ans which this act employs are at
least as exceptionable as the end. Permit me to open myself a little
upon this subject; because it is of importance to me, when I am obliged
to submit to the power without acquiescing in the reason of an act of
legislature, that I should justify my dissent by such arguments as may
be supposed to have weight with a sober man.

The main operative regulation of the act is to suspend the Common Law
and the statute _Habeas Corpus_ (the sole securities either for liberty
or justice) with regard to all those who have been out of the realm, or
on the high seas, within a given time. The rest of the people, as I
understand, are to continue as they stood before.

I confess, Gentlemen, that this appears to me as bad in the principle,
and far worse in its consequence, than an universal suspension of the
_Habeas Corpus_ Act; and the limiting qualification, instead of taking
out the sting, does in my humble opinion sharpen and envenom it to a
greater degree. Liberty, if I understand it at all, is a _general_
principle, and the clear right of all the subjects within the realm, or
of none. Partial freedom seems to me a most invidious mode of slavery.
But, unfortunately, it is the kind of slavery the most easily admitted
in times of civil discord: for parties are but too apt to forget their
own future safety in their desire of sacrificing their enemies. People
without much difficulty admit the entrance of that injustice of which
they are not to be the immediate victims. In times of high proceeding it
is never the faction of the predominant power that is in danger: for no
tyranny chastises its own instruments. It is the obnoxious and the
suspected who want the protection of law; and there is nothing to bridle
the partial violence of state factions but this,--"that, whenever an act
is made for a cessation of law and justice, the whole people should be
universally subjected to the same suspension of their franchises." The
alarm of such a proceeding would then be universal. It would operate as
a sort of _call of the nation_. It would become every man's immediate
and instant concern to be made very sensible of _the absolute necessity_
of this total eclipse of liberty. They would more carefully advert to
every renewal, and more powerfully resist it. These great determined
measures are not commonly so dangerous to freedom. They are marked with
too strong lines to slide into use. No plea, nor pretence, of
_inco