d explanations of the feudal law as are
reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief
outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution
of justice and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which
political society was at first founded by men, which the people have a
perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor
precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them
from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention. Though
the provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius
of the age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circumstances, to
maintain the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery
of lawyers, supported by the violence of power; time gradually
ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those
generous barons who first extorted this concession still held their
swords in their hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on
any pretence, to depart from the original spirit and meaning of the
grant. We may now, from the tenour of this charter, conjecture what
those laws were of King Edward, which the English nation, during so
many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate perseverance,
to have recalled and established. They were chiefly these latter
articles of MAGNA CHARTA; and the barons who, at the beginning of
these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly
thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people, by procuring
them this concession, which comprehended the principal objects to
which they had so long aspired. But what we are most to admire is,
the prudence and moderation of those haughty nobles themselves, who
were enraged by injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a
total victory over their sovereign. They were content, even in this
plenitude of power, to depart from some articles of Henry I.'s
charter, which they made the foundation of their demands, particularly
from the abolition of wardships, a matter of the greatest importance;
and they seem to have been sufficiently careful not to diminish too
far the power and revenue of the crown. If they appear, therefore, to
have carried other demands to too great a height, it can be ascribed
only to the faithless and tyrannical character of the king himself, of
which they had long had experience, and which, they foresaw, would, if
they provided no fart