ted
by the public avowal of the Repeal doctrine, we contended, that it
amounted constructively to treason; and on the following argument--Why
had any body supposed it lawful to entertain or to propagate such a
doctrine? Simply, on the reflexion that, up to the summer of 1800,
there _was_ no union with Ireland: since August of that 1800, this
great change had been made. And by what? By an act of Parliament. But
could there be any harm in seeking the repeal of a parliamentary act?
Is not _that_ done in every session of the two Houses? And as to the
more or less importance of an act, _that_ is a matter of opinion. But
we contended, that the sanctity of an act is to be deduced from the
sanctity of the subjects for which it legislates. And in proof of
this, we alleged the _Act of Settlement_. Were it so, that simply the
term _Act of Parliament_ implied a license universally for undoing and
canceling it, then how came the Act of Settlement to enjoy so peculiar
a consecration? We take upon us to say--that, in any year since the
Revolution of 1688-9, to have called a meeting for the purpose of
framing a petition against this act, would have been treason. Might
not Parliament itself entertain a motion for repealing it, or for
modifying it? Certainly; for we have no laws resembling those Athenian
laws, which made it capitally punishable to propose their repeal. And
secondly,--no body external to the two Houses, however venerable, can
have power to take cognizance of words uttered in either of those
Houses. Every Parliament, of necessity, must be invested with a
discretionary power over every arrangement made by their predecessors.
Each several Parliament must have the same power to _undo_, which
former Parliaments had to _do_. The two Houses have the keys of St
Peter--to unloose in the nineteenth century whatever the earliest
Parliament in the twelfth century could bind. But this privilege is
proper and exclusive to the two Houses acting in conjunction. Outside
their walls, no man has power to do more than to propose as a
petitioner some lawful change. But how could that be a lawful change
which must begin by proposing to shift the allegiance into some other
channel than that in which it now flows? The line of succession, as
limited in the act, is composed of persons all interested. As against
_them_, merely contingent and reversionary heirs, no treason could
exist. But we have supposed the attempt to be against the individual
fa