Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, Part II: That Old Whig Harangue

If forced to cite but one element as being particularly characteristic of Richard Price’s Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, that which most powerfully suggests itself is the degree to which it’s author appeared to couch a great deal of his criticism of contemporary British government policy within the contours of the “Old Whig” or “Country Party” ideology. This quality is significant for a number of reasons. For one thing, it communicates a great deal about the manner in which Price understood the purpose of government, the recent history of Great Britain, and the principles by which he believed society ought to function. Unlike, say, Benjamin Franklin, whose most pointed criticisms of contemporary government policy were prompted and shaped by a vaguely-defined – though no less sincere – set of “Revolution principles,” or the aforementioned Thomas Paine, whose ardent republicanism seemed to stem as much from a sense of personal animus as political conviction, Price appeared to draw very directly and very consistently from an established set of values and priorities whose authors numbered among some of the most influential figures in the Anglo-America political discourse. In consequence, despite his otherwise radical convictions, it becomes that much easier to place the author of Observations on an existing ideological continuum. Price identified with the Country Party, in short, and so he belongs here. As to what that meant in practice, the following will endeavor to show.

            Observations, it bears noting, is both a dense and highly structured example of the late 18^th century Anglo-American political treatise. First printed in London early in the year 1776, it represented an effort on the part of Price to call into question the measures that had so far been taken by the government of Lord North to quell the armed rebellion that had broken out in British America in the spring of 1775. To that end, he set about first establishing a set of general principles as to the nature of authority, sovereignty, and liberty. This began with “Section I. Of the Nature of Liberty in General [,]” was followed by “Section II. Of Civil Liberty and the Principles of Government” and concluded with “Section III. Of the Authority of one Country over another.” Combined, these three segments comprised Part I of Observations. Part II then shifted the focus of the piece towards a specific accounting of the behavior of the sitting British government towards the Thirteen Colonies, with a particular focus on the manner in which the former had taken to waging war upon the latter. Thus did Price denote “Section I. Of the Justice of the War with America [,]” “SECT. II. Whether the War with America is justified by the Principles of the Constitution [,]” “SECT. III. Of the Policy of the War with America [,]” “SECT. IV. Of the Honor of the Nation, as affected by the War with America [,]” and “SECT. V. Of the Probability of Succeeding in the War with America.” Having thus examined in detail the extent to which Britain’s actions with regards to its American dependencies were, to his thinking, justifiable, constitutionally sound, or probable of producing success, Price then proceeded to offer, by way of a conclusion, his preferred solution to the Anglo-American crisis, along with an explanation as to why he felt that the reconciliation of the Thirteen Colonies to the larger British Empire was essential to the wellbeing of the latter.

            Without engaging in an in-depth dissection of each of the sections named above – more on that to come – it will suffice here to repeat that just about every aspect of Price’s argument was suffused with, couched in, or generally supported by his apparent belief in the veracity and validity of the Country Party platform. At best a loose agglomeration of Tories and disaffected Whigs, the Country Party – which was, in fact, never a “party” in the modern, formal sense – coalesced in the 1680s in opposition to the notional “Court Party” from which contemporary governments drew their power. Symbolizing a kind of modern, upwardly-mobile, and ambitious elite, this latter clique supposedly included the bankers, merchants, and bureaucrats through which English/British governments in the 1690s, 1700s, and 1710s managed to refashion an aspiring but limited European kingdom into a fantastically wealthy and powerful global empire. Whereas the Court Party was said to embody the interests of the moneyed and the connected, the Country Party stood for the whole of nation, and in particular for the traditional landed aristocracy whose influence had waned significantly with the advent of state banking and standing armies. So-called “country men” accordingly supported low taxes, fiscal restraint, protection for civil liberties, and greater emphasis on the use of militias over a professional military establishment. If the text of Observations is any indication, Richard Price was a “country man” though and through, given, as he seemingly was, to express support for any and all of these major positions amidst his castigation of the government of Prime Minister – and pseudo-Tory – Lord North. Consider, to that end, his ardently expressed belief in the supremacy of Parliament.

Within the traditional Country Party/Court Party dichotomy, the former favored the legislature as the most influential branch of government while the latter tended to believe that a strong executive was necessary to counter popular excess. And while the events of the Glorious Revolution had, to a large extent, affirmed the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown – and effectively paved the way for a further weakening of the royal prerogative – the question of precisely what manner of balance to strike remained an unanswered one even as late as the 1770s. When Price affirmed at several points across the length of his Observations that the popular – i.e. elected – branch of the British government was that which ought to predominate, he was thus engaging in a debate that was both long-standing and eminently vital. Staking out a position early on, he accordingly declared in Part I, Section II that, “All civil government, as far as it can be denominated free, is the creature of the people. It originates with then. It is conducted under their direction; and has in view nothing but their happiness.” A further expansion upon this idea followed, by which Price affirmed that,

In every free state every man is his own legislator.–All taxes are free gifts for public services.–All laws are particular provisions or regulations established by COMMON CONSENT for gaining protection and safety.–And all Magistrates and Trustees of Deputies for carrying these regulations into execution.

Here, without ever been so clumsily explicit as to say so, Price leveled his first attack upon that traditional Country Party foe, executive authority. Any government that would claim for itself the appellation of “free,” he pointedly asserted, must originate from and work for the people at large. It must protect them, serve them, spend their money only with their benefit in mind, and seek their consent as often as possible.

That the country men tended to accuse their foes in government of doing precisely the opposite was surely no coincidence. If free governments were those that served the people, the government that serves itself must by default be especially unfree. Thus the Court Party was often characterized. Rather than attend to the needs of the whole of the English/British nation, it served only to enrich its own partisans. Merchants supported the banks, bankers supported the government, government supported them both, and they all supported the army, all in the name of consolidating and enhancing the power and authority they each of them respectively and collectively wielded. Granting that this image of corruption and cabalism represents something of a conjecture on the part of the country men themselves – the Court Party, after all, had no formal membership, and constituted an accusatory slur more than it was ever a real faction or interest – Price’s apparent need to define free government as being the antithesis of the supposed Court Party hegemony is telling all the same. Before even addressing any of the specific ills committed by the government of the day, he first took the time to define for his audience the manner in which he believed government ought to behave. A rhetorical dichotomy was thus established, notably without Price even having to describe both sides in full. Good, just, fair, free governments behave in this way, he asserted, while those that did not meet the standard described – whatever form they took – were their moral opposite.

Subsequent passages of Part I, Section I served to further define the characteristics that Price believed a truly free government must possess, along with occasional commentary upon the degree to which he thought contemporary Britain actually qualified. For example, after having first acknowledged that, “Civil Liberty, in its most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states” – a clear reference to the arguments put forward by the French philosopher Montesquieu (1689-1755) in his The Spirit of the Laws (1748) – he went on to describe the means by which he believed, “Such near approaches may be made to perfect Liberty as shall answer all the purposes of government [.]” The first such measure named was also perhaps the most obvious, being the designation of representatives by which the consent of large numbers of individual citizens might be given via a process of delegation and debate. Speaking of the people at large, Price thus declared that,

They may entrust the powers of legislation, subject to such restrictions as they shall think necessary, with any number of Delegates; and whatever can be done by such delegates, within the limits of their trust, may be considered as done by the united voice and counsel of the community.

While, again, this might seem a rather redundant statement on Price’s part, it in fact contained an assertion that was anything but. The power of legislation, he asserted, was to be entrusted to the people’s elected representatives, “Subject to such restrictions as they shall think necessary [.]” Not only did Price think it important enough to note specifically that the people should want to restrict the authority of their chosen delegates – offering a degree of nuance to the blanket principle of Parliamentary supremacy – but he explicitly defined said restrictions as being those which the people themselves deemed necessary. In addition to affirming the very direct nature of the relationship he believed ought to exist between the citizens of a free state and their representatives, this specific phrasing would seem to once more reiterate Price’s essential belief that the purpose of government was to serve the needs of the general population.

Several other passages from Part I of Observations speak precisely to Price’s relatively liberal conception of political institutions and their relationship to the individual citizen. Attempting to answer supposed complaints that permitting the people to alter their government at will represented an excess of liberty, for example, Price declared with admirable clarity that,

Government is an institution for the benefit of the people governed, which they have power to model as they please; and to say, that they can have too much of this power is to say, that there ought to be a power in the state superior to that which gives it being, and from which all jurisdiction in it is derived.

In addition to displaying a conception of government that hewed very close to that provided by English political theorist John Locke (1632-1704) – whose articulation of the “social contract” explicitly declared that public institutions exist solely to serve the needs of a given community – this passage provides further insight into Price’s particular perspective on the various instruments of public administration. “Government,” he stated, “Is an institution for the benefit of the people governed [.]” Having thus created it, out of a desire to ease some burden of provide some service, the people may likewise change it, redirect it, or abolish it as they please. It would therefore seem appropriate to describe government, within the rhetorical context here established by Price, as essentially a tool – or series of tools, more like – designed with the intention of serving the public good.

            Bearing this characterization in mind, the caveat that Price subsequently offered near the end of Part I, Section II of Observations would seem a rather incisive criticism of the kind of government he fundamentally abhorred. Having admitted that it was possible for government to be abused – “It may be employed to defeat the very ends for which it was instituted [,]” he wrote – Price elaborated upon the means by which such an outcome might occur and the significance of it for the people at large. “A PARLIAMENT,” he offered,

Consisting of a body of representatives chosen for a limited period, to make laws and to grant money for public services, would forfeit its authority by making itself perpetual, or even prolonging its own duration; by nominating its own members; by accepting bribes; or subjecting itself to any kind of foreign influence. This would convert a Parliament into a conclave or junto of self-created tools; and a state that has lost its regard to its own rights, so far as to submit to such a breach of trust in its rulers, is enslaved.

Take note here of the phrase “self-created tools.” A hammer, like the ideal government as described by Price, is an instrument designed by humans to serve their needs. It makes their lives easier by allowing them to accomplish something that would be either impossible or especially difficult in its absence, thus establishing its essential usefulness. A hammer without someone to swing it, however, is useless, and a hammer that swings itself – that somehow decides when and where to apply the force at its disposal – is a dangerous thing indeed. Thus Price arguably conceived of a self-created government. Having lost its connection to the people it was designed to serve – through, among other things, corruption, self-interest, and nepotism – it directs it energies towards whatever outcomes it desires regardless of whether they offer aid to the general population or do them particular harm. This was, of course, very much the characterization that was laid at the feet of the supposed Court Party. Rather than serve the needs of the British people as a whole, their Country Party adversaries claimed, they had directed the resources of government towards preserving their own power and enriching their supporters. Though speaking at times rather obliquely, Price seemed to offer much this same description of the government in power of the time of his writing.