n any matter that
respects their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of
opinions, when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every
good citizen practically conforms.

Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
bestow a thought upon this case.

When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it
necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from
absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because,
without it, there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is,
perhaps, the only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas
upon other matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode
of decision derived from the primary original right of every individual
concerned; _that_ right being first individually exercised in giving an
opinion, and whether that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the
majority, is a subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor
diminishes the individual original right itself. Prior to any debate,
enquiry, or investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side
the majority of opinions will fall, and therefore, whilst this mode of
decision secures to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits
to every one an equal chance in the ultimate event.

Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of
a national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.

But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so
much the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the
remedy will immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of
preventing the like case hereafter.

In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the
absurdity of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and
the laws partake in a similar manner, of this assumption. They have no
period of legal or natural expi