But every man when he enters into fociety, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of fo valuable a purchase; and, in confideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to thofe laws which the community has thought proper to establifh. Political therefore, or civil liberty, which is that of a member of fociety, is no other than natural liberty fo far restrained by human laws (and no farther) as is neceffary and expedient for the general advantage of the public. Hence we may collect that the law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increafes the civil liberty of mankind. So that laws, when prudently framed, are by no means fubverfive, but rather introductive of liberty; for (as Mr. Locke has well obferved) where there is no law, there is no freedom.

The Writer then ftates the feveral legislative acts which declare the rights and liberties of the people of England; which rights may be reduced to three principal or primary articles: the right of perfonal fecurity; the right of perfonal liberty; and the right of private property. Having briefly explained the general principles of the law with refpect to thefe rights, our Author proceeds to treat of the rights and duties of perfons, as they are members of fociety, and stand in various relations to each other; which relations are either public or private.

The most univerfal public relation, he obferves, by which men are connected together, is that of governraent, or, in other words, of magistrates and people. Of magiftrates fome are fupreme; others are fubordinate. With us, this fupreme power is divided into two branches; the one legiflative, to wit, the parliament, confiiting of King, Lords and Commons: the other executive, confifting of the King alone. He therefore very properly begins with the confideration of the British parliament.

In the profcution of this inquiry, he very judiciously confiders, firit, the manner and time of its affcmbly: fecondly, its confiituent parts: thirdly, the laws and cuftoms relating to parliament, confidered as one aggregate body: fourthly, and filthly, the laws and cufioms relating to each boufe, feparately and diftinétly taken: fixthly, the methods of proceeding and of making ftatutes, in both houfes and laftly, the manner of the parliament's adjournment, prorogation, and diffolution.

With refpe&t to the laws and cuftoms of parliament confiderel as one aggregate body, we meet with the following obfer

vations.

The power and jurifdiction of parliament, fays fir Edward Coke, is fo tranfcendent and abfolute, that it cannot be confined, either for caufes or pertons, within any bounds. And of this high court he adds, it may be truly faid, "fi antiquitotem fpectes,

eft

eft vetuftiffima; fi dignitatem, eft honoratissima; fi juridictionem, eft capaciffima." It hath fovereign and uncontrolable authority in making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all poffible denominations, ecclefiaftical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal: this being the place where that abfolute defpotic power, which much in all governments refide fomewhere, is intrufted by the conftitution of thefe kingdoms. All mifchiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that tranfcend the ordinary courfe of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal. It can regulate or new model the fucceffion to the crown; as was done in the reign of Henry VIII and Willliam III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety of inftances, in the reigns of king Henry VIII and his three children. It can change and create afresh even the conftitution of the kingdom and of parliaments themselves; as was done by the act of union, and the several ftatutes for triennial and feptennial elections. It can, in fhort, do every thing that is not naturally impoffible; and therefore fome have not scrupled to call it's power, by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of parliament. True it is, that what they do, no authority upon earth can undo. So that it is a matter most effential to the liberties of this kingdom, that such members be delegated to this important truft, as are most eminent for their probity, their fortitude, and their knowlege; for it was a known apothegm of the great lord treasurer Burleigh," that England could never be ruined but by a parliament:" and, as fir Matthew Hale obferves, this being the highest and greatest court, over which none other can have jurifdiétion in the kingdom, if by any means a mifgovernment should any way fall upon it, the fubjects of this kingdom are left without all manner of remedy. To the fame purpose the prefident Montefquieu, though I trust too haftily, prefages; that as Rome, Sparta, and Carthage have loft their liberty and perifhed, fo the conftitution of England will in time lofe it's liberty, will perish: it will perish, whenever the legislative power shall become more corrupt than the executive.

'

It must be owned that Mr. Locke, and other theoretical writers, have held, that "there remains ftill inherent in the people a fupreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the truft repofed in them: for when fuch truft is abused, it is thereby forfeited, and devolves to those who gave it." But however juft this conclufion may be in theory, we cannot adopt it, nor argue from it, under any difpenfation of government at prefent actually exifting. For this devolution of power, to the people at large, includes in it a

diffolution of the whole form of government established by that people, reduces all the members to their original state of equality, and by annihilating the fovereign power repeals all pofitive laws whatfoever before enacted. No human laws will therefore suppose a cafe, which at once must destroy all law, and compel men to build afresh upon a new foundation; nor will they make provifion for fo defperate an event, as muft render all legal provifions ineffectual. So long therefore as the English conftitution lafts, we may venture to affirm, that the power of parliment is abfolute and without control.'

Our Author's conclufion is certainly juft, for the power of parliament being fupreme, muft confequently be without controul, that is, it must be free from political coercion. But neverthelefs Mr. Locke's conclufion may be very fafely adopted, For as the people give up their natural rights upon certain trufts either exprefs or implied, there ftill remains, if we may fo call it, a certain natural supremacy of power in the people to remove or alter the legislative, when fuch trufts are abufed. Anarchy itself cannot be more intolerable, than a tyrannical and oppreffive government; and as to the danger of repealing all pofitive laws, and rendering all legal provifions ineffectual, that is not fo great as may be imagined: for admitting a cafe wherein men may be compelled to build a-fresh upon a new foundation, they may, by a fingle act of legiflation, revive all thofe laws; of which proceeding, examples are not wanting. Indeed what fhall be deemed fuch a breach of truft as fhall amount to a forfeiture, it is not eafy or fafe to determine. But there can be no doubt but that fuch may arife, and our Author, in a fubfequent part of his commentaries, has fuch a crisis in contemplation. His obfervations, on this occafion, are fo manly, liberal and judicious, that it would be unjust to suppress

them.

As to fuch public oppreffions as tend to diffolve the conftitution, and fubvert the fundamentals of government, they are cafes which the law will not, out of decency, fuppofe; being incapable of diftrufting thofe, whom it has invefted with any part of the fupreme power; fince fuch diftruft would render the exercife of that power precarious and impracticable. For, whereever the law expreffes it's diftruft of abuse of power, it always vefts a fuperior coercive authority in fome other hand to correct it; the very notion of which deftroys the idea of fovereignty. If therefore (for example) the two houfes of parliament, or either of them, had avowedly a right to animadvert on the king, or each other, or if the king had a right to animadvert on either of the houfes, that branch of the legiflature, fo fubject to animadverfion, would inftantly cease to be part of the fupreme power;

the

the ballance of the conftitution would be overturned; and that branch or branches, in which this jurifdiction refided, would be completely fovereign. The fuppofition of law therefore is, that neither the king nor either houfe of parliament (collectively taken) is capable of doing any wrong; fince in fuch cafes the law feels itfelf incapable of furnithing any adequate remedy. For which reafon all oppreffions, which may happen to fpring from any branch of the fovereign power, muft neceffarily be out of the reach of any stated rule, or exprefs legal provition: but, if ever they unfortunately happen, the prudence of the times must provide new remedies upon new emergencies.

Indeed, it is found by experience, that whenever the unconftitutional oppreffions, even of the fovereign power, advance with gigantic ftrides and threaten defolation to a flate, mankind will not be reafoned out of the feelings of humanity; nor will facrifice their liberty by a fcrupulous adherence to thofe political maxims, which were originally established to preferve it. And therefore, though the pofitive laws are filent, experience will furnish us with a very remarkable cafe, wherein nature and reafon prevailed. When king James the fecond invaded the fundamental conftitution of the realm, the convention declared an abdication, whereby the throne was rendered vacant, which induced a new fettlement of the crown. And fo far as this precedent leads, and no farther, we may now be allowed to lay down the law of redress against public oppreffion. If therefore any future prince fhould endeavour to fubvert the conftitution by breaking the original contract between king and people, fhould violate the fundamental laws, and fhould withdraw himfelf out of the kingdom; we are now authorized to declare that this conjunction of circumftances would amount to an abdication, and the throne would be thereby vacant. But it is not for us to fay, that any one, or two, of thefe ingredients would amount to fuch a fituation; for there our precedent would fail us. In thefe therefore, or other circumstances, which a fertile imagination may furnifh, fince both law and hiftory are filent, it becomes us to be filent too; leaving to future generations, whenever neceffity and the fafety of the whole fhall require it, the exertion of thofe inherent (though latent) powers of fociety, which no climate, no time, no conftitution, no contract, can ever deftroy or diminish.'

Mr. Blackstone, as he proceeds, briefly touches the law of parliament, which, he fays, has its original from this one maxim, that whatever matter arifes concerning either house of parliament, ought to be examined, difcuffed, and adjudged in that houfe to which it relates, and not elfewhere.' Hence, for inftance, the lords will not fuffer the commons to interf. re in fettling a claim of privilege; the commons will not allow the lords to judge of the election of a burgefs; nor will either

houfe

house permit the courts of law to examine the merits of either cafes.

How far the courts of law have a right to examine in such cafes, it would not become us to enquire. It had not been amifs however, if the Author had taken notice of the opinion of the great Chief Justice Holt, who in the cafe of Lord Banbury, did in fome respect interfere in a claim of peerage ;—and who likewise in the cafe of Ashby and White did interfere in the election of a burgefs; notwithstanding in the former cafe he was menaced by the houfe of lords, and in the latter by the houfe of commons. With respect to the law of parliament, this noble Chief Juftice faid, that fuppofing it to be a particular law, yet if a queftion arofe determinable in the King's Bench, the King's Bench ought to determine it.

In tracing the method of making laws, we find the following obfervations with refpect to the old method of proclaiming acts of parliament. When a bill has received the royal affent, it is then, and not before, a ftatute or act of parliament. "This ftatute or act is placed among the records of the kingdom; there needing no formal promulgation to give it the force of a law, as was neceffary by the civil law with regard to the emperors edicts: becaufe every man in England is, in judgment of law, party to the making of an act of parliament, being prefent thereat by his reprefentatives. However, a copy thereof is ufually printed at the king's prefs, for the information of the whole Jand. And formerly, before the invention of printing, it was ufed to be published by the fheriff of every county; the king's writ being fent to him at the end of every feffion, together with a tranfcript of all the acts made at that feffion, commanding him "ut ftatuta illa, et omnes articulos in eifdem contentes, in fingulis locis ubi expedire viderit, publice proclamari, et firmiter teneri et obfervari faciat." And the ufage was to proclaim them at his county court, and there to keep them, that whoever would might read or take copies thereof; which cuftom continued till the reign of Henry the feventh.'

It is much to be lamented that fome ufage of this kind is not practifed at prefent, which from the vaft multiplicity of ftatutes, efpecially of penal laws, feems to be more requifite than ever. It has been common of late indeed to print abstracts of particular acts, fuch as the Poft-Office act, &c. in the News-papers. Why all penal laws fhould not be thus promulgated, it is not eafy to affign a realon; and it muft, to a reflecting mind, afford a very ftrange idea of the wifdom and juftice of government, when it is feen that greater attention is paid to the intereft of the revenue, than to the liberty and life of the fubje&.

Our Author in the next place takes the executive power into confideration, which, by our law, is vefted in the King or

Queen: