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These are the notions which, under the idea of Whig principles, several persons, and among them persons of no mean mark, have associated themselves to propagate.  I will not attempt in the smallest degree to refute them.  This will probably be done (if such writings shall be thought to deserve any other than the refutation of criminal justice) by others, who may think with Mr. Burke.  He has performed his part.

I do not wish to enter very much at large into the discussions which diverge and ramify in all ways from this productive subject.  But there is one topic upon which I hope I shall be excused in going a little beyond my design.  The factions now so busy amongst us, in order to divest men of all love for their country, and to remove from their minds all duty with regard to the state, endeavor to propagate an opinion, that the people, in forming their commonwealth, have by no means parted with their power over it.  This is an impregnable citadel, to which these gentlemen retreat, whenever they are pushed by the battery of laws and usages and positive conventions.  Indeed, it is such, and of so great force, that all they have done in defending their outworks is so much time and labor thrown away.  Discuss any of their schemes, their answer is, It is the act of the people, and that is sufficient.  Are we to deny to a majority of the people the right of altering even the whole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure?  They may change it, say they, from a monarchy to a republic to-day, and to-morrow back again from a republic to a monarchy; and so backward and forward as often as they like.  They are masters of the commonwealth, because in substance they are themselves the commonwealth.  The French Revolution, say they, was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majority of any other people, the people of England, for instance, wish to make the same change, they have the same right.

Just the same, undoubtedly.  That is, none at all.  Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.  The Constitution of a country being once settled upon some compact, tacit or expressed, there is no power existing of force to alter it, without the breach of the covenant, or the consent of all the parties.  Such is the nature of a contract.  And the votes of a majority of the people, whatever their infamous flatterers may teach in order to corrupt their minds, cannot alter the moral any more than they can alter the physical essence of things.  The people are not to be taught to think lightly of their engagements to their governors; else they teach governors to think lightly of their engagements towards them.  In that kind of game, in the end, the people are sure to be losers.  To flatter them into a contempt of faith, truth, and justice is to ruin them; for in these virtues consists their whole safety.  To flatter any man, or any part of mankind, in any description, by asserting that in engagements he or they are free, whilst any other human creature is bound, is ultimately to vest the rule of morality in the pleasure of those who ought to be rigidly submitted to it,—­to subject the sovereign reason of the world to the caprices of weak and giddy men.