Definition of a constitution: By Thomas Paine. ...

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- [titlepage]

DEFINITION, &c.

‘A Constitution is a Thing antecedent to Government, and a Government is only the Creature of a Constitution. The Constitution of a Country is not the act of its Government, but of the People constituting a Government. It is the Body of Elements to which you can refer and quote article by article; and which contains the principles upon which the Government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organized, the powers it shall have, the Mode of Elections, the Duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such Bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the Government shall have; and, in fine, every thing that relates to the compleat organization of a civil government, and the principles upon which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A Constitution, therefore, is to a Government what the laws made afterwards by that Government are to a Court of Judicature. The Court of Judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the Government is in like manner governed by the Constitution.’

Rights of Man, by Thomas Paine, &c. &c. &c.

WHAT a fortunate Age is this, Mr. Paine, when every thing is defined, every thing laid open to the meanest capacities, every prejudice done away, and Truth stands blushing before us stripped stark naked! I had always had a strange veneration for the word Constitution, though, to say the truth, till I had the good fortune to stumble upon the above short, clear, and precise definition of it, I was as little able to have explained its exact meaning, as most of those who make use of it every day, without asking themselves whether they annex to it any determinate signification.

You have told us, Sir, what a Constitution is and what it is not. I am now instructed, that it is a thing both in fact and name: ‘"Aye, but what thing, Sir John, what thing?"’ Why it is a thing that begets Government, which begets Laws, which beget Judicature, &c. and so they go on begetting one another to the end of the chapter. And who begot the Constitution? Why the People; that is, every individual of the Community, who having, at some time or other, been assembled together, before the existence of Law and Government, in a perfect state of independent nature, did by themselves, or by a select number amongst them chosen for that purpose, agree upon a Body of Elements to which you can refer and quote article by article in a visible form: Parliaments, Elections, &c. &c.—That all this is binding upon the Community for ever, not to be altered in an iota, till, by what is called a Revolution, the people think fit to put themselves (as they have always a right to do), back again into the original state, by extinguishing all Law and Government, in order to amuse themselves with making a new Constitution.

By this definition, it is indeed clear, that neither France nor England ever had a Constitution, nor any other country that I ever heard of. Thus, after mankind has been more or less in a state of Civil Government all over the world, for so many thousand years, it was reserved for the Philosophers of North America and the Jacobins ‘enlightened and enlightening,’ to convey to us the definition, through your organs, of a word, to which, though it had been so long in every body's mouth, the true sense had never been affixed—a word expressive of a Thing that never has had an existence.

With due submission, Sir, to your instructive judgment, suffer me to doubt at least, whether the term, in your sense of it, can be, with more propriety, applied to the present state of France since the Revolution, than it would under the Monarchy they have done away. I will admit, if you please (what I believe you would hardly think of assuming as the fact), that the elections of the Members to the Assembleés des Etats Generaux included the voice of every individual in the community.

But pray, did the People first place themselves in the original primitive state, by declaring an abolition of all existing establishments? Did they delegate their authority to their Deputies in consequence of such a state of things, with a formal commission expressly to frame a new Constitution as the basis of a new Government?—Surely I must have grossly deceived myself, if, in many of their instructions, they did not expressly declare that they were already in possession of a Constitution which they reclaimed from the time of Charlemagne; a Constitution that was dear to them in the extreme, and which they recommended to the protection of their attornies in the strongest terms of anxious solicitude. If this was the sentiment expressed in some of the cahiers of instruction, was it not implied in every one of them, who unanimously declare their attachment to the Monarchy, with the other three orders of the state, which they declare to be the lawful supreme Legislature of the kingdom, and which they look up to as the redress of all their grievances, and the Palladium of their liberties? I shall suppose now that the Representatives are wiser than their Constituents; that the body of elements they have devised, is as much better as you please than those that were committed to their protection; nay, I will suppose even that the Nation "enlightened" since by the force of eloquence and of the lanthorn, are at this moment of the same opinion with the Assembly; still, as the Constitution that has been decreed under a commission, not only containing no authority from the people for the destruction of all existing establishments, and the constituting new ones, but containing the most positive commands to protect the existing establishments which were held sacred by them, it is submitted to you, in all humility, whether such innovations come at all within the limits of your Definition; whether those who accept a trust to one purpose, and use it to the direct contrary, can avail themselves of the authority they have betrayed; whether, if added to the breach of trust, there happens to be at the same time a breach of the Oath, their employers exacted from them to abide by their instructions, instead of acting in direct opposition to them; whether any oath imposed upon others afterwards by such an Assembly can be conceived, even by themselves, to have any validity: whether, in short, upon your principle, the powers assumed by such a Body can be regarded as any thing more than a direct usurpation upon the rights of the people, and the force they exercise over all ranks of Citizens, from the Monarch down to the Peasant, with so free a hand, can be considered as any thing but the aristocratical tyranny of an unauthorized though inviolable oppression and perjured Senate.

The concise, clear, and explicit definition you have given us, Sir, of a Constitution, has one great advantage attached to it, which every Lover of Liberty will know how to appreciate. As it supposes an extinction of all law and government previous to the establishment of the principles of a future system; and, as it is the duty of every good Citizen to endeavour to procure to his country the best possible situation he can devise, it opens a wide field for Patriot Exertions. It is henceforth not only an innocent occupation, but a meritorious exercise of the rights of the individual, whenever he has a new Constitution to propose, to begin by removing out of his way the existing establishments, that he may convene his Fellow Citizens for the purpose of considering the new body of elements he has to propound. It will therefore be no longer a crime in future Legislators, such as Guy Vaux, Jack Cade, or Ld. G — G —, to destroy the present system; much less to call upon the assistance of the people for that purpose; and still less to suggest such arguments, through the channel of the press, or by word of mouth, as may awaken them to the exercise of their indisputable indefeasible rights. It is a duty they will fulfil in common with the most respectable authorities, a Paine, a Cromwell, a Franklyn, a Ravailac, and a Mirabeau. Whoever, in future, shall be arrested in his career by the charge of sedition, will answer calmly, ‘I am ignorant of the term; to incite my Fellow Citizens to the exercise of a lawful right, for their own good, can never be imputed as a crime.’ If, animated in the cause of Freedom, he should be transported beyond the bounds of persuasion into some overt act of violence, as parricide, for example, he will say, ‘I deserve a crown of laurel, not a halter. I have a Constitution to propose by and by, and am only preparing the necessary previous steps to it, by bringing about a state of nature through a Revolution and the extinction of all Law and Government.—I stand upon the Rights of Man, and I defy you to touch a hair of my head.’ What a field does this open for the generous efforts of active patriotism uncontrouled?

Luminous, however, Sir, as your happy definition cannot but be esteemed, the more we reflect upon it; and pregnant with all the benefits to mankind which the philantropy of Modern Philosophy is so eager to impart; one regret offers itself upon the perusal of it, viz. the utter impossibility of applying it to any practical purpose. Like so many other excellent devices, I fear it is only fitted to the speculation of the closet and the regions of metaphysical theory. To obtain the actual consent (for, alas! after all, the virtual consent, through delegates, is little better than a mere fiction of law), by which millions of individuals equal, free, and independent, bind themselves to abide by a Government to be formed upon the Constitution they adopt; to make a multitude and a multitude so compound, capaple of comprehending, discussing, and determining the nice subtleties of the Elements of civil Polity, without which apprehension and deliberation, their consent is that of an Infant or an Idiot; a mockery and mere form; to frame these principles of Government and Legislation upon so broad a basis, article by article, as to embrace at once all the possible circumstances and situations, to be bound by them hereafter, any defect in which can have no other remedy but that of an appeal to the people in the state in which alone they are competent to form a new Constitution: lastly, to give efficacy, system, stability, and permanence to a fabric built upon the changeable base of the pupularis aura—Such an idea, however sublime, of the only hold by which mankind are to be cemented rightfully in social relation to each other, is, in truth, a Philosophy little framed for useful purposes, and worthy only of the elevated contemplations of the Doctors of the Modern School.

Less acute and less soaring Geniuses, whose notions of Liberty consist in the secure and peaceable enjoyment of legal establishments transmitted to them by their ancestors, with such amendments and renovations from time to time as the infallible test of experience may suggest the necessity of; not in forming new establishments upon new principles; who prefer the being wisely governed, to the governing others; who can content themselves with the benefits arising from good Laws, instead of indulging themselves in the fanciful origin of Law and definition of Constitutions; will carefully keep those theoretical speculations at a distance from the body politic, as they will Books of Physic from the body natural, whilst they feel no pressure of bodily infirmity. No matter, in either case, whether the Constitution (i. e. the organization of the constituent principle of sound health)▪ be known or defined, they will think it bad when they suffer, and will seek a remedy; when they do not suffer, they will, if they are wise, turn their ear from those who try to obtrude upon them their nostrums and medical disquisitions, which in one case will make them at least hypocondriac and fantastic, and in the other, tends to render them dissatisfied, turbulent, and mischievous Citizens.

FINIS.

DEFINITION OF A CONSTITUTION.

By THOMAS PAINE, SECRETARY to the Congress of the United States of NORTH AMERICA, &c. &c. &c.

"Nor hope to be myself less miserable

"By what I seek, but others to make such

"As I, though thereby worse to me redound."

MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. DEBRETT, OPPOSITE BURLINGTON-HOUSE, PICCADILLY. MDCCXCI.

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Definition of a constitution: By Thomas Paine. ...

Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.

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http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/3507

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1106005066

ID [isbn13]

9781106005069

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K015461.000

ID [BIBNO]

CW3306168473

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0922800700

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— Definition of a constitution: By Thomas Paine. ..., Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.. [2],15,[1]p. ; 8⁰. London :: printed for J. Debrett,. 1791.. [Many copies lack full titlepage; Half-title: 'Notes upon Paine's rights of man.'.] [Reproduction of original from the John Rylands University Library of Manchester.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCN28189.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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