rayer for its removal or correction--not only is
established by the most grave and authentic charters of Englishmen, who
have been taught by their wisest statesmen and legislators to be jealous
over its preservation, and to call it into practice upon every
reasonable occasion; but also that this privilege is an indispensable
condition of all civil liberty. Nay, of such paramount interest is it to
mankind, existing under any frame of Government whatsoever; that, either
by law or custom, it has universally prevailed under all
governments--from the Grecian and Swiss Democracies to the Despotisms of
Imperial Rome, of Turkey, and of France under her present ruler. It must
then be a high principle which could exact obeisance from governments at
the two extremes of polity, and from all modes of government
inclusively; from the best and from the worst; from magistrates acting
under obedience to the stedfast law which expresses the general will;
and from depraved and licentious tyrants, whose habit it is--to express,
and to act upon, their own individual will. Tyrants have seemed to feel
that, if this principle were acknowledged, the subject ought to be
reconciled to any thing; that, by permitting the free exercise of this
right alone, an adequate price was paid down for all abuses; that a
standing pardon was included in it for the past, and a daily renewed
indulgence for every future enormity. It is then melancholy to think
that the time is come when an attempt has been made to tear, out of the
venerable crown of the Sovereign of Great Britain, a gem which is in the
very front of the turban of the Emperor of Morocco.--(_See Appendix D_.)

To enter upon this argument is indeed both astounding and humiliating:
for the adversary in the present case is bound to contend that we cannot
pronounce upon evil or good, either in the actions of our own or in past
times, unless the decision of a Court of Judicature has empowered us so
to do. Why then have historians written? and why do we yield to the
impulses of our nature, hating or loving--approving or condemning
according to the appearances which their records present to our eyes?
But the doctrine is as nefarious as it is absurd. For those public
events in which men are most interested, namely, the crimes of rulers
and of persons in high authority, for the most part are such as either
have never been brought before tribunals at all, or before unjust ones:
for, though offenders may be in