pending, or dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws, by regal 'authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal. (18)

Not only the substantial part, or judicial decisions, of the law, but also the formal part, or method of proceeding, cannot be altered but by parliament; for, if once those outworks were demolished, there would be an inlet to all manner of innovation in the body of the law itself. The king, it is true, may erect new courts of justice; but then they must proceed according to the old established forms of the common law. For which reason it is declared, in the statute 16 Car. I, c. 10, upon the dissolution of the court of starchamber, that neither his majesty, nor his privy council, have any jurisdiction, power, or authority, by English bill, petition, articles, libel, (which were the course of proceeding in the starchamber, borrowed from the civil law,) or by any other arbitrary way whatsoever, to examine, or draw into question, determine, or dispose of the lands or goods of any subjects of this kingdom; but that the same ought to be tried and determined in the ordinary courts of justice, and by course of law.

4. *If there should happen any uncommon injury, or infringement of [*143] the rights before mentioned, which the ordinary course of law is too defective to reach, there still remains a fourth subordinate right, appertaining to every individual, namely, the right of petitioning the king, or either house of parliament, for the redress of grievances. (19) In Russia we are told (y) that the Czar Peter established a law, that no subject might petition the throne till he had first petitioned two different ministers of state. In case he obtained justice from neither, he might then present a third petition to the prince; but upon pain of death, if found to be in the wrong: the consequence of which was, that no one dared to offer such third petition; and grievances seldom falling under the notice of the sovereign, he had little opportunity to redress them. The restrictions, for some there are, which are laid upon petitioning in England, are of a nature extremely different; and, while they promote the spirit of peace, they are no check upon that of liberty. Care only must be taken, lest, under the pretence of petitioning, the subject be guilty of any riot or tumult, as happened in the opening of the memorable parliament in 1640: and, to prevent this, it is provided by the statute 13 Car. II, St. 1, c. 5, that no petition to the king, or either house of parliament, for any alteration in church or state, shall be signed by above twenty persons, unless the matter thereof be approved by three justices of the peace, or the major part of the grand jury (20) in the country; and in London by the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council: nor shall any petition be presented by more than ten persons at a time. But, (y) Montesq. Sp. L. xii, 26.

(18) [See the case of the Seven Bishops, and note thereto. Broom's Const. L. 408, 493]. (19) [This right is guaranteed by the third amendment to the constitution of the United States. For discussions in congress respecting it, see Benton's Abridgment of Debates, v. II, 57 to 60, 182 to 188, 209, 436 to 444; v. I. 397; v. XII, 660 to 679, 705 to 743; v. XIII, 5 to 28, 266 to 290, 557 to 562.

(20) [Which the grand jury may do either at the assizes or sessions. The punishment for an offence against this act, is a fine to any amount not exceeding 1001. and imprisonment for three months. At the trial of Lord George Gordon, the whole court, including Lord Mansfield, declared that this statute was not affected by the bill of rights, 1 Wm. and M. St. 2, c. 2. See Douglas, 571. But Mr. Dunning, in the house of commons, contended, “that it was a clear and fundamental point in the constitution of this country, that the people had a right to petition their representatives in parliament, and that it was by no means true that the number of names signed to any such petition was limited. To argue that the act of Charles was now in force, would be as absurd as to pretend that the prerogative of the crown still remained in its full extent, notwithstanding the declaration in the bill of rights." See New An. Reg. 1781, v. II. And the acknowledged practice has been consistent with this opinion.

The state of disturbance and political excitement in which this kingdom was involved several years after the peace of 1815, produced further regulations and restrictions of the right of petitioning. The people in the manufacturing districts having little employment, from the general stagnation of trade, devoted themselves with intense ardor to political discussions, and in some places the partisans of reform, presuming that their demands would not be conceded to their petitions, were preparing for the alternative of open force. In these circumstances the legislature thought it to forbid all public meetings (except county meetings called by the lord-lieutenant or the sheriff), which consisted of more than fifty persons, unless in

under these regulations, it is declared by the statute 1 W. and M. St. 2, c. 2, that the subject hath a right to petition; and that all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.

5. The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are *allowed by law. (21) Which is also declared

by the same statute, 1 W. and M. St. 2, c. 2, and is indeed a public allow- [*144] ance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.

In these several articles consist the rights, or, as they are frequently termed, the liberties of Englishmen: liberties more generally talked of than thoroughly understood; and yet highly necessary to be perfectly known and considered by every man of rank and property, lest his ignorance of the points whereon they are founded should hurry him into faction and licentiousness on the one hand, or a pusillanimous indifference and criminal submission on the other. And we have seen that these rights consist, primarily, in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty, and of private property. So long as these remain inviolate, the subject is perfectly free; for every species of compulsive tyranny and oppression must act in opposition to one or other of these rights, having no other object upon which it can possibly be employed. To preserve these from violation, it is necessary that the constitution of parliament be supported in its full vigour; and limits, certainly known, be set to the royal prerogative. And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next, to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence. And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy entire; unless where the laws of our country have laid them under necessary restraints: restraints in themselves so gentle and moderate, as will appear, upon farther inquiry, that no man of sense or probity would wish to see them slackened. For all of us have it in our choice to do everything that a good man would desire to do; and are restrained from nothing but what would be pernicious either to ourselves or our fellow citizens. So that this review of our situation may fully justify the observation of a learned

French author, who indeed generally both thought and wrote in the [ *145] spirit of genuine freedom, (2) and who hath not scrupled to profess, even in the very bosom of his native country, that the English is the only nation in the world where political or civil liberty is the direct end of its constitution. Recommending, therefore, to the students in our laws a farther and more accurate search into this extensive and important title, I shall close my remarks upon it with the expiring wish of the famous Father Paul to his country, "ESTO PERPETUA!"

(*) Montesq. Spirit of Laws xi, 5.

separate township or parishes, by the inhabitants thereof of which six days' previous notice must be given to a justice of the peace, signed by seven resident householders. See 60 Geo. III, c. 6.

But as the mischief was temporary, the restrictions upon the right of meeting to deliberate upon public measures were limited in their duration, and have mostly expired; those enactments which were designed to prevent such meetings from being perverted to objects manifestly dangerous to the peace of the community, only continuing in force.]

(21) Mr. Tucker, writing in 1802, calls attention to the fact that the Constitution of the United States (4th amend.) declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government. Whoever examines the forest and game laws in the British Code, will readily perceive that the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the people of England. The commentator himself informs us (vol. 2, p. 412,) that "the prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to government, by disarming the bulk of the people, is a reason oftener meant than avowed by the makers of the forest and game law."

As to the right of all persons to bear arms for self-protection, see Bliss v. Commonwealth, 2 Lit. 90; Nunn v. State, 1 Kelley, 243; and Ely v. Thompson, 3 Á. K. Marsh. 73.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE PARLIAMENT.

WE are next to treat of the rights and duties of persons, as they are members of society, and stand in various relations to each other. These relations are either public or private: and we will first consider those that are public.

The most universal public relation, by which men are connected together, is that of government; namely, as governors and governed; or, in other words, as magistrates and people. Of magistrates, some also are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate, deriving all their authority from the supreme magistrate, accountable to him for their conduct, and acting in an inferior secondary sphere.

In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. The magistrate may enact tyrannical laws, and execute them in a tyrannical manner, since he is possessed, in quality of dispenser of justice, with all the power which he, as legislator, thinks proper to give himself. But, where the legislative and executive authority are in distinct hands, the former will take care not to entrust the latter with so large a power as may tend to the subversion of its own independence, and therewith of the liberty of the subject. With us, therefore, in England, this supreme power is divided into *two branches; the one legislative, to wit, the parliament, consisting of [*147] king, lords, and commons; the other executive, consisting of the king alone. It will be the business of this chapter to consider the British parliament, in which the legislative power, and (of course) the supreme and absolute authortiy of the state, is vested by our constitution.

The original or first institution of parliament is one of those matters which lies so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity, that the tracing of it out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain. (1) The word parliament itself, ( parlement or colloquium, as some of our historians translate it,) is comparatively of modern date; derived from the French, and signifying an assembly that met and conferred together. It was first applied to general assemblies of the states under Louis VII, in France, about the middle of the twelfth century. (a) But it is certain that, long before the introduction of the Norman language into England, all matters of importance were debated and settled in the great councils of the realm: a practice which seems to have been universal among the northern nations, particularly the Germans, (b) and carried by them into all the countries of Europe, which they overran at the dissolution of the Roman empire: relics of which constitution, under various modifications and changes, are still to be met with in the diets of Poland, Germany, and Sweden, and the assembly of the estates in France; (c) for what is there now called the parliament is only the supreme court of justice, consisting of the peers, certain dignified ecclesiastics, and judges, which neither is in practice, nor is supposed to be in theory, a general council of the realm.

With us in England this general council hath been held immemorially under the several names of michel-synoth or great council, michel-gemote, or great meet[ *148] ing, and more frequently wittena-gemote, or the meeting of wise men. It was also styled in Latin, commune concilium regni, magnum concilium (a) Mod. Un. Hist. xxiii. 307. The first mention of it in our statute law is in the preamble to the statute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I, A. D. 1272.

(b) De minoribus rebus principes consultant, de majoribus omnes. Tac. de mor. Germ. c. 11.

(c) These were assembled for the last time, A. D. 1561 (see Whitelocke, of Parl. c. 72.) or according to Robertson. A. D. 1614. (Hist. Cha. V. i, 369.)

(1) [The word parliamentum was not used in England till the reign of Henry III. Prynne on 4 Inst. 2.] The gradual development of representative institutions in England is shown in Hallam (Const. Hist.) and Todd (Parl. Gov.) and is discussed more or less in the popular histories.

regis, curia magna, conventus magnatum vel procerum assisa, generalis, and sometimes communitas regni Angliæ. (d) We have instances of its meeting to order the affairs of the kingdom, to make new laws, and to mend the old, or, as Fleta (e) expresses it, "novis injuriis emersis nova constituere remedia," so early as the reign of Ina, king of the West Saxons, Offa, king of the Mercians, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, in the several realms of the heptarchy. And, after their union, the Mirror (f) informs us, that King Alfred ordained for a perpetual usage, that these councils should meet twice in the year, or oftener, if need be, to treat of the government of God's people; how they should keep themselves from sin, should live in quiet, and should receive right. Our succeeding Saxon and Danish monarchs held frequent councils of this sort, as appears from their respective codes of laws; the titles whereof usually speak them to be enacted, either by the king with the advice of his wittena-gemote, or wise men, as "hæc sunt instituta, quæ Edgarus rex consilio sapientum suorum instituit;" or to be enacted by those sages with the advice of the king, as, "hæc sunt judicia, quæ sapientes consilio regis Ethelstani instituerunt;" or lastly, to be enacted by them both together, as, "hæc sunt institutiones, quas rex Edmundus et episcopi sui cum sapientibus suis instituerunt."

There is also no doubt but these great councils were occasionally held under the first princes of the Norman line. Glanvil, who wrote in the reign of Henry the Second, speaking of the particular amount of an amercement in the sheriff's court, says, it had never been yet ascertained by the general assize, or assembly, but was left to the custom of particular counties. (g) Here the general assize is spoken of as a meeting well known, and its statutes or decisions are put in *a manifest contradistinction to custom, or the common law. And in Edward the Third's time an act of parliament, made in the reign of [*149] William the Conqueror, was pleaded in the case of the abbey of St. Edmund'sbury, and judicially allowed by the court. (h)

Hence it indisputably appears, that parliaments, or general councils, are coeval with the kingdom itself. How those parliaments were constituted and composed, is another question, which has been matter of great dispute among our learned antiquaries; and, particularly, whether the commons were summoned at all; or, if summoned, at what period they began to form a distinct assembly. But it is not my intention here to enter into controversies of this sort. I hold it sufficient that it is generally agreed, that in the main the constitution of parliament, as it now stands, was marked out so long ago as the seventeenth year of King John, A. D. 1215, in the great charter granted by that prince; wherein he promises to summon all archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, personally; and all other tenants in chief under the crown, by the sheriff and bailiffs; to meet at a certain place, with forty days' notice to assess aids and scutages when necessary. And this constitution has subsisted in fact at least from the year 1266, 49 Hen. III: there being still extant writs of that date, to summon knights, citizens, and burgesses, to parliament. I proceed therefore to inquire wherein consists this constitution of parliament, as it now stands, and has stood for the space of at least five hundred years. And in the prosecution of this inquiry, I shall consider, first, the manner and time of its assembling: secondly, its constituent parts: thirdly, the laws and customs relating to parliament, considered as one aggregate body: fourthly and fifthly, the laws and customs relating to each house, separately and distinctly taken: sixthly, the methods of proceeding, and of making statutes, in both houses: and lastly, the manner of the parliament's adjournment, prorogation and dissolution.

*I. As to the manner and time of assembling. The parliament is regularly to be summoned by the king's writ or letter, issued out of chancery [*150]

by advice of the privy council, at least forty days before it begins to sit. (2) It

(d) Glanvil, l. 13. c. 32. l. 9. c. 10.-Pref. 9 Rep.-2 Inst. 526. (e) L. 2. c. 2. (f) C. 1. § 3. (g) Quanta esse debeat per nullam assısam generalem determinatum est, sed pro consuetudine singulorum comitatum debetur. l. 9. c. 10. (h) Year book, 21 Edw. III, 60.

(2) The period was at one time fifty days, but is now reduced to thirty-five. Stat. 15 Vic. c. 23.

is a branch of the royal prerogative, that no parliament can be convened by its own authority, or by the authority of any, except the king alone. And this prerogative is founded upon very good reason. For, supposing it had a right to meet spontaneously, without being called together, it is impossible to conceive that all the members, and each of the houses, would agree unanimously upon the proper time and place of meeting; and if half of the members met, and half absented themselves, who shall determine which is really the legislative body, the part assembled, or that which stays away? It is therefore necessary that the parliament should be called together at a determinate time and place: and highly becoming its dignity and independence, that it should be called together by none but one of its own constituent parts: and, of the three constituent parts, this office can only appertain to the king; as he is a single person, whose will may be uniform and steady; the first person in the nation, being superior to both houses in dignity; and the only branch of the legislature that has a separate existence, and is capable of performing any act at a time when no parliament is in being. (i) Nor is it an exception to this rule that, by some modern statutes, on the demise of a king or queen, if there be then no parliament in being, the last parliament revives, and is to sit again for six months, unless dissolved by the successor: for this revived parliament must have been originally summoned by the crown.

*It is true, that by a statute, 16 Car. I, c. 1, it was enacted, that if [*151] the king neglected to call a parliament for three years, the peers might assemble and issue out writs for choosing one; and, in case of neglect of the peers, the constituents might meet and elect one themselves. But this, if ever put in practice, would have been liable to all the inconveniences I have just now stated; and the act itself was esteemed so highly detrimental and injurious to the royal prerogative, that it was repealed by statute 16 Car. II, c. 1. From thence therefore no precedent can be drawn.

It is also true, that the convention-parliament, which restored King Charles the Second, met above a month before his return; the lords by their own authority, and the commons, in pursuance of writs issued in the name of the keepers of the liberty of England, by authority of parliament: and that the said parliament sat till the twenty-ninth of December, full seven months after the restoration; and enacted many laws, several of which are till in force. But this was for the necessity of the thing, which supersedes all law; for if they had not so met, it was morally impossible that the kingdom should have settled in peace. And the first thing done after the king's return was to pass an act declaring this to be a good parliament, notwithstanding the defect of the king's writs. (k) So that, as the royal prerogative was chiefly wounded by their so meeting, and as the king himself, who alone had a right to object, consented to waive the objection, this cannot be drawn into an example in prejudice of the rights of the crown. Besides we should also remember, that it was at that time a great doubt among the lawyers, (7) whether even this healing act made it a good parliament; and held by very many in the negative: though it seems to have been too nice a scruple. And yet, out of abundant caution, it was thought necessary to confirm its acts in the next parliament, by statute 13 Car. II, c. 7, and c. 14.

*It is likewise true, that at the time of the revolution, A. D. 1688, the [*152] lords and commons by their own authority, and upon the summons of the prince of Orange, (afterwards King William,) met in a convention, and therein disposed of the crown and kingdom. But it must be remembered, that this assembling was upon a like principle of necessity as at the restoration; that is, upon a full conviction that King James the Second had abdicated the (i) By motives somewhat similar to these the republic of Venice was actuated, when towards the end of the seventh century it abolished the tribunes of the people, who were annually chosen by the several districts of the Venetian territory, and constituted a doge in their stead; in whom the executive power of the state at present resides. For which their historians have assigned these, as the principal reasons. 1. The propriety of having the executive power a part of the legislative, or senate; to which the former annual magistrates were not admitted. 2. The necessity of having a single person to convoke the great council when separated. (Mod. Un. Hist. xxvii, 15.) (k) Stat. 12 Čar. II, c. 1. (7) 1 Sid. 1.