But the king of Great Britain obeys no other
person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too,
under him and owe to him a legal obedience. The law, which knows
neither to flatter nor to insult, calls this high magistrate not our
servant, as this humble divine calls him, but "our sovereign Lord
the king"; and we, on our parts, have learned to speak only the
primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their
Babylonian pulpits.
As he is not to obey us, but as we are to obey the law in him, our
constitution has made no sort of provision toward rendering him, as
a servant, in any degree responsible. Our constitution knows nothing
of a magistrate like the Justicia of Aragon, nor of any court
legally appointed, nor of any process legally settled, for
submitting the king to the responsibility belonging to all servants.
In this he is not distinguished from the Commons and the Lords, who,
in their several public capacities, can never be called to an
account for their conduct, although the Revolution Society chooses
to assert, in direct opposition to one of the wisest and most
beautiful parts of our constitution, that "a king is no more than
the first servant of the public, created by it, and responsible to it"
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame
for wisdom if they had found no security for their freedom but in
rendering their government feeble in its operations, and precarious in
its tenure; if they had been able to contrive no better remedy against
arbitrary power than civil confusion.
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