e way, and then I."*[5] They
order these things better in France.

The French Constitution says that the right of war and peace is in the
nation. Where else should it reside but in those who are to pay the
expense?

In England this right is said to reside in a metaphor shown at the Tower
for sixpence or a shilling a piece: so are the lions; and it would be
a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate
metaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of
worshipping Aaron's molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's golden image; but
why do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise
in others?

It may with reason be said that in the manner the English nation is
represented it signifies not where the right resides, whether in the
Crown or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who
participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all
countries. It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an
increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes,
a pretence must be made for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the
English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded
by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not
raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

Mr. Burke, as a member of the House of Commons, is a part of the English
Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war, he abuses
the French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He holds up the
English Government as a model, in all its parts, to France; but he
should first know the remarks which the French make upon it. They
contend in favor of their own, that the portion of liberty enjoyed in
England is just enough to enslave a country more productively than by
despotism, and that as the real object of all despotism is revenue,
a government so formed obtains more than it could do either by direct
despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is, therefore on the
ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for the readiness
which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars by
remarking on the different motives which produced them. In despotic
governments wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in
which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more
permanent promptitude.

The French Constitution, therefore, to p