rable nature, and fingular advantages, partaking in fo large a degree of monarchy, the cafe here propofed would be a cafe tending to diffolution, not to be fubjected to the ordinary provifions of law. The reigns of Charles I. and James II. are evidence of this; and it arifes from the nature of the thing; because the king of England (unlike the kings of Sparta or Arragon, with their Ephori and El Giufticia, officers appointed to infpect and judge their actions) is not only a magiftrate or general, but compofes an effential part of the fupreme power; fo that, on the one hand, should a future king attempt to fubject the crown and people to a foreign yoke, or to fet up a general difpenfing power by proclamation, to controul the operation of all the laws, these would be cafes manifeftly tending to diffolution. Or fhould he fummon the lords to affift him in making laws, without the representative body of the commons, and the lords inftead of mediating, should fupport him in the arbitrary defign of excluding the commons from a fhare in the legiflature, it would be a cafe tending to diffolution; and though the law will not suppose the poffibility of the wrong, fince it cannot mark out or affift the remedy, yet every member of that reprefentative body might exclaim in

the

1

the words of Craffus the Roman orator, when he opposed the encroachments of a tyrannical conful on the authority of the

fenate, Ille non conful eft, cui ipfe fenator non fum;' He is no king, to whom we are not an houfe of parliament. On the other hand, should the representative of the commons, like that of Denmark, furrender the rights and liberties of the people into the hands of the king, and the king, inftead of diffolving the parliament, fhould accept the furrender, and attempt to maintain it, contrary to the laws, and to the oath of the crown; or should the two houses take the power of the militia, the nomination of privy counfellors, and the negative in paffing laws out of the crown, these would be cafes tending to dissolution; that is, they are cafes which the law will not put, being incapable of diftrufting those, whom it has invefted with the fupreme power, or its own perpetual duration, and they are out of the reach of laws, and stated remedies, because they render the exercife of them precarious and impracticable. This obfervation may be applied to every fimilar cafe, which can be found in imagination, relative to the feveral eftates, with this difference, that it holds ftrongest as to the king, in whom both the commoa and ftatute law have repofed the whole

whole executive power; nor could the leaft branch of it be lodged in the two houses, for the purpose of providing a judicial remedy against him, unless the conftitution had erected imperium in imperio, and were inconfiftent and deftructive of itself."

The original

right in the

conftitutional

king to convent parliaments

As circumftances have from time to time arifen in the state, so have different modifications been made in the royal prerogative, to meet the difficulty, or prevent the mifchief in at his difcretion future, which the legislative prefcience had not expressly guarded against before. Thus, as the king was by the conftitution indifputably intitled to the exclufive and difcretionary right of convening and affembling the parliament, we find at laft in the 16th year of King Charles II. A. D. 1664, the legislative body fixing the time of their being convened

or fummoned. I fhall not undertake to inveftigate or set forth the reafons, why this frequency was at this time fixed upon or determined; but I fhall merely observe, that the act*, after reciting that, "whereas the act made in the parliament begun at Westminster the third day of November, in the fixteenth year of the reign of our late fovereign lord King Charles of bleffed memory, intituled,

* 16 Car. II. c. 1. An Act for the affembling and holding of parliament once in three years at leaft.

An

altered into an couvening

obligation of

three years.

them once in

An Act for the preventing of Inconveniences happening by the long Intermiffion of Parliaments, is in derogation of his majesty's just rights and prerogative inherent to the imperial crown of this realm, for the calling and affembling of parliaments, and may be an occafion of manifold mischiefs and inconveniencies, and much endanger the peace and safety of his majesty, and all his liege people of this realm, repeals fuch act, and enacts as follows:

"And because by the ancient laws and ftatutes of this realm, made in the reign of King Edward the Third, parliaments are to be held very often, your majesty's humble and loyal fubjects the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons, in this prefent parliament affembled, most humbly do befeech your most excellent majefty, that it may be declared ard enacted, and be it declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, that hereafter the fitting and holding of parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three years at the most ; but that within three years from and after the determination of this prefent parliament, and fo from time to time within three years after the determination of any other parliament or parliaments, or if there be occasion more often, your majefty, your heirs and fucceffors, do iffue out your writs for calling, affembling,

and

and holding of another parliament, to the end there may be a frequent calling, affembling, and holding of parliaments once in three years at the leaft."

* "Moreover, as the most fatal confe

quences might enfue, if laws, which might moft materially affect public liberty, could be enacted in parliaments abruptly and imperfectly fummoned, it has been established, that the writs for affembling a parliament must be iffued forty days at least before the meeting. Upon the fame principle it has alfo been enacted, that the king cannot abridge the term he has once fixed for a prorogation, except in the two following cafes; viz. of a rebellion, or of imminent danger of a foreign invafion; in both which cafes a fourteen days notice must be given t."

Writs to be iffued forty days before the

meeting of par

liament.

Alterations in the conftitu

Although the king by his royal preroga tive be the fupreme head of the civil eftab- tion. lishment of the church, he cannot alter the established religion, nor is he now permitted to hold the crown, if he profefs the Roman catholic religion, as I have before observed. I mention this again, to inforce the more fenfibly the right of the legiflature to alter the conftitution; and that this altera