A Fair Trial of the Important Question, or the Rights of Election Asserted; Against the Doctrine of Incapacity by Expulsion, or by Resolution, Upon ... Right of the Subject, and the Determina - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1769. Excerpt: ... wanton usurpation, and a dangerous example of pretension to illegal power. I am not fond of appealing to any thing said by the unhappy king with whom that House of Commons had to do; being satisfied that his own, and his wise Father's arbitrary maxims of Government, which first led them to break in upon the fadred Law of Parliament, were the source of those national misfortunes, which ended in the subversion of the Constitution: Yet many a true word 'did Charles the ist, taught by Counsellors more settled than himself, say in his disputes with his Parliament, if he had been sincere enough to mean what others put in his mouth to pronounce, or so well advised, as to act as they made him speak: And I cannot help citing the words of one of his Memorials, which express such found Constitutional Doctrine, as to the Rights of the House of Commons, that, assent, I think, cannot be refused to it. "Whatr ever Privileges (said he) or Liberties they had ' by any Law, or Statute, the fame should be in violably preserved to them, and whatever Pri"viledges they enjoyed by Custom, or uncontroul'd and lawful Precedents, his Majesty would be "careful to preserve." Law, Statute, Custom, or uncontrouled and lawful Precedent, are the constitutional Pillars of he just power of the House of Commons. But to Votes, Ordinances, or Resolutions in destruction of the Law, and subversive of the fundamental rights of the subject, this language must be applied, though it be the language of an unhappy Prince who died a martyr only to his violations of the Constitution. "Votes--(said he, onoccasion of the Militia Ordinance) " which we must de clare and appeal to all the world in the point, to be the greatest violation of our Priviledge, w the Law of the Landy the Liberty of the SubjecJ,...