evolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery
of future revolutions.

No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with
anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of "_misconduct_." They
who led at the Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of King
James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They charged him with
nothing less than a design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt
acts, to _subvert the Protestant Church and State_, and their
_fundamental_, unquestionable laws and liberties: they charged him with
having broken the _original contrast_ between king and people. This was
more than _misconduct_. A grave and overruling necessity obliged them to
take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under
that most rigorous of all laws. Their trust for the future preservation
of the Constitution was not in future revolutions. The grand policy of
all their regulations was to render it almost impracticable for any
future sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again
recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown, what in the eye
and estimation of law it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In
order to lighten the crown still further, they aggravated responsibility
on ministers of state. By the statute of the first of King William,
sess. 2d, called "_the act for declaring the rights and liberties of the
subject, and for settling the succession of the crown_," they enacted
that the ministers should serve the crown on the terms of that
declaration. They secured soon after the _frequent meetings of
Parliament_, by which the whole government would be under the constant
inspection and active control of the popular representative and of the
magnates of the kingdom. In the next great constitutional act, that of
the 12th and 13th of King William, for the further limitation of the
crown, and _better_ securing the rights and liberties of the subject,
they provided "that no pardon under the great seal of England should be
pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament." The rule laid
down for government in the Declaration of Right, the constant inspection
of Parliament, the practical claim of impeachment, they thought
infinitely a better security not only for their constitutional liberty,
but against the vices of administration, than the reservation of a right
so difficult in the practice, so uncertain in the issue, and often so
mischievous i