which they poffeffed by delegation, and the right which they fet up by affumption. The first is admitted; but, with refpect to the fecond, I reply

There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any defcription of men, or any generation of men, in any country, poffeffed of the right or the power of binding and controuling pofterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world fhall be governed, or who fhall govern it: and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themfelves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cafes, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and prefumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and infolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other riod, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to controul them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to difpofe of, bind or controul thofe who are to live a hundred or a thoufand years hence. Every generation is and must be competent to all the purposes which its occafions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants ceafe with him;

pe

and

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and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who fhall be its governors, or how its government fhall be organized, or how adminiftered.

I am not contending for, nor against, any form of government, nor for, nor against, any party here or elsewhere. That which a whole nation choofes to do, it has a right to do. Mr. Burke fays, No. Where then does the right exist? I am contending for the right of the living, and against their being willed away, and controuled and contracted for, by the manufcript affumed authority of the dead; and Mr. Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living. There was a time when kings difpofed of their crowns by will upon their death-beds, and configned the people, like beals of the field, to whatever fucceffor they appointed. This is now fo exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and fo monstrous as hardly to be believed: But the parliamentary claufes upon which Mr. Burke builds his political church, are of the fame nature.

The laws of every country must be analogous to fome common principle. In England, no parent or mafter, nor all the authority of parliament, omnipotent as it has called itfelf, can bind or controul the perfonal freedom even of an individual beyond the age of twenty-one years: On what ground of right then could the parliament of 1688, or any other parliament, bind all pofterity for ever?

Thofe

Those who have quitted the world, and those who are not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive: What poffible obligation then can exist between them, what rule or principle can be laid down, that two non-entities, the one out of existence, and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, that the one fhould controul the other to the end of time?

In England, it is faid that money cannot be taken out of the pockets of the people without their confent: But who authorized, and who could authorize the parliament of 1688 to controul and take away the freedom of pofterity, and limit and confine their rights of acting in certain cafes for ever, who were not in existence to give or to with-hold their confent?

A greater abfurdity cannot prefent itself to the understanding of man, than what Mr. Burke offers to his readers. He tells them, and he tells the world to come, that a certain body of men, who exifted a hundred years ago, made a law, and that there does not now exift in the nation, nor ever will, nor ever can, a power to alter it. Under how many fubtilties, or abfurdities, has the divine right to govern been imposed on the credulity of mankind! Mr. Burke has difcovered a new one, and he has fhortened his journey to Rome, by appealing to the power of this infallible parliament of former days; and he produces what it has done, as of divine authority: for that power must certainly

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be

be more than human, which no human power to the end of time can alter.

But Mr. Burke has done fome fervice, not to his caufe, but to his country, by bringing those claufes into public view. They ferve to demonftrate how neceffary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of

power, and to prevent its running to excefs. It is fomewhat extraordinary, that the offence for which James II. was expelled, that of fetting up power by affumption, fhould be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the parliament that expelled him. It fhews, that the rights of man were but imperfectly understood at the Revolution; for certain it is, that the right which that parliament fet up by affumption (for by delegation it had it not, and could not have it, because none could give it) over the perfons and freedom of pofterity for ever, was of the fame tyrannical unfounded kind which James' attempted to fet up over the parliament and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is, (for in principle they differ not) that the one was an ufurper over the living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally null and void, and of no effect.

From what, or from whence, does Mr. Burke prove the right of any human power to bind pofterity for ever? He has produced his claufes; but he muft produce alfo his proofs, that fuch a right existed, and fhew how it existed. If it ever exist. ed, it must now exist; for whatever appertains to

the

the nature of man, cannot be annihilated by man. It is the nature of man to die, and he will continue to die as long as he continues to be born. But Mr. Burke has fet up a fort of political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever; he must therefore prove that his Adam poffeffed fuch a power, or fuch a right.

The weaker any cord is, the lefs will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it. Had a person contemplated the overthrow of Mr. Burke's pofitions, he would have proceeded as Mr. Burke has done. He would have magnified the authorities, on purpose to have called the right of them into question; and the inftant the question of right was started, the authorities must have been given up.

It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive, that altho' laws made in one generation often continue in force through fucceeding generations, yet that they continue to derive their force from the confent of the living. A law not repealed continues in force, not because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing paffes for confent.

But Mr. Burke's claufes have not even this qualification in their favour. They become null, by attempting to become immortal. The nature of them precludes confent. They destroy the right which they might have, by grounding it on a right which they cannot have. Immortal power is not a human right, and therefore cannot be a right of parliament. The parliament of 1688 might as C

well