LIMITS OF LEGISLATIVE CAPACITY.
If we were to know nothing of this assembly but by its title and
function, no colours could paint to the imagination anything more
venerable. In that light the mind of an inquirer, subdued by such an
awful image as that of the virtue and wisdom of a whole people
collected into one focus, would pause and hesitate in condemning
things even of the very worst aspect. Instead of blameable, they
would appear only mysterious. But no name, no power, no function, no
artificial institution whatsoever, can make the men of whom any
system of authority is composed, any other than God, and nature, and
education, and their habits of life have made them. Capacities beyond
these the people have not to give. Virtue and wisdom may be the
objects of their choice; but their choice confers neither the one nor
the other on those upon whom they lay their ordaining hands. They
have not the engagement of nature, they have not the promise of
revelation, for any such power.
OUR CONSTITUTION, NOT FABRICATED, BUT INHERITED.
The Revolution was made to preserve our ANCIENT, indisputable laws and
liberties, and that ANCIENT constitution of government which is our only
security for law and liberty. If you are desirous of knowing the spirit
of our constitution, and the policy which predominated in that great
period which has secured it to this hour, pray look for both in our
histories, in our records, in our acts of parliament, and journals of
parliament, and not in the sermons of the Old Jewry, and the
after-dinner toasts of the Revolution Society.
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