The Newhampshire gazetteer — Exeter, N.H., 1791-12-24 00:00:00, page 1

Newhampfhire
THE three £rft articles comprehend
in general terms, the whole of
a Declaration of Rights ; All the suc
ceeding articles either originate out of
them, cr follow as elucidations. The
4 r .h, ph, and 6h, define more particu
larly what is only generally expressed
in the iff, zd and 34. _ —
The 7th, Sih, 9th, loth, and i!th„
articles, are declaratory of principles
upon which laws (ball be ebnttruaed
conformable to rights already declared.
But it is questioned by some very good
people in France, as well as in other
countries, whether the tenth article fuf
ficientiy gaurentees the right it is in
tended to accoid with : betides which,
it takes off from the divine dignity of
religion, and weakens its operative
force upon the mind, to make it a fub
je& of human laws, it then prefects
itfelf to Man, like light inter©, cd by
a clouded medium, in which the source
of it is obfeured from his fight, and he
fees nothing to re-etence in the dufley
ray* 1
The remaining articles, beginning
with the twelfth, are substantially con
tailed in the principles of the proceed
ing articles ; but, in the particular fix
ation which France then was, having
roeada what was wrong, as well as to
fa up what was right, it was proper to
b^ more particular than what in another
Condition of things would be necessary.
While the Declaration of Rights
was before the National Assembly,
some of its members remarked that
if a Declaration of Rights was published,
it should be accompanied bya declara
tion of duties. The observation disco
vered a mind that reflected, and it only
eired by not r-efleding far enough. A
Declaration of Rights, is, by reciproci
ty, 2 Declaration of duties also. What
ever is my right as a man, is also the
right of another; and it becomes my
duty to gaurantee, as well as to pof
fefs. . " # \ ,
The thrde fi r ft articles are the basts
of Liberty, as well individual as na
tional ; nor'can any country be called
free, whose government does not take
its beginning from the principles they
contain, and continue to preserve them
OBSERVATIONS on the
DECLARATION of
RIGHTS.
RIGHTS of MAN,&c.
* there is a Jingle idea, which, if it
strikes rightly upon the mini either in a
legal or a religious fafe,,will present any
man, or any body of men, or an, govern
ment', from going wrong on the Jubfra o
religion: which is that before any human in-
Jlitutions of government were known in the
eWorld, there exifed, if b may so express it,
a compaa between God andMaa, from the
Beginning of time ; and that as the rela
tian and condition which mart id his in^i
vidoal person stands in towards bis Ma
ker cannot be changed, or ans ways alter
edby any human laws or human authority,
that religious devotion, which is a part of
this compaa, cannot so much as he made ,a
fubjea of human laws ; and that all laws
m & f conform tbemfelves to this prior exit
ing com,at?, and not affunie. to make tbe
compact conform to tbe laws, which
besides being human, are fubfe^t there
to. TheJirft aQ of man, when be, looked
around and Jaw bimftlj a creature which
be did not make, and a world formfeed
for his reception, must have been devotion ;
and devotion ms? ever continue fared to
every individual man, as it appears
right to him ; and governments do enif
chfef by interfering.
SATURDAY, December 24, 1791.]
EXETE R, (New-Hampfoire) Printed and Published by HENRY RANLET, at Nine Shillings per annum.
[ln continuation.]
Their cry now is, “ It has gone too
far :" that is, it has gone too far for
them. It flares corruption in the face and
the venal tribe are all alarmed. Their
fear difeovefs i felfin their outrage, and
they are but pablifning the groans of a
wounded vice. But from such oppofci
on, the French Revolution, instead
of fuffering, receives an homage. The
more it is Brack, the more , [parks
it will emit ; and the fear is, it will
not be struck enough. It has nothing
to dread from attacks : Truth has gi
ven it an establishment: and time will
record it with a name as lading as its
own.
pure ; and the whole of the Dec arati:
on of Rights is of more value to the
world, and will do more good, than all
he laws and statutes that have yet been
promulgated.
In the.declaratory exordium which
prefaces the Declaration of Rights, we
fee thejolemn & majestic fpecracle ofa
Nation opening its commission, under
the aufpictyot its Creator, to eftabiith
a Government ; a feene so new, and io
tranfcendantly unequalled by any thing
in the European world, that the name
of a Revolution is diminutive of its
chjrader, and it rises into a Regene
ra ion of man. What are the present
governments of Europe, but a feene of
iniquity and oppression ? What is that
of England { Does not its own inhabi
tants fay, it is a marker where every
man has his price, and where corrupti
on is common trafic, at the expense of a
deluded people ^ No wonder, then, that
the French Revolution is traced. Had
it confined itfelf merely to the deftruc
tion of flagrant despotism, perhaps Mr.
Burke and some others had been filenc.-
. Having now traced the progress of
the French Revolution through most of
its principal stages, from its commence
ment to the taking of the Bastille, and
i's eftabifhient by the Declaration of
Rights, 1 will close the fabjeft with the
enr-geric apostrophe ofM. de laFayette
—MI? this great monument raised to Li
berty, terve as a lefon to the oppreflor,
and an example, to the o pressed !*
MISCELLANEOUS
CHAPTER.
TO prevent interrupting the argu
ment in the preceding part of this work
or the narrative that follows it I refer
ved fomeobfervations to be thrown toge.
ther in a Miscellaneous Chapter ;by
which variety might riot be cenfared
tor confufion. Mr. Burke's book is all
miscellany. His intention was to make
an attack oh the French Revolution ;
but instead of proceeding with an order
ly Arrangement, he his ftorSed it with
a mob of ideas, tumbling over and de
stroying one another. .
•But this conFufiOn and contradiction
in Mr. Burke's book is easily account
ed for. When a man in a long cause
attempts to steer his course by any
thing else than some polar truth or
principle, he is fare to be loft. It is
beyond the compass of his capacity to
keep all the parts of an argument to
gether, and make them unite in one
issue, by any o her means than having
this guide always in view,Neither me
mory nor invention will supply the
want of it. The former fails him, and
the latter betrays him.
Notwithstanding the nonsense, for it
defrves no better name, that Mr. Burke
has asserted about hereditary rights,
and hereditary succession, and that a
t— _ — _
* Seepage io of this work. N. B.
Since the taking the Bafille,,tbe occurren
ce: have been published : but the matters
recorded iti tbit narrative, -are prior t&
that period, and feme o, them, as ;ma, be
eajily fan, can be b# very little known.
T H E
Nation has not a right to form a go
vernment for itfelf ; ir happened to
fall in his way to give feme account of
wh^t govern went is. " Governments
fan he, ts a contrivance of human wif
dcu\." .
Admitting that Government is a
con?rivari#of human wfd< # m, it theft
necessarily follow, that hereditary foc
ceffion,and hereditary rights, (as they
are called) can make no part of it, be,
cayfe it is impossible to make wifdatn
hereditary ; and on theother hand, that
cannot hr a wife contrivance, which in
its operafen may commit the govern
ment ofa nation to' the wisdom of an
ideot. The ground which Mr. Burke
now takesis fatal to every part of his
cause. Toe argument changes from
hereditary frights to hereditary wisdom ;
and the question is, Who is the wisest
man ? He must now 'fhew that every
one in the line of hereditary fuccelfon
was a Solomon, or his title isnot good
ro be a King. What a Broke has Mr.
Burke mule ! To use a sailor's phrase
he has f^abbed the deck, and scarcely
left a nane legible in the lift of Kings ;
and he has mowed down and thinned
the Hohfepf Peers, with a fchythe as
formidably as Death and Time.
But, Mi. Burke appears to have been
aware of this retort, and he has taken
care to giard against it, by making go-'
vernmen, to be not only a contrivance of
human vifdom, but a monopoly of wis
dom. He puts the nation as fools on
one file; and he then proclaims, and
fays, that. " Men have a RIGHT that
their wants fauld be provided for by
this qvifdom-'' Having thus made pro
clamation, he next proceeds to explain
to then what their wants are,&alfo what
their rights are. In this he has suc
ceeded dexterously, for he makes their
wants to be a want cf wisdom; but as
this isbut cold comfort,he then informs
them, that they have a right (not to any
of th^ wisdom) but to be governed by
it : and in order to impress ,them with
a folemi treverence for this monopoly
government ofwifdom, and of its vail
capacity for all purposes, possible or im
poffiole, right or wrong, he proceeds
wi:h aftroligieal mysterious importance,
to tell to them its powers,in these words,
" The rights of men .in govern
ment are their advantages; and
these are often in balances between dif
ferences of good ; and it compromises
sometimes between good agd evil, and
sometimes between evil and evil. Po
litical reason is a computing principle ;
adding, fubtrading, multiplying, and
dividing, morally, and no. metaphyfi
cally, dr mathamatically, true moral
demouftrations." ~
As the wondering audience whom Mr.
Burke foppofes himfelf talking to, may
not underhand all this learned jargon,
I will undertake to be its interpreter.
The meaning, then, good people, of all
this is, That government is governed by
no principle whatever ; that it can make
evil good, or good evil, jaft as it plea/et.
In fart; that government is arbitrary
. power."," ' ^ t
But there are some things which Mr.
Burke has forgotten. First, He has not
(hewn where the wisdom originally
came from: and secondly, he has not
Ihewn by whht authority it firft begun
to aft. In the manner he introduces
the matter; it is either government
Healing wisdom, or wisdom Healing go
vernment. It is without an origin, and
its powers without authority. In short
i: is usurpation.
Whether it be from afenfc o f shame
or from a confeioufnefs of some radical
defed in a government necessary to be
kept out cf fight, or from both, or from
any other cause, I undertake not to de
termine ; but so jt is, that a monarchal
teafoner never traces government to its
Gazetteer.
lege; and tho' man may be kept igno^
rant, he cannot be made ignorant. The
mind, in difeovering truth, ads in the
fame mariner as it acts through the eye?
in difeovering an objc&; whenence
any object has been seen, it is impossible
to put the mind back to the Ume con
dition it was in before it to it. Those
who talk of a counter revolution in
France ihew how little they understand
of man. There does not exist in the
compass of language, an arrangement
of words to express so much as the
means of effecting a counter revolution.
The means must be an obliteration cf
knowlege; and it has never ye: been
difccvtred, how to make man unknots
his knowlege, or unthink his thoughts.
Mr. Burke is labouring in vain to
ftop<he progress of knowledge ; and it
comes with the worse grace from him a
as there is a certain tranfadion kno^n
in the city, which renders him f^fped
ed of •being a pensioner in a fictitious
name, This may account for some
fyauge doftrine he has advanced in his
book, which, tho' he points it at the
Revolution Society, is effectually di
reded against the whole Nation.
« The King of England," fays he,
" holds bis crown (for it does not be
long to the nation, according to Mr.
Burke) in contempt of the Revolution
Society, who have not a single vote for
a King among them, either individually
occolleßivel, ; and his Majesty's heirs
each in their time and order, will come
to the crown with the fame contempt of
their choice, with which bis Majefly
has succeeded to that whicn he now
wears. „
As to who is King in England or
eifewhere, or whether there is any King
at all, or whether the people chafe a
Cherokee chief, or a Hellion Hussar for
a king, is not a matter that 1 trouble,
myfelf about—be that to thcmfelves ;
but with reaped to the doctrine; so f^r
as it'relaies to the rights of Men aad
Nations, it is as abominable as any
thing ever uttered in the molt enslaved
country under heaven. Whether i<
founds worse to my ear, by not being
accustomed to hear inch despotism, than
what it does to the ear of another pe^
son, lam not so well a judge of ; but or
its abominable principle, I am at no
loss to Judge.„
It is not the Revolution Society tha;
•Mr. Burke means ; it is the Nation, as
source, or from its source. It is one cf
the Jhibbdethsby &hich he may be known.
A 1000 years hence those who shall live
in America, or France, will look back
with contemplative pride on the origin
cf their governments, and fay, This suae
the ivrrk cf our glorious KnceJhrj / But
what can amonarchial talkerfay ? What
has he to exult in ? Alas he has nothing.
A certain something forbids him to lock
back to a beginning, left some robber,
or some Robin Hood, fhduld rife from
the long obfeurijy of time and fay, lam
the origin. N Hard as Mr. Burke laboured
for the Regency Bill and hereditary suc
cession two years ago, and much as he
dived for precedents, he Hill had no:
boldntfs enough to bring up William of
Normandy, and fay, There is the bead cf
the If, there i the fountain of honor, the
son cf a prostitute, and the plunderer of
the Engiifh nation.
, The opinions of men with refpea to
government, are changing faft in all,
countries.-- The revolutions of America
and France have thrown a beam of light
over the world, which reaches into man.
The enormous expense of governments
have provoked people to think, by ma
king them feel: and when once the veil
begins to rend it admits not of repair.
Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once
difpelled,and it fs impossible to reeftib
lilh it. It is not originally a thing of
itfelf, but is only the absence of know-
[Numb. 25 of Volume 6—