rates to preclude the
consent of the succeeding generations; and the preclusion of consent is
despotism. When the person who at any time shall be in possession of
a Government, or those who stand in succession to him, shall say to a
Nation, I hold this power in "contempt" of you, it signifies not on what
authority he pretends to say it. It is no relief, but an aggravation to
a person in slavery, to reflect that he was sold by his parent; and as
that which heightens the criminality of an act cannot be produced to
prove the legality of it, hereditary succession cannot be established as
a legal thing.

In order to arrive at a more perfect decision on this head, it will be
proper to consider the generation which undertakes to establish a Family
with hereditary powers, apart and separate from the generations which
are to follow; and also to consider the character in which the first
generation acts with respect to succeeding generations.

The generation which first selects a person, and puts him at the head of
its Government, either with the title of King, or any other distinction,
acts on its own choice, be it wise or foolish, as a free agent for
itself The person so set up is not hereditary, but selected and
appointed; and the generation who sets him up, does not live under a
hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice and
establishment. Were the generation who sets him up, and the person so
set up, to live for ever, it never could become hereditary succession;
and of consequence hereditary succession can only follow on the death of
the first parties.

As, therefore, hereditary succession is out of the question with respect
to the first generation, we have now to consider the character in which
that generation acts with respect to the commencing generation, and to
all succeeding ones.

It assumes a character, to which it has neither right nor title. It
changes itself from a Legislator to a Testator, and effects to make
its Will, which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to
bequeath the Government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to
establish on the succeeding generation, a new and different form of
Government under which itself lived. Itself, as already observed, lived
not under a hereditary Government but under a Government of its own
choice and establishment; and it now attempts, by virtue of a will and
testament (and which it has not authority to make), to take from the