led the
New, is the most ancient in principle of all that have existed, being
founded on the original, inherent Rights of Man: yet, as tyranny and
the sword have suspended the exercise of those rights for many centuries
past, it serves better the purpose of distinction to call it the new,
than to claim the right of calling it the old.

The first general distinction between those two systems, is, that the
one now called the old is hereditary, either in whole or in part;
and the new is entirely representative. It rejects all hereditary
government:

First, As being an imposition on mankind.

Secondly, As inadequate to the purposes for which government is
necessary.

With respect to the first of these heads--It cannot be proved by what
right hereditary government could begin; neither does there exist
within the compass of mortal power a right to establish it. Man has no
authority over posterity in matters of personal right; and, therefore,
no man, or body of men, had, or can have, a right to set up hereditary
government. Were even ourselves to come again into existence, instead of
being succeeded by posterity, we have not now the right of taking from
ourselves the rights which would then be ours. On what ground, then, do
we pretend to take them from others?

All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown,
or an heritable throne, or by what other fanciful name such things may
be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are
heritable property. To inherit a government, is to inherit the people,
as if they were flocks and herds.

With respect to the second head, that of being inadequate to the
purposes for which government is necessary, we have only to consider
what government essentially is, and compare it with the circumstances to
which hereditary succession is subject.

Government ought to be a thing always in full maturity. It ought to
be so constructed as to be superior to all the accidents to which
individual man is subject; and, therefore, hereditary succession, by
being subject to them all, is the most irregular and imperfect of all
the systems of government.

We have heard the Rights of Man called a levelling system; but the
only system to which the word levelling is truly applicable, is the
hereditary monarchical system. It is a system of mental levelling.
It indiscriminately admits every species of character to the same
authority. Vice and virtue, ignorance an