ould condemn it.

But to come at once to the point. I have differed from some professional
gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are
falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as
concisely as I can.

I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then compare it
with a government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a
constitution.

It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary
power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or
bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.

If a law be bad it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is
quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects,
and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be
substituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion (making it
also my practice) that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the
same time of every argument to show its errors and procure its repeal,
than forcibly to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law
might weaken the force, and lead to a discretionary violation, of those
which are good.

The case is the same with respect to principles and forms of government,
or to what are called constitutions and the parts of which they are,
composed.

It is for the good of nations and not for the emolument or
aggrandisement of particular individuals, that government ought to be
established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The
defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and
form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the
defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to
point them out. When those defects, and the means of remedying them, are
generally seen by a nation, that nation will reform its government or
its constitution in the one case, as the government repealed or reformed
the law in the other. The operation of government is restricted to the
making and the administering of laws; but it is to a nation that the
right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating constitutions
and governments belong; and consequently those subjects, as subjects
of investigation, are always before a country as a matter of right, and
cannot, without invading the general rights of that country, be made
subjects for prosecution. On this ground I will meet Mr. Burke whenev