comes transformed by a quickened movement into a spirited warsong. This is so cleverly managed, the irony is so well concealed, that the Reviewer's prognostics will probably be read by our Radicals as compliments, by our Tories as sagacious and honest anticipations, by all true friends to reform in England' as sarcasms of the bitterest kind.

That the Writer must either have been grossly misled by the information upon which he has relied, or have had some motives for malicious misrepresentation, is sufficiently apparent. How can we otherwise account for his asserting, that the present Whig ministry must, from the constitution of English society, be opposed by a great proportion of the men of high education and literary influence in the country; that the vehemence with 'which the reform bill has been assailed, has not been matched 'with corresponding ardour;' that the reformers in England appear somewhat tired of the project; that the ministers would not lament to have it defeated,' as they probably begin 'to believe that their project will prove a great revolution; and that, in the practical operation of the bill, it will probably be found, that not one of the evils of which the people most complain will be remedied, whilst the bill itself stops far short of its own principles.' These stale and exploded fallacies and aspersions, which recent events only render the more ridiculous, not the more untrue, could scarcely have been adopted by an American writer actuated by friendly feelings to the present Government of England. We should not have expected, indeed, to find in the North American Review, a paper breathing so much more of the southern party spirit; to find ourselves, for instance, threatened in this article with the loss of our West India colonies, in the event of the abolition of slavery. The 'slavery question,' says the Writer, is all in all to them (the West India colonies). If decided against them, they will revolt. We have before us extracts from the West India papers, 'which leave no doubt on this question.' Does the Jamaica Watchman never find its way to Boston?

The Reform-bill, it is said, 'stops far short of its own prin'ciples. Were this correct, it might still be a good bill. The American constitution is, at least for the United States, a good constitution; but, if it did not stop short of its own principles, it would not allow of every sixth man being a slave, and of a market for slaves existing in the metropolis of liberty, where even free-born blacks, if unable to produce a passport, are liable to be sold as oxen for transportation to a distant state. We grieve to admit, that the British constitution also stops short of its own principles, in permitting slavery to exist under the British Government; and we hope to live to see its principles carried out

to their full extent. But it is no new thing, nor does it form a valid objection against any good thing, that it stops short of the full development of its own principles.

But what, according to this American Reviewer, are the principles upon which the Reform-bill proceeds, and of which it stops short? The following passage affords, we presume, the explanation of the assertion.

Suppose it passed. A great change has then taken place in the British Constitution. We will not insist on the word revolution, if it is thought necessary to limit that term to unconstitutional changes of Government accompanied by violence and blood.' [Here we might suppose we were reading the concession of an English anti-reformer, who, content with insinuating the charge of revolutionary and unconstitutional proceedings, will not insist upon the word.'] But a great change has taken place. This change is the abandonment of prescription, as the principle on which the British House of Commons is constituted. It is not denied, that small encroachments have from time to time before been made on this principle. It is only by such encroachments and concessions that a great principle can ever be preserved in a perpetuated application. But it is now avowed, that the House of Commons shall no longer be constituted upon this principle. The Reform Bill comes to this; for it assumes a minimum of certain required theoretical qualifications, and prescribes that all seats not possessed of these qualifications shall be vacated. The old seats which remain untouched (besides the innovations applied to them in the matter of suffrage) remain so, not in virtue of the prescription, but in virtue of possessing the new theoretical qualifications. It will therefore be borne in mind, (what we have not seen distinctly stated,) that the proposed reform extends to every individual seat in the House of Commons; for, in addition to the boroughs wholly or partially disfranchised, and the seats now for the first time given to counties or cities, every other seat is shifted from the basis of prescription to that of qualification. . . . . The question now taken has been, whether the House of Commons, the old House resting on prescription, should continue in office; and it has been decided in the negative. The people have decided, that a new House on new principles shall be created.'-North American Review, lxxiv. pp. 29–31.

This paragraph supplies intrinsic evidence that the article is written by an American; for no Englishman would have talked of the continuance in office of a House of Commons, or spoken of 'the qualifications of seats in parliament'! At the same time, no determined opponent of any reform in our representation could have set himself with more apparent good-will to find out some ingenious reason against the measure. As the objection has been hinted at in this country, although not pushed to so absurd a length, and it may be considered, indeed, as sanctioned by the language already cited from Burke, we deem it worth while to

occupy for a short time the attention of our readers in examining its force.

The statement resolves itself into two positions: first, that the principle upon which the British House of Commons is constituted, is, prescription; and secondly, that that principle has been abandoned for the new principle of qualification. Both positions we meet with a direct negative.

To represent any institution as founded upon the principle of prescription, seems to us to approach to a contradiction in terms. At the foundation of an institution, the principle in question, which includes the idea of duration, could not have come into operation. How then can that be the constituent principle of an institution, which can only attach to it as a circumstance of its history? How can its having existed be the reason why it came into existence? The meaning of the Writer's position must be, that prescription has come to be the foundation of the House of Commons; that, in the revolution of ages, it has been moved off of its ancient foundations, and now hangs together only by the principle of prescription. It may be as well, to look back and see what was the original principle upon which our House of Commons was constituted."

That principle, we have already remarked, was not prescription, but, CONCESSION. We should not, perhaps, be going too far, were we to affirm, that all law partakes, originally and essentially, of this character. Law, in its very nature, is a substitute for arbitrary rule, and as such, a concession from power. Instead of being, as is often represented, a restraint upon natural liberty, it is rather the barrier and bulwark of liberty,- the landmark which divides the territory of acquired rights from the domain of lawless prerogative, where might is the only acknowledged right. Law is the form in which freedom lays up her acquisitions; the record to which she entrusts her most glorious achievements; the titledeed of her possessions. It is true, that other things besides concessions, that assumptions and usurpations acquire, by time, a conventional validity; but these are the exceptions to the rule. Such wrongs are allowed to acquire, by prescription, the privileged character of rights, because it is felt that prescription is, in the main, a conservative principle, and that it would be a greater evil to disturb the rule without a clear necessity. That the laws were primarily intended to be a protection of the weak against the strong, will scarcely be denied, notwithstanding that there are such things as game laws, which arm the strong against the weak, and other laws which insult liberty instead of protecting it. To be under the protection of the laws, and to be restrained only by the laws, to have the full benefit of frank-law in both respects, is, in fact, the very definition of civil freedom, and that which

distinguishes a freeman from a slave. Now, putting aside the consideration of natural rights, (rights, the reality of which it is as absurd to deny as it is difficult to define them,) these civil rights have always, in fact, originated in concessions. Every specics of franchise is presumed to be originally derived from the Crown; and that which is held by prescription, presupposes a grant. The elective franchise was clearly of this description; and nothing is more certain, than that the House of Commons was founded upon those concessions which were won by and for liberty from the Prerogative. Its gradual formation has been traced with admirable distinctness and historical learning by Sir James Mackintosh, in his History of England; and we shall avail ourselves of his account in an abridged form, as amply attesting the correctness of our position.

6

6

It is beyond all doubt, that, by the constitution, even as subsisting under the early Normans, the Great Council shared 'the legislative power with the King, as clearly as the parliament have since done. But these great councils do not seem to have 'contained members of popular choice; and the king, who was supported by the revenue of his demesnes, and by dues from his military tenants, does not appear at first to have imposed, by 'legislative authority, general taxes to provide for the good 'government of the community. These were abstract notions, 'not prevalent in ages when the monarch was a lord paramount, ' rather than a supreme magistrate.'. . . . It was by a gradual transition, that the national assembly passed from an aristocratical 'legislature, representing, perhaps not inadequately, the opinions of all who could have exercised political rights, if they had then possessed them; through the stage of a great council, of which the popular portion consisted of all tenants in chief who had the power and the desire to attend such meetings; and at last terminated in a parliament, of which members chosen by the 'lesser nobility, by the landholders, and by the industrious 'inhabitants of towns, were a component part.' To the parliament summoned by Simon de Montfort, of which the lower house was composed, as it has ever since been formed, of knights of the shires and members for cities and boroughs,'-to this happy innovation,' the author of which was but the unknowing in'strument of disclosing to the world that great institution of representation which was to introduce into popular governments a regularity and order far more perfect, than had heretofore been 'purchased by submission to absolute power,'-Sir James Mackintosh ascribes the present constitution of the House of Commons. "Hence arose the necessity under which the succeeding king, with all his policy and energy, found himself, of adopting this 'precedent from a hated usurper. It would have been vain to have legally strengthened parliament against the Crown, unless

6

it had been actually strengthened by widening its foundations, 'by rendering it a bond of union between orders of men jealous ' of each other, and by multiplying its points of contact with the 'people, the sole allies from whom succour could be hoped. The 'introduction of knights, citizens, and burgesses into the legis 'lature, by its continuance in circumstances so apparently inauspicious, shewed how exactly it suited the necessities and ' demands of society at that moment. No sooner had events 'thrown forward the measure, than its fitness to the state of the 'community became apparent. The enlargement of the basis of 'the legislature thus stood the test which discriminates visionary 'projects from necessary repair and prudent reformation." *

Such, then, was the origin of the present constitution of parliament. It was an enlargement of the basis of the legislature, demanded by the existing circumstances of society, and conceded by the Crown, as an act at once of grace and of policy. The principle upon which the House of Commons is founded, is concession, confirmed by prescription. But to whom was the concession made? To the freeholders of the shires, and to the towns which had been exempted by royal charters from baronial tyranny. The knights and burgesses which represented them, were unquestionably delegates. These delegates, it must be admitted, were not originally appointed to assist in the government of the country, so much as to protect the interests of their constituents. Yet, it was soon found convenient by the monarch to enlarge the powers of parliament, in order that it might share with the Crown the odium of harsh measures, and aid in introducing in'novations too daring to be hazarded by the single arm of a wary tyrant. The compliance of parliaments, remarks Sir James Mackintosh, perhaps as much as their independence, multiplied precedents favourable to their right of interposition in all public affairs.' + But the right afterwards justified by precedents and prescription, was still founded on concessions,-concessions which, from their very nature, were innovations. So true is the remark of Fox, already cited, that, from the earliest

History of England, Vol. I. pp. 238-240; 245, 6. Author thinks it not improbable, that De Montfort, amid the noise and confusion of popular complaint, had learned the art of deciphering its own wayward language, and of discriminating the clamour of a moment from demands rooted in the nature and circumstances of 'society. A fine remark, of obvious application to the greatest statesman of the present day, and the proper justification of his conduct in making the reform-bill the leading measure of his administration.

+ Hist. of England, Vol. I. p. 266.