dian of the lunatic's property, analogy would
seem to require that the Houses of Parliament, as the only body which
can possibly claim authority in such a matter, should exercise a similar
power in providing for the proper management of the government to that
which the law court would exercise in providing for the proper
management of an estate; and that, therefore, the principles of
constitutional[122] statesmanship, which is deeply interested in
upholding the predominant authority of Parliament, must justify the
assertion of the ministers that the two Houses had the entire and sole
right to make regulations for the government of the kingdom during the
incapacity of the sovereign; and that the next heir, even when a son of
full age, can have no more right to succeed to his father's royal
authority in his lifetime than, if that father were a subject, he would
have to succeed to his estate.

The opposite doctrine would seem to impugn the legality of the whole
series of transactions which placed William and Mary on the throne. The
admission of an indefeasible right of the heir-apparent would have borne
a perilous resemblance to a recognition of that divine right, every
pretension to which the Revolution of 1688 had extinguished. If, again,
as Fox and his followers at one time endeavored to argue, the Houses in
1789 had no right to the name or power of a Parliament, because the King
had no part in their meetings, the convention that sat a century before
(as, indeed, was admitted) was certainly far less entitled to that name
or power, for it had not only never been called into existence by a
King, but was assembled in direct defiance of the King. Similarly, it is
admitted that the body which invited Charles II. to return and resume
his authority was equally destitute of the validity which could only be
given by a royal summons. Yet both these bodies had performed actions of
greater importance than that which was looked for from this Parliament.
The one had abolished the existing and usurping government, and restored
to his kingdom a King who had been long an exile. The other had, as it
were, passed sentence on the existing sovereign, on grounds which
confessedly will not bear a strict examination, and had conferred the
crown on a prince who had no hereditary claim to the title. The
justification of both acts was necessity. _Salus regni suprema Lex_. And
the necessity was clearly more urgent in the present case than in either