either the
words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two
things.

FIRST. That the king is not to be trusted without being looked
after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the
natural disease of monarchy.

SECONDLY. That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose,
are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to
check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king
a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other
bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it
has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of
monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet
empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.
The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a
king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different
parts, by unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the
whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the
king, say they, is one, the people another; the peers are an house in
behalf of the king; the commons in behalf of the people; but this
hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself; and
though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they
appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always happen, that the nicest
construction that words are capable of, when applied to the
description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too
incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be
words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot
inform the mind, for this explanation includes a previous question,
viz. HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO
TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the
gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING,
be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes,
supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot
or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se;
for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all
the wheels of a