In the famous law of the 3rd of Charles the First, called the _Petition
of Right,_ the Parliament says to the king, "Your subjects have
_inherited_ this freedom": claiming their franchises, not on abstract
principles, "as the rights of men," but as the rights of Englishmen, and
as a patrimony derived from their forefathers. Selden, and the other
profoundly learned men who drew this Petition of Right, were as well
acquainted, at least, with all the general theories concerning the
"rights of men" as any of the discoursers in our pulpits or on your
tribune: full as well as Dr. Price, or as the Abbe Sieyes. But, for
reasons worthy of that practical wisdom which superseded their theoretic
science, they preferred this positive, recorded, _hereditary_ title to
all which can be dear to the man and the citizen to that vague,
speculative right which exposed their sure inheritance to be scrambled
for and torn to pieces by every wild, litigious spirit.
The same policy pervades all the laws which have since been made for the
preservation of our liberties. In the 1st of William and Mary, in the
famous statute called the Declaration of Right, the two Houses utter not
a syllable of "a right to frame a government for themselves." You will
see that their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and
liberties that had been long possessed, and had been lately endangered.
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