that it pardons even homicide if committed se defendendo, or in order to preserve them; for whatever is done by a man to save either life or member, is looked upon as done upon the highest necessity and compulsion. If a man, through fear of death or mayhem, is prevailed upon to execute a deed, or do any other legal act, this may afterwards be avoided, if forced upon him by a well-grounded apprehension of losing his life, or even his limbs, in case of his non-compliance.

The law not only regards life and member, and protects every man in the enjoyment of them, but also furnishes him with everything necessary for their support; for there is no man so indigent or wretched but he may demand a supply sufficient for all the necessities of life from the more opulent part of the community, by means of the several statutes enacted for the relief of the poor.*

Besides limbs and members that may be necessary to a man in order to defend himself or annoy his enemy, a man is entitled by natural right to security from corporal insults or injuries, whether by menaces, assaults, beating, and wounding. The preservation of health from such practices as may prejudice or annoy it is also his right, also the security of his reputation or good name from slander.

II. Next to personal security the law of England regards, asserts, and preserves the personal liberty of individuals. This personal liberty consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or moving one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law. The language of the Great Charter is, "that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned but by the lawful judgment of his equals, or by the law of the land;" and subsequent statutes expressly direct that no man shall be taken or imprisoned by suggestion, or petition to the King or his Council, unless it be by legal indictment, or by the process of the common law.† To make imprisonment lawful, it

*See Overseers of the Poor, p. 81.

† Parliament only, when the State is in danger, can suspend the Habeas Corpus Act for a short and limited time, to enable the Crown to imprison suspected persons without the possibility of their obtaining their discharge during that period by any interference of the courts of law.

THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS.

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must be either by process from the courts of judicature, or by warrant from some legal officer having authority to commit to prison, which warrant must be in writing under the hand and seal of the magistrate, with the cause of the commitment, expressed, in order to be examined, if necessary, upon a habeas corpus. By the Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II., c. 2, it is enacted that no subject of this realm who is an inhabitant of England, Wales, or Berwick shall be sent prisoner into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or places beyond the seas, where he cannot have the full benefit and protection of the common law, but that all such imprisonment shall be illegal; that the person who shall dare to commit another contrary to this law shall be disabled from holding any office, shall incur the penalty of a præmunire, and be incapable of receiving the king's pardon; and that the party wrongfully committed shall also have his private action against the person committing, and all his aiders, and advisers, and abettors, and he shall recover treble costs and damages to the extent of, at least, five hundred pounds.

III. The third absolute right inherent in every Englishman is that of property, which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land. The laws of England are, in point of justice, extremely watchful in ascertaining and protecting this right. Upon this principle the Great Charter has declared that no freeman shall be deprived or divested of his freehold, or of his liberties or free customs, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. So great is the regard of the law for private property that it will not authorize the least violation of it. Every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. If, for instance, a new road or line of railway were proposed to be made through the grounds of a private person, which might be for the benefit of the public, the law will not allow the road or line of railway to be made without the consent of the owner of the land. In this and similar cases the Legislature alcne can and does interpose, and it compels the individual to acquiesce; but in doing so, it gives the owner of the property an indemnification and equivalent for the injury thereby sustained.

Another right which appertains to every Englishman, is the right to apply to the courts of justice for redress of injuries; for since the law in England is the supreme arbiter of every man's life, liberty, and property, courts of justice must at all prescribed times be open and available to the subject, and the law must be duly administered therein; and if there should happen any uncommon injury or infringement of rights, which the ordinary course of law is too defective to reach, there still remains a further right appertaining to every individual, namely, that of petitioning the Sovereign or either House of Parliament for the redress of grievances.

Such rights and liberties belong to every Englishman; they are his birthright, and they give him the power to do anything that a good man would desire to do, and only restrain him from doing that which would be pernicious to himself or his fellow-citizens.

CHAPTER VII.

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, which relations are either public or private. First, then, let us examine those that are public.

State the most universal public relation by which men are connected together, and explain the relationship.

The most universal relation by which men are connected is that of government-the governors and the governed; or in other words, magistrates and people. Of magistrates, in our constitution, one is supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the State resides; others are subordinate, deriving 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 enforcing laws, is vested in one and the same man, or in one and the same body of men; and whenever 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 possesses, in quality of dispenser of justice, all the power which he as legislator thinks proper to give himself; but when 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, that is, the Parliament, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons; the other executive, consisting of the Sovereign alone.

D

Give a brief outline of Parliament, its Origin, and its Constituent Parts.

The origin or first institution of Parliaments is one of those matters which lie so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity that the tracing it out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain. The word Parliament is comparatively of modern date, and was first applied to general assemblies of the States under Louis VII., in France, about the middle of the twelfth century. In England this General Council has been held immemorially under the several names of michel-synoth, or great council; michelgemote, or great meeting; and more frequently, witena-gemote, or the meeting, of wise men. It was also styled in Latin, commune consilium regni—magnum concilium regis—curia magna—conventus magnatum vel procerum—assisa generalis, and sometimes communitas Regni Angliæ.*

As to the manner and time of assembling, the Parliament is regularly to be summoned by the Sovereign's writ or letter, issued out of Chancery not less than thirty-five days before it begins to sit.

The constituent parts of a Parliament are the King or Queen sitting there in the royal political capacity; the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, who sit in one House; and the Commons, who sit by themselves in another; and the Sovereign and these three Estates together form the great corporation or body politic of the kingdom, of which the Crown is said to be caput, principium, et finis, and the consent of all three is required to make any new laws that shall bind the subject.

The CROWN cannot of itself make laws or inaugurate alterations in the present established laws; but it may approve or disapprove of the alterations suggested and consented to by the two Houses. The Crown has not any power of doing wrong, but merely of preventing wrong from being done. In the Legislature the people are a check upon the nobility, and the nobility a check upon the people, whilst the Sovereign is a check upon both, and may preserve the executive power from encroachments.

The LORDS SPIRITUAL consist of two archbishops and twentyfour bishops for England and Wales. Though the lords spiritual

* See Hallam's "Middle Ages," for the commencement of the Representative System in England, &c.