Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud If I say, all this be fallacious and insufficient, can wè have any firmer reliance on a cold ideal calculation of ima ginary GENERAL CONSEQUENCES, which, if they were gene ral, could not be consequences at all: for they would be effects of the frenzy or frenzied wickedness, which alone could confound actions so utterly dissimilar? No! (would the ennobled Descendant of our Russells or Sidneys conclude) No! Calumnious Bigot, never yet did a human being become an assassin from his own or the general admi ration, of the Hero, Brutus; but I dare not warrant, that villains might not be encouraged in their trade of secret murder, by finding their own guilt attributed to the Rơman Patriot, and night not conclude, that if Brutus be no better than an Assassin, an Assassin can be no worse than Brutus. I request, that the preceding may not be interpreted as my own settled judgement on the moral nature of Tyrannicide. I think with Machiavel and with Spinosa, for many and weighty reasons assigned by those Philoso phers, that it is difficult to conceive a case, in which a good man would attempt Tyrannicide, because it is diffi cult to conceive one, in which a wise man would recom mend it. In a small State, included within the walls of a single City, and where the tyranny is maintained by foreign Guards, it may be otherwise; but in a Nation or Empire it is perhaps inconceivable, that the circumstances which made a Tyranny possible, should not likewise render the removal of the Tyrant useless. The patriot's sword may cut off the Hydra's head; but he possesses no brand to staunch the active corruption of the body, which is sure to re-produce a Successor. I must now in a few words answer the objection to the former part of my argument (for to that part only the objection applies,) namely that the doctrine of general consequences was stated as the criterion of the Action, not of the Agent. I might answer, that the Author himself had in some measure justified me in not noticing this distinction by holding forth the probability, that the supreme judge will prceed by the same rule. The Agent may then safely be included in the Action, if both here and hereafter the Action only and its' general consequences will be attended to. But my main ground of justification is, that the distinction itself is merely logical, not real and vital. The character of the agent is determined by his view of the action: and that System of Morality is alone true and suited to human nature, which unites the intention and the motive, the warmth and the light, in one and the same act of mind. This alone is worthy to be called a moral Principle, Such a Principle may be extracted, though not without difficulty and danger, from the ore of the stoic Philosophy; but it is to be found unalloyed and entire in the christian System, and is there called FAITH, A single Paragraph will enable me to apply the result to the question of international Morality and at the same time will establish the true nature and obligation of the Law of Nations, which was a necessary part of my plan, and which I knew no more interesting or shorter method of introducing and accomplishing, than in connection with the subject of Biography, which I shall re-commence in the next number. PENRITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY No. 24, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1810. ON THE LAW OF NATIONS. Ir were absurd to suppose, that Individuals should be under a law of moral obligation, and yet that a million of the same individuals, acting collectively or through representatives, should be exempt from all law: for Morality is no accident of human nature, but its' essential characteristic. A being absolutely without morality is either a beast or a fiend, according as we conceive this want of conscience to be natural or self-produced; or (to come nearer to the common notion, though with the sacrifice of austere accuracy) according as the being is conceived without the law, or in unceasing and irretrievable rebellion to it. Yet were it possible to conceive a man wholly immoral, it would remain impossible to conceive him without a moral obligation to be otherwise and none, but a madman, will imagine that the essential qualities of any thing can be altered by its' becoming part of an aggregate; that a grain of corn, for instance, shall cease to contain flour, as soon as it is part of a peck or bushel. It is therefore grounded in the nature of the thing, and not by a mere fiction of the mind, that wise men, who have written on the Law of Nations, have always considered the several States of the civilized world, as so many Individuals, and equally with the latter under a moral obligation to exercise their free agency within such bounds, as render it compatible with the existence of free agency in others. We may represent to ourselves this original free agency, as a right of commonage, the formation of separate States as an enclosure of this Common, the Allotments awarded severally to the co-proprietors as constituting national Rights, and the Law of Nations as the common Register Office of their title deeds. But in all Morality, though the principle, which is the abiding spirit of the Law, remains perpetual and unaltered, even as that supreme Reason in whom and from whom it has its' being, yet the Letter of the Law, that is, the application of it to particular instances and the mode of realizing it in actual practice, must be modified by the existing circumstances. What we should desire to do, the con. science alone will inform us; but how and when we are to make the attempt, and to what extent it is in our power to accomplish it, are questions for the judgement, and require an acquaintance with facts and their bearings on each other. Thence the improvement of our judgement, and the increase of our knowledge, on all subjects included within our sphere of action, are not merely advantages recommended by prudence, but absolute duties imposed on us by conscience. As the circumstances then, under which men act as Statesmen, are different from those under which they act as Individuals, a proportionate difference must be expected in the practical rules by which their public conduct is to be determined. Let me not be misunderstood: I speak of a difference in the practical rules not in the moral law itself which these rules point out the means of administering in particular cases, and under given circumstances. The spirit continues one and the same, though it may vary its' form according to the element into which it is transported. This difference with its' grounds and consequences it is the province of the philosophical Juspublicist to discover and display and exactly in this point (I speak with unfeigned diffidence) it appears to me that the Writers on the Law of Nations, whose works I have had the opportunity of studying, have been least successful. In what does the Law of Nations differ from the Laws enacted by a particular State for its' own Subjects? The solution is evident. The law of nations considered apart from the common Principle of all Morality is not fixed or positive in itself, nor supplied with any regular means of being enforced. Like those duties in private Life which, for the same reasons, Moralists have entitled imperfect duties (though the most atrocious guilt may be involved in the omission or violation of them), the law of nations appeals only to the conscience and prudence of the Parties concerned. Wherein then does it differ from the moral laws which the Reason, considered as Conscience, dictates for the conduct of Individuals? This is a more difficult question; but my answer would be determined by, and grounded on, the obvious differ. Grotius, Bykenshoek, Puffendorf, Wolfe, and Vattel; to whose Works I must add, as comprizing whatever is most valuable in the preceding Authors, with many important improvements and additions, Kobinson's Reports of the Causes of the Court of Admiralty under Sir W. Scott: to whom international Law is under no less obligation than the Law of commercial proceedings was to the late Lord Mansfield. As I have never even seen Sir W. Scott, nor either by myself or my connections enjoy the honour of the remotest acquain tance with him, I trust that even by those who may think my opinion eironeous, I shall at least not be suspected-of intentional flattery. Remember, ences of the circumstances in the two cases. then, that we are now reasoning, not as Sophists or System-mongers, but as Men anxious to discover what is right in order that we may practice it, or at least give our suffrage and the influence of our opinion in recommending its' practice. We must therefore confine the question to those cases, in which honest Men and real Patriots can suppose any controversy to exist between real patriotism and common honesty. The objects of the Patriot are, that his countrymen should, as far as circumstances permit, enjoy what the Creator designed for the enjoyment of Animals endowed with reason, and of course develope those faculties which were given them to be developed. He would do his best that every one of his Countrymen should possess whatever all men may and should possess, and that a sufficient number should be enabled and encouraged to acquire those excellencies which, though not necessary or possible for all men, are yet to all men useful and honourable. He knows, that Patriotism itself is a necessary link in the golden chain of our affections and virtues, and turns away with indignant scorn from the false Philosophy or mistaken Religion, which would persuade him that Cosmopolitism is nobler than Nationality, and the human Race a sublimer object of love than a People; that Plato, Luther, Newton, and their Equals, formed themselves neither in the Market nor the Senate, but in the World and for all Men of all Ages. True! But where and among whom are these giant exceptions produced? In the wide Empires of Asia, where millions of human Beings acknowledge no other bond but that of a common Slavery, and are distinguished on the Map but by a name which themselves perhaps never heard, or hearing abhor? No! In a circle defined by human affections, the first firm sod within which becomes sacred beneath the quickened step of the returning Citizenhere, where the powers and interests of men spread with. out confusion through a common sphere, like the vibrations propagated in the air by a single voice, distinct yet coherent, and all uniting to express one thought and the same feeling! here where even the common Soldier dares force a passage for his Comrades by gathering up the Bayonets of the Enemy into his own breast: because his Country "expected every Man to do his duty!" and this, not after he has been hardened by habit but, as probably, in his first battle; not reckless or hopeless, but braving death from a keener sensibility to those blessings, which |