,' it is even an advantage to the slave to be private property, because the owner has then a clear and powerful _interest_ in the preservation of his life, health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him amply with the food and raiment necessary for these ends. Every one knows, that public property is never so well taken care of as private property; and this, too, on the maxim, that 'that which is every body's business is n.o.body's business.' Every one knows that a _rented_ farm is not so well kept in heart, as a farm in the hands of the _owner_. And as to _punishments_ and _restraints_, what difference is there, whether these be inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his overseer, or by the agents and overseers of a body of proprietors? In short, if you can cause a man to be imprisoned or whipped if he do not work enough to please you; if you can sell him by auction for a time limited; if you can forcibly separate him from his wife to prevent their having children; if you can shut him up in his dwelling place when you please, and for as long a time as you please; if you can force him to draw a cart or wagon like a beast of draught; if you can, when the humour seizes you, and at the suggestion of your mere fears, or whim, cause him to be shut up in a dungeon during your pleasure: if you can, at your pleasure, do these things to him, is it not to be impudently hypocritical to affect to call him _a free-man_? But, after all, these may all be wanting, and yet the man be _a slave_, if he be allowed to have _no property_; and, as I have shown, no property he can have, not even in that _labour_, which is not only property, but the _basis_ of all other property, unless he have a _share in making the laws_ to which he is compelled to submit.

346. It is said, that he may have this share _virtually_ though not in form and _name_; for that his _employers_ may have such share, and they will, as a matter of course, _act for him_. This doctrine, pushed home, would make the _chief_ of the nation the sole maker of the laws; for, if the rich can thus _act for_ the poor, why should not the chief act for the rich? This matter is very completely explained by the practice in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. There the maxim is, that _every free man_, with the exception of men stained with crime and men insane, has a right to have a voice in choosing those who make the laws. The number of Representatives sent to the Congress is, in each State, proportioned to the number of _free people_. But, as there are _slaves_ in _some_ of the States, these States _have a certain portion of additional numbers on account of those slaves_! Thus the slaves are _represented by their owners_, and this is real, practical, open and undisguised _virtual representation_! No doubt that white men may be represented in the same way; for the colour of the skin is nothing; but let them be called slaves, then; let it not be pretended that they are _free men_; let not the word _liberty_ be polluted by being applied to their state; let it be openly and honestly avowed, as in America, that they _are slaves_; and then will come the question whether men ought to exist in such a state, or whether they ought to do every thing in their power to rescue themselves from it.

347. If the right to have a share in making the laws were merely a feather; if it were a fanciful thing; if it were only a speculative theory; if it were but an _abstract principle_; on any of these suppositions, it might be considered as of little importance. But it is none of these; it is a practical matter; the want of it not only _is_, but must of necessity be, felt by every man who lives under that want.

If it were proposed to the shopkeepers in a town, that a rich man or two, living in the neighbourhood, should have power to send, _whenever they pleased_, and take away as much as they pleased of the money of the shopkeepers, and apply it to what uses they please; what an outcry the shopkeepers would make! And yet, what would this be _more_ than taxes imposed on those who have no voice in choosing the persons who impose them? Who lets another man put his hand into his purse when he pleases?

Who, that has the power to help himself, surrenders his goods or his money to the will of another? Has it not always been, and must it not always be, true, that, if your property be at the absolute disposal of others, your ruin is certain? And if this be, of necessity, the case amongst individuals and parts of the community, it must be the case with regard to the whole community.

348. Aye, and experience shows us that it always has been the case. The natural and inevitable consequences of a want of this right in the people have, in all countries, been _taxes_ pressing the industrious and laborious to the earth; _severe laws_ and _standing armies_ to compel the people to submit to those taxes; wealth, luxury, and splendour, amongst those who make the laws and receive the taxes; poverty, misery, immorality and crime, amongst those who bear the burdens; and at last commotion, revolt, revenge, and rivers of blood. Such have always been, and such must always be, the consequences of a want of this right of all men to share in the making of the laws, a right, as I have before shown, derived immediately from the law of Nature, springing up out of the same source with civil society, and cherished in the heart of man by reason and by experience.

349. Well, then, this right being that, without the enjoyment of which there is, in reality, no right at all, how manifestly is it _the first duty_ of every man to do all in his power to _maintain_ this right where it exists, and to _restore_ it where it has been lost? For observe, it must, at one time, have existed in every _civil_ community, it being impossible that it could ever be excluded by any _social compact_; absolutely impossible, because it is contrary to the law of self-preservation to believe, that men would agree to give up the rights of nature without stipulating for some _benefit_. Before we can affect to believe that this right was not reserved, in such compact, as completely as the right to _live_ was reserved, we must affect to believe, that millions of men, under no control but that of their own pa.s.sions and desires, and having all the earth and its products at the command of their strength and skill, consented to be for ever, they and their posterity, the _slaves of a few_.

350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, without going back into _history_ and _precedents_, we must believe, that, in whatever civil community this right does not exist, it has been lost, or rather, _unjustly taken away_. And then, having seen the terrible evils which always have arisen, and always must arise, from the want of it; being convinced that, where lost or taken away by force or fraud, it is our very first duty to do all in our power to _restore_ it, the next consideration is, _how_ one ought to act in the discharge of this most sacred duty; for sacred it is even as the duties of husband and father.

For, besides the baseness of the thought of quietly submitting to be a slave _oneself_, we have here, besides our duty to the community, a duty to perform towards our children and our children's children. We all acknowledge that it is our bounden duty to provide, as far as our power will go, for the competence, the health, and the good character of our children; but, is this duty superior to that of which I am now speaking?