RAMSAY'S POLITICAL DISCOURSES.

MR. RAMSAY is a person of some ability, much reading, and the knowledge derived from travel and society ; but he appears defi- cient in the experience gained by actual affairs, and has none of that mental power—call it genius, acumen, or w hat you will—which leads its owner almost intuitively to sound conclusions. Hence, his book is rather distinguished for the forms of reasoning than the substance of truth : good thoughts and useful hints may be found sprinkled over its pages, but the author has not succeeded in throwing any new light upon the nature of government, still less in producing a text-book or canon of' politics The Discourses in the volume are five in number. In the first- " On what is Government founded ? "—Mr. RAMSAY controverts the doctrine of HUME, that all governments ultimately rest on opinion: but, after endeavouring, without success if his argu- ments be thoroughly examined, to show that force is the principal element, ho goes on to say that no tyrant dares venture an attack upon religion,—as if this were not giving up the point, for upon what but opinion can religion rest? In his essay on the Ballot, the author exhibits so much practical ignorance of the subject, as to deem a written list of the candidates, and the signature of the voter, essential to its working ; and he rings the changes on the often-refuted arguments of the hypocrisy it would introduce and the secrecy it would not establish,—varying his dis- course with such reasoning as this, which follows a remark that in voting against a political candidate no " insult" is given.

"In a private club, on the other hand, it is the qualities of the man, particus lady his moral qualities and manners, not the opinions of the politician, that are alone or chiefly looked to. Therefore, in this case, repulse is an insult. It is equivalent to a declaration that, fur some reason or other, the candidate is not good company. Where the number of members is not limited, the slight is still greater ; for then the exclusion is absolute, not relative. In such tn.

stances, were voting to be open, the consequence would inevitably be heart- burning', bickering', and desperate quarrels, often ending fatally. For, accord. log to the modern code of honour, an affront can be washed away only by the blood of the offender. To prevent such serious evils, ballot has very properly been introduced in those cases where the susceptibility of man would find an enemy in every opponent."

Put into English, the meaning of this is, that gentlemen are to be saved from the chance of a quarrel, when the only end in view is to prevent some person they dislike frequenting rooms

where they are ; but other people are to brave ruin in the exer- cise of a trust, the misuse of which will be a breach of duty, and in their opinion a public injury. When a tradesman or

a tenant votes against the candidate of his customer or landlord, no insult is given, because, by the code of honour, none can be given ; but offence is given, which is only expiated by all the injury the offended person can inflict, though it extended even to the voter's ruin.

The essay "On the Central and Local Systems" is a solemn piece of scholastic phrasemongery, in which the advantages and disadvantages of each system are balanced, or made to see-saw one against the other ; and the author concludes with as "near as he can guess he cannot tell." "On Equality and Inequality " has some of this defect; but, as the case against an impossibility like perfect equality was clear, so the judgment is sounder. The discourse on Civil Liberty is divided into four chapters,— discussing, what is Liberty ? how it is maintained within ; how it is defended from without ; and what are its advantages. It is in fact a treatise on the respective advantages and disadvantages of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy ; and, like all the trea- tises on government we ever saw, has the defect of dealing with abstractions instead of realities. In the physical sciences, as long as men speculated in lieu of observing,—putting forward, as theo- ries, their own vain imaginations, instead of inferences drawn from the actions of nature,—so long the grossest absurdities were broached as systems of philosophy. It is the same in the less exact sciences. The political economist who invents an hypo- thesis of his own imagination, instead of deducing principles from facts, will at every turn be contradicted by practice ; and in the still more difficult matter of politics, history is the only sure guide,—not using the forms of history, like our author, to turn periods, or to furnish illustrations, and misapplications of its facts

to a different state of things ; but to get at its very heart or essence, so as to compare governments with the social state in which they flourished, and see how they gradually altered with the alterations in society. Were this done, we should perhaps find that governments obey a species of necessity—that such as the people deserve and are fit for, they get. We should certainly be spared the twaddling applications of the facts of ancient times to circumstances now existing ; for the prevalence of slavery, the scanty number of free citizens, the absence of representation— the slowness and difficulty of locomotion for all but the rich, the consequent difficulty of interchange of opinion either to excite or to check conduct, and the different international situation of the ancient world—all forbid direct deductions from the past to the present. And the man who would attempt to limit the forms of the future by the forms of the past, would deal about as wisely as one of our ancestors who should have fixed the velocity of tra- velling in all time, by his experience of roads and coaches a hundred years ago. One main argument of' Mr. RAMSAY'S is touching universal suffrage ; in which he puts forward the usual and worn-out talk with much fluency,—exalting, against facts, the character of the rustic population above that of cities ; telling of the rashness of the urban mob, their liability to be misled by demagogues, the fickleness of their determination, and their incapacity to decide wisely or to judge of wise men. This is the sort of eloquent nonsense he broaches about the alleged incapacity of the people to judge of the character of their " betters."

" In judging of the moral character of public men, the people are nearly as open to deception as in estimating the utility of measures. How difficult it often is even for the most experienced to say what are the motives of indivi- duals; where opinions are adopted from conviction, where from interest. What more easy for able men than to assume and inflame the passion of the day ; and who shall say ambition was the prompter ? What more arduous than to resist the popular torrent; and who can affirm that patriotism instigated? Is flat- tery or truth most likely to be heard, or are princes alone accessible to the former?

"There is, in truth, an especial reason why the people, properly so called, should be incapable of forming any accurate judgment as to the characters of public men ; namely, that the motives by which they are frequently actuated are almost incomprehensible to the many. In order to form an estimate of others, we must as it were put ourselves in their situation, and suppose all the desires to which such a position might give rise. Now, for this purpose, a great acquaintance with human nature is necessary, and a certain sensibility and imagination that let us into all the gratifications of which our species is sus- ceptible, and all the temptations to which it is exposed. He who should pos- sess these qualifications in perfection, would be either the most profound of moralists or the greatest of dramatists, as was Shakepeare. In this we see the peculiarity of moral science, that intellect alone is of little avail ; for an adequate conception of all possible pleasures, and of all the passions to which they give rise, is essential to a right understanding of the characters of men, and to the proper regulation of our confidence or distrust, as well as our sentiments of approval or disapproval. We must feel, or have felt, in order to enter into similar feelings in others, and also in order to fancy a far higher develop. ment of them. In a word, the moral philosopher, or even the man of the world who has to make use of others, must combine sensibility and imagination with intelligence. Now what I affirm is, that the lower class of people, whose de- sires range within a very narrow sphere, cannot at all comprehend those bound- less and diversified wishes which are the growth of wealth, leisure, and high station. They may have heard of ambition, but can they really scan that all- devouring passion, which marches to its object through seas of blood, trampling on law, liberty, and life, overrunning kingdoms, pulling down and building up

thrones as children do castles of cards, and perhaps conducting half a million of men to whiten with their bones the wastes of a frozen continent ? Can such thoughts enter the head of a man born to trace the furrow or weave the web, and whose steps have rarely if ever wandered beyond his parish or county town? Does he estimate the force of such passions in public men ; can he de- tect them under the specious garb of patriotism and respect for the sovereign people? To this ignorance of characters we must attribute the proverbial sum. plicity of the mass, and the ease which quacks and pretenders of all kinds have ever found in deceiving them; and this ignorance is the necessary conse- quence of their position."

In the first place, all this is an argument for a far more select constituency than any that ever existed. Is there one constitu- ency in England that comes up to these conditions? nay, was there even in the selectness of Boroughmonger times ? or can there ever be, taking men in the mass? and if selected, who is to judge?

Leaving this objection, the opening of the passage is notoriously false. In the first place, the laws of morality are few and palpable.

Nature, moreover, has endowed the mass with an intuitive percep-

tion of moral qualities ; and the meanest of the people penetrate all the conventional humbug with which their superiors try to bam-

boozle them, estimating the most specious hypocrite with amazing sagacity. The closing sentences are the flourish of a rhetorician heaping up words. What representative of the people has power " to march to his object through seas of blood," and so forth ? The utmost these worthies can accomplish is, to sacrifice their consti- tuents, to curry favour with the minister, and postpone their duty to their interest,—matters of which every parish, with a squire or a parson, or a man well to do, would furnish analogous examples. As for entering into the " motives," " desires," and " temptations " of Parliament men, the less the many sympathize with them the better for the state. All classes have a morality of their own, which is invariably of the lowest. Lawyers are very tolerant of chicanery, soldiers of booty, and ministers and legis'ators of corruption. We very readily pardon those who have not stood against "temptations" to which we ourselves have yielded ; and God help us, if public morality, so low already, is (running in a circle) to be tested by the morality of public men. Mr. RAMSAY thus holds forth on short Parliaments- " When members are chosen for a very short period, the third advantage of representation above-mentioned is in great measure last. The delegate retain- ing his seat for so limited a time, can have no opir.ian of his own, but becomes the mere mouthpiece of the crowd on whom he is dependent fur his reelection. His own superior.Pidgnicrit must bow to that of the many, and prudence and foresight must yield to the whim of the day. What avail all the depths of po- litical knowledge, all the experience of past ages? Can he hope in a flux months to teach wisdom to the ignorant and fiwesight to the reckless? to make reason triumph over passion, and lore of order over the intoxicating excite- ments of change? Wo to that man who attempts so hopeless a task ! His public career is about to close, his schemes of distinction must soon be levelled in the dust. Instead of applauses, he meets with insult ; instead of love, with hatred ; instead of encouragement, rebuke. The indignant multitude rejects with scorn the man who dared to be wiser than themselves, and elects a more obsequious delegate in his stead. Thus the representative loses all indepeod- mace, not only of opinion, but even of moral character, and becomes a mere sycophant who panders to the passions of the mob. Is it thus that liberty can be secured? "

Where can this gentleman have passed his days ? What Utopia was he dreaming of, when he threw in these rhetorical flourishes we have noted in Italics ; and to note them is to answer them. " His own superior judgment "—applied to the herd of Members of Parliament I "All the depths of political know- ledge "—" all the experience of past ages "—to be found in a batch of landed gentlemen, lawyers, and citizens ! As for " teaching wisdom " to the ignorant, (meaning their constituents,) we sus- pect legislators in general must first learn it. And as for "fore- sight," if we are to judge by experience, only look at home facts of the most notorious kind—the National Debt, the Bank Charter, and the Canada Resolutions.

Though this sort of stuff forms a good part of the Political Dis- courses, they however contain better things. Such are these re- marks on the energy of Democracy, and the wonders it produces, " But, it will be said, does not America flourish under this system ? Assuredly it does, and why ? There is an energy in democracy which can cover a multi- tude of faults, wherever the situation is such that these faults are not irreparable. Even in the turbulent Republics of antiquity, and those of Italy during the middle ages, this energy produced wonders. What arc we to think of the government of Athens ?—representation and the press unknown ; Senate, Magistrates, Judges, chosen by lot; Generals elected annually by popular suf- frage; the President of the Prytaoes, who represented the Executive, changed every day ; what, it might be thought, could possibly come of such a sys- tem ? But compare that celebrated city in the tiine of Pericles with its condi.. tion after the loss of independence, and how prodigious is the contrast ! There was no longer any turbulence, but there was no longer any life. " Nothing can well be conceived more badly organized than the state, more unruly than the democracy of Florence, where the principal .Magistrates were chosen by lot, and changed every few months; but what is that city now, when contrasted with the days of Cosmo, father of his country, and Lore= the Magnificent?"

The subject is further continued— Liberty favours useful activity, not merely by rendering it more honourable in itself, but also by clearing away many obstacles 1,..hich lie in its path; and by opening up a wider sphere of distinction to which it may lead. Hence it may be said to act materially and morally ; materially, by removing all positive regulations which are found to be injurious, or at the very least, to produce delay; morally, by its influence upon the mind within. " This activity, the result of liberty, is the true life of a state, the vital prin- ciple which maintains it fair and flourishing in spite of the partial maladies that afflict the body politic. Nothing else can explain the apparent contradiction which the history of the world has not unfrequently presented, of a people en- joying a high degree of prosperity among almost incessant wars and internal convulsions. TMu was the case particularly in ancient Greece, and in Italy during the middle ages. The little states into which these countries were divided, carried on, one with another, a nearly uninterrupted succession of

hostilities, and peace was almost as uncommon within as without. Still, their general condition was incomparably superior to what it has been since tranquil- lity has succeeded to liberty. Formerly, also, their influence on the progress of civilization in other countries was immense ; since it has been reduced to nothing. One little commonwealth of Greece or Italy, during its short and stormy existence, did more for the benefit and delight of the human race than the vast empire of Russia during many centuries; and more real instruction and interest is derived from the history of even the smallest of these republics, than from the annals of all Asia since the beginning of time. Such and so potent is the enchantress' touch! "

ADVANTAGES OF PUBLIC OCCUPATION.

" That occupation which public affairs give to the citizens of a free state, seems to unite almost every advantage. It withdraws men from that ex- clusive devotion to self which is so apt to invade all, opens the mind to views of general good, fosters benevolence, and discloses a path of useful exertion which has no limit. While it strikes out a career where the approbation of conscience is certain, and confers at the sante time all the pleasures of activity, it lessens private anxieties, and renders us compara- tively indifferent to the petty but constantly recurring ills of life. Even to deeper domestic wounds it can apply a healing balm. All that is individual, decays and dies around us, but the race is eternal here on earth. While the friends of our early days are cut off like the premature blossoms in spring, and the companions of our age fall away like the sapless branch, the body politic alone defies the assaults of time, and blooms with a perpetual youth. Happy the man who has such a love; thrice happy he who can help to keep alive her beauty ! " But though all men may not be able to feel this disinterested love for the com- munity, yet all, as members of the same, are concerned in what is going on. One immense advantage of self.government is this, that it creates a constant object for activity, and of a kind the most agreeable that can he conceived to the na- ture of man, not so closely connected with self as to give rise to eating cares, not so remote from it as to exclude interest. Thus we avoid as well as may be the two opposite dangers of anxiety and ennui, the Scylla and Charybdis of human happiness."

There is also truth and nicety of discrimination in the following reasoning, as applied to the dislike of Democracies to long wars ; at least so far as regards large states in modern times— "But there is a particular reason why Democracies should be less willing to submit to great and durable sacrifices in war than other states. This is, that no class of men has any peculiar interest in carrying it on. In Monarchies and Aristocracies there rs always a considerable number of persons desirous of war, on account of the benefits of various kinds which they hope to derive from it,— such as wealth, power, fame, or simply relief from the lassitude of repose. As the governing body is but small when compared with the nation at large, and as the chief employments and emoluments will, of course, be shared among themselves, a direct and powerful interests prompts them to the field. 'Where a standing army is maintained iu time of peace, we see at once how strong a party may be formed in favour of war. War is the soldier's trade; and, like all other persons, he likes to exercise his skill. He loves his profession, even independently of its being his only source of riches and advancement. It is both his interest and his passion.

a In a democracy, on the other hand, there is nothing of all this. The go- vernment being under the control of all, or at least of the majority, no class of

men can hope for any peculiar benefit from war. The various commands or other offices to which it may give rise, will be distributed among the citizens without distinction of rank or station, by merit, not by favour. Above all, there is no permanent army anxious to exchange slow for rapid promotion, and the ennui of the barracks tor the excitement of the camp. The people, on the other hand, in the case of hostilities, must be called upon to make sacrifices, which, as it forms the governing body, it may, if it pleases, refuse."

Upon the whole, Mr. RAMSAY'S book may be read for its de- tached thoughts, by a person with fixed opinions, or on his guard

against the author's undesigned fallacies ; but those who peruse him as a text-book will be fed with the fair but unsubstantial fruits of rhetoric.