t, for any thing they could foresee, turn out to be knaves or
fools; and they would finally discover, that the project of hereditary
Governors and Legislators _was a treasonable usurpation over the rights
of posterity_. Not only the calm dictates of reason, and the force of
natural affection, but the integrity of manly pride, would impel men to
spurn such proposals.

From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
examination to the practical defects--They would soon see that it would
end in tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it, it
would be two to one against them, because the two parts that were to be
made hereditary would form a common interest, and stick to each other;
and that themselves and representatives would become no better
than hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other parts of the
Government.--Yet call one of those powers King, the other Lords, and the
third the Commons, and it gives the model of what is called the English
Government.

I have asserted, and have shewn, both in the First and Second Parts
of _Rights of Man_, that there is not such a thing as an English
Constitution, and that the people have yet a Constitution to form. _A
Constitution is a thing antecedent to a Government; it is the act of a
people creating a Government and giving it powers, and defining the
limits and exercise of the powers so given_. But whenever did the people
of England, acting in their original constituent character, by a
delegation elected for that express purpose, declare and say, "We, the
people of this land, do constitute and appoint this to be our system and
form of Government." The Government has assumed to constitute itself,
but it never was constituted by the people, in whom alone the right of
constituting resides.

I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the
United States of America. I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights
of Man_, the manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards
ratified; and to which I refer the reader. The preamble is in the
following words:

"We, the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for
common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
constitution for the United States of America."

Then follow the several articles