Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-05-28 00:00:00

Owns

pendant east, had

influential enough to contest the prerogatives of the

sovereign in the legislature—make war upon him
and, after triumphing over him in open battle,
-consolidate all authority in themselves. Political
.knowledge, however, had not been sufficiently
'diffused to enable -the victors in the civil wars to
frame and maintain a system of government greatly
superior to that which previously existed ; and, as a
consequence, the power of the state fell back into
-the hands of its former possessors. But the new

influence manifested in this great struggle was never
lost ; though political power reverted to the king
-and aristocracy, a vast influence continued to be
.exercised over public affairs by the middle orders
till the next great era of the constitution in 1688.
The Orange revolution struck absolutism for ever
from its pedestal.

The alteration of •the succession to the Crown by
parliamentary authority, and a distinct and popular
:affirmation of all those questions on which the
sovereign and the Commons had been formerly
divided, were important advances towards consti-
tutional government. The BILL OF RIGHTS, how-

ever, only affirmed and defined—it did not new-
model publiC institutions. (1.) It brought the practice
nearer to the theory of the constitution. It deprived
the Crown of no power it previously possessed by
law, nor added any privileges to the people which
they did not previously possess by law. It merely
bound the king to his legal prerogatives, and secured
to the other branches of legislature their legal rights.
The great defect of the new charter of the constitu-
tion consisted in not embracing a new scheme of

representation adapted t) the augmented wealth and
intelligence of the community. The consequence of
this omission was a long course of disastrous policy.
The power lost by the Crown was engulfed by the
aristocracy, who often perverted it to the purposes
of Trar, fact ori, and popular delusion. Tn plarn of
the Revolution being followed up by a reform in the
Church, corporations, and judicial administration
by the removal of religious disabilities, and the
establishment of a popular system of education—.
Government became an arena for aristocratic
intrigue and contention ; public abuses accumulated,
and the great work of national reformation which
Lord Bacon and Bishop Burnet indicated, had to
be entered upon upwards of a century later.
The revolution undoubtedly guaranteed the in-
terests of the nobility and clergy, by whose vigorous
and well contrived exertions the change of dynasty
was principally effected. One cause of its incom-
pleteness was the dispatch with which it was
consummated, not leaving time for maturing a more
perfect settlement ; and this again perhaps is an evil
inseparable from any great political movement effected
with a certain degree of violence, upon a sudden
emergency, in the face
,of opposition. Whatever
may have been the cause of the sins of omission in
1688, ,it is pleasing to think that the chief of them
have been at length repaired by the political party
usually charged with the guilt of their perpetration.
Up to the period of th revolution of 1688, the
power of the Crown was absolute, or at least so far
preponderated as to leave nothing like co-ordinate
authority in the other branches of the legislature.
The circumscription of the royal prerogatives by the
Bill of Rights caused a transfer of the political
Supremacy of the monarch to the aristocracy. The
-acts for the amendment of the representation have
effected a new disposition of power, and the su-
premacy which had been exercised by the peerage,
-through the medium of the nomination boroughs,'
has been transferred to the Commons of the United

Kingdom

h has b 2

That s

the progress of public
authority, might be established by reference to
past history. Of the former predominance of

regality in the constitution, the history of the
Tudors and the claims of the Stuarts are a suffi-
cient confirmation. (2) The subsequent aristocratic
bearing of the Government has been manifested not
less decidedly in the public policY pursued since
the Orange revolution. Without joining in
the present popular clamour against the
aristocracy, or thinking that their conduct has been
more selfish and arbitrary than that of any other
class would have been, possessed of like irrespon-
sible power, it cannot be denied that they have evinced
their ascendency in the control they have exercised
over the crown in the choice of ministers—in the
allocation of taxes -in resisting the reform of
judicial, ecclesiastic, and corporate abuses- in short,
in conducting the government in that sort of
'way which has been most favourable to them-
selves, without regard to the well-being of the
community. The House of Commons, in fact,
has exchanged places with the House of Lords, and
from being the subservient, has become the control-
ing body ; and it is only, I apprehend, by the lords
quietly submiting to move in this nether sphere,
that its nominal position as one of the three estates

(1.) The Bill of Rights may be considered the charter of
the Constitution, affirming and defining the chief conditions
affecting the ( xecutive, leTislature, and liberty of the subject.
(2) The constitutional maxim, that o the king can do
no wrong," is absurd in expression, but harmless in
application. Its mischievousness is balanced by another
maxim, not less constitutional, " that tl.e illegal commands
of the king do not justify those wl-o assist or concur in
their execution;" and by a second rule subsidiary to this,
"that the acts of the crown acquire not a legal force until
Q by the subscription of some of its great
officers." In some cases the royal commands must be
signified by a secretary of state; in others, they must pass
under the privy seal ; and in many, under the greatseal.
Should, therefore,
the private w ill of the sovereign be
directed to illegal acts, they
could. not be executed Without
the eo-Operatioll of respevible ministers.