date

[clxiv. 237] 1820 July 7 Emancipation
[clxiv. 237]

1820 July 7

Emancipation Spanish

?.8. Corruptive influence

Falshood and deception

1. King can do no wrong

Of the /this/ original contract the application is confined to a case which has never happened but once, and which it is contended can never happen again. The /Under the Gwelphs the English/ Parliament has been found a convenient instrument: not much less so than under the Caesars the Roman Senate. But, unless under the government of this half God half man by whom no wrong can be done, wrong could not be done by somebody, neither in the one House nor in the other would the Parliament have any thing to say or do or say. Some man therefore or some men must accordingly be found who can do wrong. They accordingly are found: and they are the Kings Ministers. When any wrong is said to have been done, these men therefore /accordingly/ some or all of them are said to have done it. Well then this way of speaking what is the Constitution, what are the people the better for it. The King can not do any thing wrong by his own hand: but he can do any thing how wrong soever, by the hand of another, so long as he can find a hand to do it.

Here then we see this fundamental maxim or axiom cloathed with a double sense, and converted into a sort of a pun. In one sense it expresses the irremovability and the impunity of the demigod: in the other sense it expresses his impotence. The misfortune is that while the irremovability and the impunity are strictly /altogether/ real, the impotence is as plainly fictitious.

Suppose a body of men trained and armed at all points, attacking a company of men women and children all peaceable and defenceless, killing a number of them and wounding some hundreds more. Suppose a King ordering this destruction before hand, or when it is done, thanking and rewarding the actors for what has been done, with the avowed desire, that upon occasion the same thing should at all times be done in time future. What is there to hinder him from pursuing the same course, till all whom he suspects of /regards as/ being discontented with it are exterminated?
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    ' | | The King can do no wrong.

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