A 1791 Dialogue on the Foundations of Government
A Short London Pamphlet in Dialogue Form
Political Dialogues. Number I. On the General Principles of Government is a short work issued in London in 1791 and printed for the bookseller J. Johnson, the friend and publisher with whom Priestley consulted on his regular visits to the capital. It runs to thirty-six pages, set in duodecimo, the compact format typical of the political pamphlet. The title itself announces the form: this is a dialogue rather than a formal treatise, a work in which argument is conducted through exchange. That choice of genre matters, since dialogue allowed eighteenth-century writers on politics to stage objections and answers rather than simply declare a position — a fitting vehicle for a subject as contested as the basis of government.
The General Principles of Government
The subject named on the title page is the “general principles of government,” which places the emphasis on foundations rather than on any single measure, minister, or current controversy. The aim, as the title frames it, is to examine what government rests upon and by what reasoning its authority and limits are to be understood. Priestley was a classical liberal political theorist as well as a chemist and Dissenting minister, and questions of political right were a long-standing concern of his; this pamphlet addresses them at the level of first principles, asking the reader to consider the grounds of governmental power rather than its particular applications.
Issued as the First of a Numbered Series
The designation “Number I” on the title page presents the work as the opening instalment of a numbered sequence of political dialogues — the first part of a projected set rather than a self-contained volume. The brevity of the piece, at just thirty-six pages, is consistent with publication in parts: short, affordable units that could be read and circulated individually and gathered as a series.
The catalogue record identifies the work by the ESTC number T107813 and cites Crook, R.E. Priestley, PS 309. It records the signatures as “[A]ℓ Bℓ℗ C¡” and describes the item as 18 cm high with two preliminary pages. A copy is listed in the Library Company of Philadelphia Stacks under the call number Ii Prie 8644.O.4 (Cox).
Dissenting Rights and Political Writing
Many of Priestley’s political writings supported repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which restricted the rights of Dissenters: they could not hold political office, serve in the armed forces, or attend Oxford and Cambridge unless they subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Dissenters repeatedly petitioned Parliament to repeal the Acts, arguing that they were being treated as second-class citizens. Priestley’s friends, particularly other Rational Dissenters, urged him to publish a work on the injustices experienced by Dissenters; the result was his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768). That work is described as an early work of modern liberal political theory and Priestley’s most thorough treatment of the subject; unusually for the time, it distinguished political rights from civil rights with precision and argued for expansive civil rights. Priestley identified separate private and public spheres, contending that the government should have control only over the public sphere. Education and religion, in particular, he maintained, were matters of private conscience and should not be administered by the state. His later radicalism emerged from his belief that the British government was infringing upon these individual freedoms. Priestley strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas and advocated toleration and equal rights for religious Dissenters, which also led him to help found Unitarianism in England.
1791, Controversy, and Blackstone
Priestley’s controversial publications and his outspoken support of the American Revolution and later the French Revolution aroused public and governmental contempt; he was forced to flee in 1791, first to London and then to the United States, after a mob burned down his Birmingham home and church. Priestley also defended the rights of Dissenters against William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69) stated that dissent from the Church of England was a crime and that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects. Priestley responded with Remarks on Dr. Blackstone’s Commentaries (1769), correcting Blackstone’s interpretation of the law, his grammar, and history. Blackstone altered subsequent editions of his Commentaries: he rephrased the offending passages and removed the sections claiming that Dissenters could not be loyal subjects, but retained his description of Dissent as a crime.
