ABSTRACT
Such is the government that has been contrasted by Paine to the no constitution of England. Every thing with us, according to him, has a constitution except the nation; and, if we had a constitution, we should be able to produce it. The French, on the contrary, formed one which they could produce, printed on vellum, and bound in morocco; carried by every one in his pocket, as the charter of his Rights; but unfortunately for theories of government, this great effort of legislation; this boast of French, and envy of English Jacobins, this master-piece of the metaphysical art of Abbé Sieyes; this quintescence of what ought to be, in opposition to what is * ; this fine machine pronounced by so many pens immortal; producible to the measure of Paine, antecedent to the government, and distinct from it; this capital production of gallic genius endured scarcely two years. The freedom it afforded was not sufficient for adepts in the Rights of Man: The existence of a King, because offensive to the new lights by which they were illumined. Infurrection was pronounced a sacred duty;—revolt followed;—and the horrors that will for ever stain the annals of mankind,—the deep damnation that ensued,—are written in every heart from which Jacobinism has not eradicated all traces of feeling and humanity. Such has been the practice of the French revolution; for its theory go to Rights of Man.
