the populace, by assuming that "the king can never do
wrong!" In the time of James the Second "it is curious," says Lord
Russell, "to read the conference between the Houses on the meaning of
the words 'deserted' and 'abdicated,' and the debates in the Lords
whether or no there is an original contract between king and people."
The people would necessarily decide that "kings derived their power from
them;" but kings were once maintained by a "right divine," a "confusion
of words," derived from two opposite theories, and both only relatively
true. When we listen so frequently to such abstract terms as "the
majesty of the people," "the sovereignty of the people," whence the
inference that "all power is derived from the people," we can form no
definite notions: it is "a confusion of words," contradicting all the
political experience which our studies or our observations furnish; for
sovereignty is established to rule, to conduct, and to settle the
vacillations and quick passions of the multitude. _Public opinion_
expresses too often the ideas of one party in place; and _public
interest_ those of another party out! Political axioms, from the
circumstance of having the notions attached to them unsettled, are
applied to the most opposite ends! "In the time of the French
Directory," observes an Italian philosopher of profound views, "in the
revolution of Naples, the democratic faction pronounced that 'Every act
of a tyrannical government is in its origin illegal;' a proposition
which at first sight seems self-evident, but which went to render all
existing laws impracticable." The doctrine of the illegality of the acts
of a tyrant was proclaimed by Brutus and Cicero, in the name of the
senate, _against the populace_, who had favoured Caesar's perpetual
dictatorship; and the populace of Paris availed themselves of it,
_against the National Assembly_.

This "confusion of words," in time-serving politics, has too often
confounded right and wrong; and artful men, driven into a corner, and
intent only on its possession, have found no difficulty in solving
doubts, and reconciling contradictions. Our own history in revolutionary
times abounds with dangerous examples from all parties; of specious
hypotheses for compliance with the government of the day or the passions
of parliament. Here is an instance in which the subtle confuser of words
pretended to substitute two consciences, by utterly depriving a man of
any! When the unhappy Charle