Culture britannique, dossier de synthèse.
Document n°1 : John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690. Chapter XIII :
« Of the subordination of the powers of the Commonwealth ».
In some commonwealths where the legislative is not always in being, and the
executive is vested in a single person who has also a share in the legislative, there that single
person, in a very tolerable sense, may also be called supreme; not that he has in himself all the
supreme power, which is that of law-making, but because he has in him the supreme
execution from whom all inferior magistrates derive their several subordinate powers, or, at
least, the greatest part of them; having also no legislative superior to him, there being no law
to be made without his consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the
other part of the legislative, he is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be
observed that though oaths of allegiance and fealty are taken to him, it is not to him as
supreme legislator , but as supreme executor of the law made by a joint power of him with
others, allegiance being nothing but an obedience according to law, which, when he violates,
he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise as the public person vested with the
power of the law, and so is to be considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the
commonwealth, acted by the will of the society declared in its laws, and thus he has no will,
no power, but that of the law. But when he quits this representation, this public will, and acts
of his own private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private person without power
and without will; the members owing no obedience but to the public will of the society […]
It may be demanded here, what if the executive power, being possessed of the force of
the commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the
legislative, when the original constitution or the public exigencies require it? I say, using
force upon the people, without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a
state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate the legislative in the exercise of
their power. For having erected a legislative with an intent they should exercise the power of
making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by
any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of
the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions
the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it. The use of force without
authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war as the aggressor, and renders him
liable to be treated accordingly.
Document n°2: Richard Price, A Discourse on the Love of our Country, 1788.
We are met to thank God for that event in this country to which the name of The
Revolution has been given; and which, for more than a century, it has been usual for the
friends of freedom, and more especially Protestant Dissenters, under the title of the
Revolution Society, to celebrate with expressions of joy and exultation […] Let us, in
particular, take care not to forget the principles of the Revolution. This Society has, very
properly, in its Reports, held out these principles, as an instruction to the public. I will only
take notice of the three following:
First; The right to liberty of conscience in religious matters.
Secondly; The right to resist power when abused. And,
Thridly; The right to choose our governors; to cashier1 them for misconduct; and to
frame a government for ourselves.
On these three principles, and more especially the last, was the Revolution founded
[…]
After sharing in the benefits of one revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to
two other Revolutions, both glorious. – And now, methinks, I see the ardour for liberty
catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of
Kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the
dominion of reason and conscience.
Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in this defence! The times are
auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Behold kingdoms, admonished by you,
starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming justice form their oppressors Behold,
the light you have struck out, after setting AMERICA free, reflected to FRANCE, and there
kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes , and warms and illuminates Europe!
Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish
governments, and slavish hierarchies! Call no more (absurdly and wickedly)
REFORMATION, innovation? You cannot now hold the world in darkness. Struggle no
longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights; and consent to
the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together.
1
Cashier (old use) : sanctionner
Document n°3 : Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.
[…]The second claim of the Revolution Society is “a right of cashiering their
governors for misconduct”. Perhaps the apprehensions our ancestors entertained of forming
such a precedent as that “of cashiering for misconduct”, was the cause that the declaration of
the act which implied the abdication of King James, was, if it had any thought, rather too
guarded and too circumstantial. But all this guard, and all this accumulation of circumstances,
serves to show the spirit of caution which predominated in the national councils, in a situation
in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to abandon
themselves to extreme and violent courses: it shows the anxiety of the great men who
influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of
settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down by any thing so
loose and so indefinite as an opinion of “misconduct”. They who led at the Revolution,
grounded the virtual abdication of King James upon no such light and uncertain principle.
They charged with nothing less than a design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts,
to subvert the Protestant church and state, and their fundamental, unquestionable laws and
liberties: they charged him with having broken the original contract between King and people.
This was more than misconduct. A grave and overruling necessity obliged them to take the
step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all laws. Their
trust for the future preservation of the constitution was not in future revolutions […]
Document n°4 : Isaac Cruikshank, « The martyrdom of Louis XVI, King of
France : « I forgive my enemies, I die innocent ». March 1793. Etching.