Let these gentlemen state who
that representative public is to whom they will affirm the king, as
a servant, to be responsible. It will then be time enough for me to
produce to them the positive statute law which affirms that he is not.
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so
much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
It then becomes a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are
commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms, and tribunals fall to
the ground with the peace they are no longer able to uphold. The
Revolution of 1688 was obtained by a just war, in the only case in
which any war, and much more a civil war, can be just. Justa bella
quibus necessaria. The question of dethroning or, if these gentlemen
like the phrase better, "cashiering kings" will always be, as it has
always been, an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the
law- a question (like all other questions of state) of dispositions
and of means and of probable consequences rather than of positive
rights. As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be
agitated by common minds. The speculative line of demarcation where
obedience ought to end and resistance must begin is faint, obscure,
and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event,
which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged,
indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future
must be as bad as the experience of the past.
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