American Political Writing During the Founding Era: 1760–1805: Two Volume Paperback Set

30. [Anonymous], Four Letters on Interesting Subjects

PolWritV1_351-400.indd 368 2/21/12 9:59 AM [30} [ANONYMOUS ) Four Letters on Interesting Subjects PHILADELPHIA, 1 776 The author of these essays was probably a lawyer-or at least had considerable knowledge of legal matters-was definitely a radical republican inclined toward the use of direct consent by the people as much as possible, and was also an advanced thinker. The third and fourth letters are especially interesting for their grasp of modern constitutional theory. The author discusses why colonial charters were defective as founding documents in letter three, and in the fourth letter he lays out the distinction between a constitution and a government. The notion of a constitution as a higher law derived directly from the people and limiting the legislature is an American invention, and this author is one of the first to advance the idea. TO THE PUBLIC The rapid turn which Politics have taken within the course of a few days, makes it almost impossible for the Press to keep pace therewith; which will account for some few remarks in the first and second of the following Letters, if they could not appear so necessary now as at the time of writing them. LETTER I Every man who acts beyond the line of private life, must expect to pass through two severe examinations. First, as to his motives; secondly, as to his conduct. On the former of these depends his character for PolWritV1_351-400.indd 369 2/21/12 9:59 AM { 369} ANONYMOUS honesty; on the latter for wisdom. The question is, how are we to know a man's motives? I answer by tracing his conduct back to himself, as you would a firearm to the fountain-head, and comparing the measures he pursues with his own private interest and dependencies; and the conclusion will be, that if no visible connection appears between them, we are obliged, on the ground of justice and generosity, to believe that such a man acts from reason and principle; for if this criterion be taken away, there is no other general one to know men by. On the other hand, if on examining from a man's conduct back to the man himself, we find a place of an hundred or a thousand a year at the bottom, or some advantage equivalent thereto, and find likewise that all his measures have been continually and invariably directed to support the part in every thing which supports him in his place or office, we may, without hesitation, set that man down for an interested time-serving tool. We used to feel a mighty indignity at hearing a king's customhouse officer, of forty or fifty pounds a year, bawling out in support of every measure of his employers; and the cause of this dislike in us was, because his motives had the appearance of selfishness; yet we have every reason to believe that the same servile principle produced the late Remonstrance, and drew together the whole tribe of Crown and Proprietary dependants to give it countenance; who, by fermenting the prejudices of some, and working on the weakness of others, endeavoured to render themselves formidable by a party. Why is it, that every governor, and almost every [2] officer under them, throughout the Continent, have uniformly trodden in the same steps' but because that ONE slavish mercenary principle has governed all. Scarcely a man amongst them have had either honesty or fortitude enough, to ask his conscience or his judgment a question. Did men reason with themselves ever so little, they would soon conclude, that the King and his Ministers could not be for ever right, nor the opposition, either in England or America, for ever wrong. Wisdom cannot be all on one side, nor ingorance all on the other; yet this levee of dependents have never dared to doubt any thing, but obeyed as implicitly as if their employers had been divine, and traveled on through thick and thin, without once enquiring into the cause, or reflecting on the consequence. The case was, that their places were at stake, and that all commanding thought superseded every other. Reason and conscience form unnecessary endowments to men in PolWritV1_351-400.indd 370 2/21/12 9:59 AM [ 370} PHILADELPHIA, 1776 such stations; for as they use them not, they need them not, and their chiefesr excellence consists in a kind of magnetical obedience, which...