When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the
principle, they showed that they held it inviolable.
On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted some amendment in
the old time, and long before the era of the Revolution. Some time after
the Conquest great questions arose upon the legal principles of
hereditary descent. It became a matter of doubt whether the heir _per
capita_ or the heir _per stirpes_ was to succeed; but whether the heir
_per capita_ gave way when the heirdom _per stirpes_ took place, or the
Catholic heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable
principle survived with a sort of immortality through all
transmigrations,--
Multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course,
but in all its revolutions. Whoever came in, or however he came in,
whether he obtained the crown by law or by force, the hereditary
succession was either continued or adopted.
The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see nothing in that of 1688
but the deviation from the Constitution; and they take the deviation
from the principle for the principle. They have little regard to the
obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it
leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of
this country.
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