crown, has a permanent operation, and cannot fail of fuccefs.-My premises, I know, will be denied in argument, but every man's confcience tells him they are true. It remains then to be confidered, whether it be for the intereft of the people that privilege of parliament (which, in respect to the purposes for which it has hitherto been acquiefed under, is merely nominal) fhould be contracted within fome certain limits, or whether the fubject shall be left at the mercy of a power, arbitrary upon the face of it, and notoriously under the direction of the crown.

I do not mean to decline the question of Right. On the contrary, fir, I join iffue with the advocates for privilege, and affirm, that, "excepting "the cafes, wherein the House of Commons are

a court of judicature, (to which, from the nature "of their office, a coercive power muft belong) "and excepting fuch contempts as immediately "interrupt their proceedings, they have no legal "authority to imprison any man for any supposed "violation of privilege whatfoever."It is not pretended, that privilege, as now claimed, has ever been defined or confirmed by ftatute; neither can it be faid, with any colour of truth, to be a part of the common law of England, which had grown

grown into prescription long before we knew any thing of the existence of a House of Commons. As for the law of parliament, it is only another name for the privilege in queftion; and fince the power of creating new privileges has been formerly renounced by both houses,-fince there is no code, in which we can study the law of parliament, we have but one way left to make ourselves acquainted with it; that is, to compare the nature of the inftitution of a Houfe of Commons with the facts upon record. To establish a claim of privilege in either house, and to distinguish original right from an ufurpation, it must appear that it is indispenfably neceffary for the performance of the duty they are employed in, and alfo that it has been uniformly allowed. From the first part of this description it follows clearly, that whatever privilege does of right belong to the prefent House of Commons, did equally belong to the firft affembly of their predeceffors, was as completely vested in them, and might have been exercifed in the fame extent. From the fecond we must infer, that privileges, which, for feveral centuries, were not only never allowed, but never even claimed by the Houfe of Commons, must be founded upon ufurpation. The conflitutional duties of a Houfe of Commons

are

are not very complicated, nor myfterious: They are to propose or affent to wholesome laws for the benefit of the nation. They are to grant the neceffary aids to the King-petition for the redress of grievances, and profecute treafon or high crimes against the state. If unlimited privilege be neceffary to the performance of thefe duties, we have reason to conclude, that, for many centuries after the inftitution of the Houfe of Commons, they were never performed. I am not bound to prove a negative, but I appeal to the English history when I affirm, that, with the exceptions already stated, (which yet I might safely relinquish) there is no precedent, from the year 1265 to the death of Queen Elizabeth, of the House of Commons having imprisoned any man (not a member of their House) for contempt or breach of privilege. In the most flagrant cafes, and when their acknowledged privileges were moft grofly violated, the poor Commons, as they then ftiled themselves, never took the power of punishment into their own hands. They either fought redress by petition to the King, or, what is more remarkable, applied for justice to the House of Lords; and when fatisfaction was denied them, or delayed, their only remedy was, to refufe proceeding upon the King's

bufinefs.

business. So little conception had our ancestors of the monftrous doctrines now maintained concerning privilege, that, in the reign of Elizabeth, even liberty of speech, the vital principal of a deliberative affembly, was restrained, by the queen's authority, to a fimple aye or no; and this reftriction, though impofed upon three fucceffive parliaments*, was never once difputed by the Houfe of Commons.

I know there are many precedents of arbitrary commitments for contempt; but, befides that they are of too modern a date to warrant a presump⚫tion that fuch a power was originally vested in the House of Commons-fact alone does not conftitute right. If it does, general warrants were lawful. An ordinance of the two houses has a force equal to law; and the criminal jurisdiction affumed by the Commons in 1621, in the cafe of Edward Loyd, is a good precedent, to warrant the like proceedings against any man, who fhall unadvisedly mention the folly of a king, or the ambition of a princess. The truth is, fir, that the greatest and most exceptionable part of the privileges now contended for, were introduced and

* In the years 1593-1597-and 1601.

afferted

afferted by a Houfe of Commons which abolifhed both monarchy and peerage, and whofe proceedings, although they ended in one glorious act of fubftantial justice, could no way be reconciled to the forms of the Conftitution. Their fucceffors profited by the example, and confirmed their power by making a moderate or a popular use of it. Thus it grew by degrees, from a notorious innovation at one period, to be tacitly admitted as the privilege of parliament at another.

If however it could be proved, from confiderations of neceffity or convenience, that an unlimited power of commitment ought to be intrusted to the House of Commons, and that in fact they have exercised it without oppofition, still, in contemplation of law, the prefumption is strongly against them. It is a leading maxim of the laws of England, (and, without it, all laws are nugatory) that there is no right without a remedy, nor any legal power without a legal courfe to carry it into effect. Let the power, now in question, be tried by this rule. The Speaker iffues his warrant of attachment. The party attached either refifts force with force, or appeals to a magiftrate, who declares the warrant illegal, and difcharges the prifoner.Does the law provide no legal means for enforcing

a