language, along with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a rubric the language of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that on the preserving " a certainty in the SUCCESSION thereof, the unity, peace, and tran"quillity of this nation doth, under God, wholly "depend."

They knew that a doubtful title of fucceffion would but too much resemble an election; and that an election would be utterly destructive of the "unity, peace, and tranquillity of this na❝tion," which they thought to be confiderations of fome moment. To provide for these objects, and therefore to exclude for ever the Old Jewry doctrine of "a right to choose our own "governors," they follow with a claufe, containing a moft folemn pledge, taken from the preceding act of Queen Elizabeth, as folemn à pledge as ever was or can be given in favour of an hereditary fucceffion, and as folemn a renunciation as could be made of the principles by this fociety imputed to them. "The lords «fpiritual and temporal, and commons, do, " in the name of all the people aforefaid, most "humbly and faithfully fubmit themselves, their "beirs and pofterities for ever; and do faithfully promife, that they will stand to, main"tain, and defend their faid majefties, and "alfo the limitation of the crown, herein fpecified " and contained, to the utmost of their powers," &c. &c.

So

So far is it from being true, that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that if we had poffeffed it before, the English nation did at that time most folemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves and for all their pofterity for ever. These gentlemen may value themselves as much as they pleafe on their whig principles; but I never defire to be thought a better whig than Lord Somers; or to understand the principles of the Revolution better than thofe by whom it was brought about; or to read in the declaration of right any mysteries unknown to those whose penetrating ftyle has engraved in our ordinances, and in our hearts, the words and fpirit of that immortal law.

It is true that, aided with the powers derived from force and opportunity, the nation was at that time, in fome fenfe, free to take what course it pleased for filling the throne; but only free to do fo upon the fame grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their monarchy, and every other part of their conftitution. However they did not think fuch bold changes within their commiffion. It is indeed difficult, perhaps impoffible, to give limits to the mere abstract competence of the fupreme power, such as was exercised by parliament at that time; but the limits of a moral competence, fubjecting, even in powers more indifputably fovereign, occafional will to permanent reason, and to the fteady maxims of faith, juftice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible, and

perfectly

perfectly binding upon those who exercise any authority, under any name, or under any title, in the ftate. The house of lords, for inftance, is not morally competent to diffolve the house of commons; no, nor even to diffolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion, in the legiflature of the kingdom. Though a king may abdicate for his own perfon, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy. By as ftrong, or by a stronger reafon, the houfe of commons cannot renounce its fhare of authority. The engagement and pact of fociety, which generally goes by the name of the conftitution, forbids fuch invafion and fuch furrender. The conftituent parts of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all thofe who derive any ferious intereft under their engagements, as much as the whole ftate is bound to keep its faith with feparate communities. Otherwise competence and power would foon be confounded, and no law be left but the will of a prevailing force. On this principle the fucceffion of the crown has always been what it now is, an hereditary fucceffion by law in the old line it was a fucceffion by the common law; in the new by the ftatute law, operating on the principles of the common law, not changing the fubftance, but regulating the mode, and defcribing the perfons. Both thefe defcriptions of law are of the fame force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating from the common agreement and original compact of the state, communi fponfione reipublice, and as fuch are equally binding

binding on king, and people too, as long as the terms are obferved, and they continue the fame body politic.

It is far from impoffible to reconcile, if we do not fuffer ourselves to be entangled in the mazes of metaphyfic fophiftry, the ufe both of a fixed rule and an occafional deviation; the facredness of an hereditary principle of fucceffion in our government, with a power of change in its application in cafes of extreme emergency. Even in that extremity (if we take the measure of our rights by our exercife of them at the Revolution) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only; to the part which produced the neceffary deviation; and even then it is to be effected without a decompofition of the whole civil and political mafs, for the purpose of originating a new civil order out of the first elements of fociety.

A ftate without the means of fome change is without the means of its confervation. Without fuch means it might even rifque the lofs of that part of the conftitution which it wifhed the most religiously to preferve. The two principles of confervation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had loft the bond of union in their antient edifice; they did not, however, diffolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cafes they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through

the

the parts which were not impaired. They kept thefe old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be fuited to them. They acted by the ancient organized ftates in the fhape of their old organization, and not, by the organic molecule of a difbanded people. At no time, perhaps, did the fovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that fundamental principle of British constitutional policy, than at the time of the Revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary fucceffion. The crown was carried fomewhat out of the line in which it had before moved; but the new line was derived from the fame ftock. It was ftill a line of hereditary descent; ftill an hereditary descent in the fame blood, though an hereditary defcent qualified with proteftantism. When the legiflature altered the direction, but kept the principle, they fhewed that they held it inviolable.

On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted fome amendment in the old time, and long before the æra of the Revolution. Some time after the Conqueft great questions arofe upon the legal principles of hereditary defcent. It became a matter of doubt, whether the heir per capita or the heir per ftirpes was to fucceed; but whether the heir per capita gave way when the heirdom per ftirpes took place, or the Catholic heir when the Proteftant was preferred, the inheritable principle, furvived with a fort of immortality through all tranfmigrations—mul

tofque