THE second claim of the Revolution Society is "a right of
cashiering their governors for misconduct". Perhaps the
apprehensions our ancestors entertained of forming such a precedent as
that "of cashiering for misconduct" was the cause that the declaration
of the act, which implied the abdication of King James, was, if it had
any fault, rather too guarded and too circumstantial.* But all this
guard and all this accumulation of circumstances serves to show the
spirit of caution which predominated in the national councils in a
situation in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a
triumph over it, are apt to abandon themselves to violent and
extreme courses; it shows the anxiety of the great men who
influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event to make the
Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future
revolutions.
* "That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract
between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other
wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having
withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, hath abdicated the Government,
and the throne is thereby vacant".
No government could stand a moment if it could be blown down
with anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of "misconduct".
They who led at the Revolution grounded the virtual abdication of King
James upon no such light and uncertain principle.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49