The Constitution of England

Chapter V

167 u c h a p t e r v u In which an Inquiry is made, whether it would be an Advantage to public Liberty, that the Laws should be enacted by the Votes of the People at large. But it will be said, whatever may be the wisdom of the English Laws, how great soever their precautions may be with regard to the safety of the individual , the People, asthey donotthemselvesexpresslyenactthem,cannot be looked upon as a free People. The Author of the Social Contract carries this opi-nion even farther; he says, that, “though the people of England think they are free, they are much mistaken; they are so only during the election of Members for Parliament: as soon as these are elected, the People are slaves—they are nothing” (a). Before I answer this objection, I shall observe that the word Liberty is one of those which have been most misunderstood or misapplied. Thus, at Rome, where that class of Citizens who were really Masters of the State, were sensible that a lawful regular authority, once trusted to a single Ruler, would put an end to their tyranny, they taught the People to believe, that, provided those who exercised a military poweroverthem,and overwhelmed them with insults, went by the names of Consules,Dictatores, Patricii, Nobiles,1 in a word, by any other appellation than that horrid one (a) See M. Rousseau’s Social Contract, chap. xv. [[De Lolme provides an incomplete reference to Rousseau’s famous dismissal of English political freedom; see The Social Contract, book 3, chapter 15.]] 1. “Consuls, dictators, patricians, nobles.” Patricians comprised a privileged class of Roman citizens who monopolized many important religious and civic offices duringthe period of Rome’s early development. For the other institutions, see above, book 2, chapter 2, p. 151, note 1. 168 book ii of Rex, they were free, and that such a valuable situation must be preserved at the price of every calamity. In the same manner, certain Writers of the present age, misled by their inconsiderate admiration of the Governments of ancienttimes,and perhaps also by a desire of presenting lively contrasts to what they call the degenerate manners of our modern times, have cried up the governments of Sparta and Rome, as the only ones fit for us toimitate.2 Intheiropinions, the only proper employment of a free Citizen is, to be either incessantly assembled in the forum, or preparing for war.—Being valiant, inured to hardships , inflamed with an ardent love of one’s Country, which is, after all, nothing more than an ardent desire of injuring all Mankind for the sake of that Society of which we are Members—and with an ardent love of glory, which is likewise nothing more than an ardent desire of committing slaughter, in order to make afterwards a boast of it, have appeared to these Writers to be the only social qualifications worthy of our esteem, and of the encouragement of law-givers (a). And while, in order to support such opinions, they have used a profusion of exaggerated expressions without any distinct meaning, and perpetually repeated, though without defining them, the words dastardliness, corruption, greatness of soul, and virtue, they have never once thought of telling us the only thing that was worth our knowing, which is, whether men were happy under those Governments which they so much exhorted us to imitate. Nor, while they thus misapprehended the only rational design of civil Societies, have they better understood the true end of the particular institutions by which they were to be regulated. They were satisfied when they saw the few who really governed every thing in the State, at times perform the illusory ceremony of assembling the body of the People, that they might appear to consult them: and the mere giving of votes, under any disadvantage in the manner of giving them, and how much soever the law (a) I have used all the above expressions in the same sense in which they were used in the ancient Commonwealths, and still are by most of the Writers who describe their Governments. 2. Although Rousseau served as a special target in De Lolme’s criticism of those theorists who equated liberty with popular legislative bodies, he here makes clear that his comments were designed to address the larger bodyof early modernrepublicantheorists. chapter v 169 might afterwards be neglected that was thus...