mean to protest against? The doc–
ument known as the
Rights of
Man and the Citizen
was ap–
proved by the French National As–
sembly in August 178Y. It began:
"men are born and remain free
and equal in rights. . . ." All ci–
tizens were declared to be equal
in the eyes of the law, "equally
eligible to all public dignities, and
employments, according to their
capacities, and without other dis–
tinction than that of their virtues
and their talents." Thus careers
were opened to talent. Men were
declared to have the
right
to com–
pete with one another in life upon
the grounds of their natural abili–
ties. But "natural rights" did not
compose a universally agreed upon
list. Robespierre proposed a more
generously .conceived declaration
which guaranteed the right to
work and the right to relief for
those who lacked the necessities
of life.
Answering such speculations
with arguments partly medieval,
partly Victorian, Burke wrote that
we must be prepared
. . . manfully to resist the very
idea ... that it is within the com–
petence of government ... to sup–
ply the poor those necessaries
which it has pleased Divine Provi–
dence for a while to withhold from
them ... it is not in breaking the
laws of commerce, which are the
laws of nature, and consequently
the laws of God, that we are to
place our hope of softening the
Divine displeasure to remove any
calamity under which we suf–
fer....
157
Thus the next plank of our pro–
posed platform might read: "This
party,
if
elected, will never use
tax money to alleviate the suf–
fering of the people which may
result from economic catastrophe,
for to do so would be to interfere
with the will of God."
The milder Declaration of 1789
was equally subversive. Surely the
most disruptive of modern ideas
has been the notion that all men
should have an equal chance.
Burke replied to this conceit with
his accustomed vigor:
... I may assume that the awful
Author of our being is the Author
of our place in the order of exist–
ence; and having disposed and
marshalled us by a divine tactic
... He has ... virtually subjected
us to act the part which belongs
to the place assigned to us.
Difficult to write into a political
platform, this might simply be
made a part of what the State
Church would teach as official
truth. Burke added that menial
occupations "cannot be a matter
of honor to any person."
The relativist establi5hes right by
the fact; the moralist judges the
fact in terms of metaphysical ab–
solutes. Burke charged the
philo–
sophes
with treating doctrines of
government as if they were merely
abstract questions concerning me–
taphysical liberty. But even the ef–
fort of the moralist Rousseau was
to contrive a system based upon
observation-to build institutions
upon the facts of human nature.
