He not only used in his declarations the alarming expressions of absolute power and unlimited obedience; he not only usurped to himself a right to dispense with the laws; but, moreover, sought to convert that destructive pretension to the destruction of those very laws which were held most dear by the nation, by endeavouring to abolish religion, for which they had suffered the greatest calamities, in order to establish on its ruins a mode of faith which repeated acts of the legislature had proscribed, and proscribed, not because it tended to establish in England the doctrines of transubstantiation and purgatory,-doctrines in themselves of no political moment, but because the unlimited power of the sovereign had always been made one of its principal tenets. To endeavour, therefore, to revive such a religion, was not only a violation of the laws, but was, by one enormous violation, to pave the way for others of a still more alarming nature. Hence the English, seeing that their liberty was attacked even in its first principles, had 57 recourse to that remedy which reason and nature point out to the people, when he who ought to be the guardian of the laws becomes their destroyer: they withdrew the allegiance which they had sworn to James, and thought themselves absolved from their oath to a king, who himself disregarded the oath he had made to his people. But, instead of a revolution like that which dethroned Charles I., which was effected by a great effusion of blood, and threw the state into a general and terrible convulsion, the dethronement of James proved a matter of short and easy operation. In consequence of the progressive information of the people, and the certainty of the principles which now directed the nation, the whole were unanimous. All the ties by which the peo ple were bound to the throne were broken, as it were, by one single shock; and James, who, the moment before, was a monarch surrounded by subjects, became at once a simple individual in the midst of the nation. That which contributes, above all, to distinguish this event as singular in the annals of mankind, is the moderation, I may even say the legality, which accompanied it. As if to dethrone a king who sought to set himself 58 above the laws, had been a natural consequence of, and provided for by, the principles of government, every thing remained in its place; the throne was declared vacant, and a new line of succession was established. Nor was this all: care was had to repair the breaches that had been made in the Constitution, as well as to prevent new ones; and advantage was taken of the rare opportunity of entering into an original and express compact between king and people. An oath was required of the new king more precise than had been taken by his predecessors, and it was consecrated as a perpetual formula of such oaths. It was determined, that, to impose taxes without the consent of parliament, as well as to keep up a standing army in time of peace, are contrary to law. The power which the crown had constantly claimed, of dispensing with the laws, was abolished. It was enacted, that the subject, of whatever rank or degree, had a right to present petitions to the king (e). Lastly, the keystone 59 (e) The lords, and commons, previous to the coronation of King William and Queen Mary, had framed a bill, which contained a declaration of the rights which they claimed in behalf of the people, and was in consequence called the Bill of Rights. This bill contained the articles above, as well as some others, and having was put to the arch, by the final establishment of the liberty of the press (ƒ). The Revolution of 1689 is therefore the third grand æra in the History of the Constitution of England. The Great Charter had marked out the limits within which the royal authority ought to be confined; some outworks were raised in the reign of Edward I., but it was at the Revolution that the circumvallation was completed. It was at this æra that the true principles of civil society were fully established. By the expulsion of a king who had violated his oath, the doctrine of resistance, that ultimate resource of an oppressed people, 60 was confirmed beyond a doubt. By the exclusion given to a family hereditarily despotic, it was finally determined that nations are not the property of kings. The principles of passive obedience,—the divine and indefeasible right of kings,-in a word, the whole scaffolding of false and superstitious notions, by which the royal authority had till then been supported, fell to the ground, and in the room of it were substituted the more solid and durable foundations of the love of order, and a sense of the necessity of civil government among mankind. received afterwards the royal assent, became an act of parliament, under the title of an Act declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown.-Stat. 1 William & Mary, sess. 2, cap. 2. (f) The liberty of the press was, properly speaking, established only four years afterwards, in consequence of the refusal which the parliament made at that time to continue any longer the restrictions which had before been set upon it. SECTION II. On the Title to the Throne. THE succession to the throne, according to the true spirit of the constitution, is hereditary, or the crown is descendible to the next heir on the death or demise of the last proprietor. Blackstone observes (7)," the grand fundamental maxim upon which the jus coronæ, or right of succession to the throne of Great Britain, depends, is, that the crown is by common law and constitutional custom hereditary, and this in a manner peculiar to itself, but that the right of inheritance may from time to time be changed or limited by act of parliament, under which limitations the crown still continues hereditary." Hence the king never dies, because he lives in his successor, and according to such maxim this hereditary succession (so well is our constitution formed) is not an hereditary right; as the parliament, consisting of king, lords, and commons, has the power to defeat any such right, and declare the inheritance to descend upon another. There is no instance upon record wherein the crown of England has ever been asserted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous trial of Charles I. It must of consequence, therefore, be hereditary. The political theory, therefore, that "the people have the right to choose their own governors," is destroyed; and this is made more manifest by the very words of the (7) Blackst. Comm., vol. 1, p. 191. E Declaration of Right (8), made by the lords and commons in parliament assembled upon the accession of William and Mary, in which the lords and commons consider it 66 as a marvellous providence and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to preserve King William and Queen Mary most happily to reign over us on the throne of their ancestors." Here there was a vacancy of the throne by the departure of King James from England, and the two houses of parliament, in the spirit of the constitution, exercised their right to regulate the succession, by appointing a successor in the persons of King William and Queen Mary, keeping in view the hereditary succession in the person of the queen; and the total destruction of the political theory before named is made the more manifest, by a further clause in the same Bill of Rights of the lords and commons, by which the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do, in the name of all the people, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterity for ever, and do faithfully promise that they will stand to, maintain, and defend their majesties, and also the limitation of the crown therein specified and contained, to the utmost of their powers. This right of the two houses of parliament to regulate the succession to the throne was established in the reign of King Henry IV., who, coming to the throne by a doubtful title, sought to strengthen it by an appeal to parliament; and by an act passed in the seventh year of that king's reign (9), it is ordained, " that the inheritance (8) 1 William & Mary, cap. 2. |