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EXTRACTS FROM NEW PUBLICATIONS.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Charles James Fox . ( Continued from p . 685 . ) 40 . Equality . ( Feb . 1 , 1793 . ) fTTIHE use of the word " equality " 1 by the French was deemed highly objectionable . When taken as they meant it , nothing was more
innocent ; for what did they say ? " All men are equal in respect of their rights . " To this he assented ; all men had equal rights 5 equal rights to unequal things ; one man to a shilling , another to a thousand pounds ; one man to a cottage , another to a palace ;
but the right in both was the same , an equal right of enjoying , an equal right of inheriting or acquiring , and of possessing inheritance or acquisition * The effect of the proposed address was to condemn , not the abuse
of those principles ( and the French had much abused them ) but the principles themselves . To this he could not assent , for they were the principles on which all just and equitable government was founded .
41 . Whig Principles . Mr . Fox said , he had already . differed sufficiently with aright honourable gentleman ( Mr . Burke ) on this subject , to wish not to provoke any fresh difference ; but even against so great an authority , he must say , that the
people are the sovereign- in every state ; that they have a right to change the form of their government , and a right to cashier their governors for misconduct , as the people of this country cashiered James II .: not by a parliament , or any regular form
known to the constitution , but by a convention speaking the sense of the people : that convention produced a parliament and a king . They elected William to a vacant throne , not only setting aside James , whom they had
justly cashiered for misconduct , but his innocent son . Again , they elected the House of Brunswick , not individually , but by dynasty , and that dynasty to continue while the terms and conditions 011 which it was elected
were fulfilled , and no longer . He could not admit the right to do all this , but by acknowledging the sovereignty of the people as paramount to all other laws .
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42 . Constitutions . ( On a Motion for a Reform in Parliament . ) Without attempting to follow his right honourable friend , when be proposed to soar into the skies , or
dive into \\\ e deep , to encounter his metaphysical adversaries , - because in such heights and depths the operations of the actors were too remote from view to be observed with ihuch
benefit , he would rest on practice , to which he was more attached , as being better understood . And if by a peculiar interposition of divine power , all the wisest men of every age and of every country could be collected into one assembly , he did not believe that their united wisdom would be
capable of forming even a tolerable constitution . In this opinion he thought he was supported by the unvarying evidence of history and observation . Another opinion he held , no matter
Whether erroneous or not , for he stated it only as an illustration , namely , that the most skilful architect could not build , in the first instance , so commodious a habitation as one
that had been originally intended for some other use , and had been gradually improved by successive alterations suggested by various inhabitants for its present purpose . If then so simple a structure as a commodious habitation was so difficult in theory ,
how much more difficult the structure of a government ? One apparent exception might be mentioned , the constitution of the United States of America , which he believed to be so excellently constructed , and so admirably adapted to the circumstances and situation of the inhabitants , that it
left us no room to boast that our own was the sole admiration of the world . The objection , however , was only apparent . They had not a constitution to build up from the foundation ; they had ours to work upon , and adapt to their own wants and purposes . This was not the present motion
recommended to the House- —not to pull down , but to work upon our constitution , to examine it with care and reverence , to repair it where decayed , to amend it where defective , to prop it where it wanted support , to adapt it to the purposes of the present time , as our ancestors had , done from gene-
Extracts From New Publications.
EXTRACTS FROM NEW PUBLICATIONS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1815, page 732, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1767/page/4/
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