y-marked feature of all law-religions, or
religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and
every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic
priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an
episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds
independently of the men, from there being no law-establishment in
America.

If also we view this matter in a temporal sense, we shall see the ill
effects it has had on the prosperity of nations. The union of church and
state has impoverished Spain. The revoking the edict of Nantes drove the
silk manufacture from that country into England; and church and state
are now driving the cotton manufacture from England to America and
France. Let then Mr. Burke continue to preach his antipolitical doctrine
of Church and State. It will do some good. The National Assembly
will not follow his advice, but will benefit by his folly. It was by
observing the ill effects of it in England, that America has been warned
against it; and it is by experiencing them in France, that the National
Assembly have abolished it, and, like America, have established
Universal Right Of Conscience, And Universal Right Of Citizenship.*[7]

I will here cease the comparison with respect to the principles of the
French Constitution, and conclude this part of the subject with a few
observations on the organisation of the formal parts of the French and
English governments.

The executive power in each country is in the hands of a person styled
the King; but the French Constitution distinguishes between the King and
the Sovereign: It considers the station of King as official, and places
Sovereignty in the nation.

The representatives of the nation, who compose the National Assembly,
and who are the legislative power, originate in and from the people
by election, as an inherent right in the people.--In England it is
otherwise; and this arises from the original establishment of what
is called its monarchy; for, as by the conquest all the rights of the
people or the nation were absorbed into the hands of the Conqueror, and
who added the title of King to that of Conqueror, those same matters
which in France are now held as rights in the people, or in the nation,
are held in England as grants from what is called the crown. The
Parliament in England, in both its branches, was erected by patents from
the descendants of the Conqueror. The House of Comm