In the former you will
find other ideas and another language. Such a claim is as ill suited to
our temper and wishes as it is unsupported by any appearance of
authority. The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is
enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of
the Revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as AN
INHERITANCE FROM OUR FOREFATHERS. Upon that body and stock of
inheritance, we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the
nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made
have proceeded upon the principle of reverence to antiquity; and I hope,
nay, I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made
hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent,
authority, and example.
Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir
Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men
who follow him, to Blackstone, are industrious to prove the pedigree of
our liberties. They endeavour to prove, that the ancient charter, the
Magna Charta of King John, was connected with another positive charter
from Henry I., and that both the one and the other were nothing more
than a re-affirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the
kingdom. In the matter of fact, for the greater part, these authors
appear to be in the right; perhaps not always; but if the lawyers
mistake in some particulars, it proves my position still the more
strongly, because it demonstrates the powerful prepossession towards
antiquity, with much the minds of all our lawyers and legislators, and
of all the people whom they wish to influence, have been always filled;
and the stationary policy of this kingdom in considering their most
sacred rights and franchises as an INHERITANCE.
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