Common Sense | Page 6

it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.
Absolute governments (tho' the disgrace of human nature) have this
advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they
know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the
remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But
the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation
may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which
part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every
political physician will advise a different medicine.
I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if
we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English
constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient
tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.
FIRST. The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.

SECONDLY. The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of
the peers.
THIRDLY. The new republican materials, in the persons of the
commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people;
wherefore in a CONSTITUTIONAL SENSE they contribute nothing
towards the freedom of the state.
To say that the constitution of England is a UNION of three powers
reciprocally CHECKING each other, is farcical, either the words have
no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.
To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two
things.
FIRST. That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or
in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of
monarchy.
SECONDLY. That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose,
are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.
But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to
check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a
power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other
bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has
already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!
There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of
monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet
empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.
The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king
requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by
unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole
character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king,
say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of
the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the
distinctions of an house divided against itself; and though the
expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear
idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest
construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description
of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too incomprehensible to
be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and
though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind, for this
explanation includes a previous question, viz. HOW CAME THE
KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO
TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power
could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH
NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision, which the
constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.
But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will
not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the
greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a
machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which
power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and
though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is,
check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their
endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have
its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.
That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution
needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence
merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident;
wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door
against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish