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THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS.

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by the same 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 his absolute 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 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 16 Carl. I., c. 10, if any person be restrained of his liberty by order or decree of any illegal court, or by command of the king's majesty in person, or by warrant of the council board, or of any of the privy council, he shall, upon demand of his counsel, have a writ of habeas corpus to bring his body before the Court of King's Bench or Common Pleas, who shall determine whether the cause of his commitment be just, and thereupon do as to justice shall appertain; and, by the Habeas Corpus Act,† the methods of obtaining this writ are so plainly pointed out and enforced, that so long as this statute remains unimpeached, no subject in England can be long detained in

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.

† 31 Carl. II., c. 2, commonly called the Habeas Corpus Act.

prison, except in those cases in which the law requires and justifies such detainer.

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 alone 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, whọ sit by themselves in another; and these three Estates form the great corporation or body politic of the kingdom, of which the Crown is said to be caput, principium, et finis. The consent of all three is required to make any new law 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 commencemen of the Representative System in England, &c.

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are, in the eye of the law, a distinct estate from the lords temporal, they are usually blended together under the one name of "the Lords," they intermix in their votes, and a majority of votes so intermixed decides the specific question before the House. The LORDS TEMPORAL consist exclusively of the Peers of the realm, by whatever title of nobility distinguished-dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, or barons. Some sit in the HOUSE OF LORDS by descent, some by creation, others by election, as do the sixteen peers who represent the body of the Scottish nobility, who are elected for one Parliament only, and the twenty-eight representative Irish peers, who are elected for life. The number of Peers in the United Kingdom is indefinite, may be increased at will by the power of the Crown, and is by new creations gradually increasing.

The COMMONALTY are divided into two classes, those who have and those who have not the elective franchise.

The counties are represented in the HOUSE OF COMMONS by knights (called Knights of the Shire), duly elected by the proprietors and occupiers of land; the cities and boroughs by burgesses, chosen by the supposed trading interests of the nation.

The Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London are represented by persons chosen by their respective graduates; and the four Universities of Scotland and that of Dublin are also duly represented in the House of Commons.

The Sovereign, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, who have uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, and reviving laws, are the constituent parts of a Parliament, and all mischiefs and grievances, operations, and remedies that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this high tribunal.

Give a brief Explanation of the method of Making Laws.

The Speaker of the House of Lords, whose office it is to preside there, is the Lord Chancellor; the Speaker of the House of Commons is chosen by the House, but must be approved of by the Sovereign.

In the House of Commons the Speaker never votes, except

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