_Privilegium non transit in
exemplum_. If ever there was a time favorable for establishing the
principle that a king of popular choice was the only legal king, without
all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not being done at that time is
a proof that the nation was of opinion it ought not to be done at any
time. There is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to
know that the majority in Parliament, of both parties, were so little
disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were
determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince of
Orange, but on that of his wife, Mary, daughter of King James, the
eldest born of the issue of that king, which they acknowledged as
undoubtedly his. It would be to repeat a very trite story, to recall to
your memory all those circumstances which demonstrated that their
accepting King William was not properly a _choice_; but to all those who
did not wish in effect to recall King James, or to deluge their country
in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into
the peril they had just escaped, it was an act of _necessity_, in the
strictest moral sense in which necessity can be taken.
In the very act in which, for a time, and in a single case, Parliament
departed from the strict order of inheritance, in favor of a prince who,
though not next, was, however, very near in the line of succession, it
is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew the bill called the
Declaration of Right, has comported himself on that delicate occasion.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291