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from the city, has no claim to particular consideration.

That a man was in jail for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been within memory a sufficient reason why he should not come out of jail a legislator. This reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to operate on the House of Commons. Their notions, however strange, may be justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement than to do with greater cunning what he did before with less.

But the people have been told with great confidence, that the House cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character, is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which no human authority can depose him.

Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They are forced to confess, that by a train of precedents sufficient to establish a custom of parliament, the House of Commons has jurisdiction over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often in expulsion.

That such power should reside in the House of Commons in some cases, is inevitably necessary, since it is required by every polity, that where there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of punishment. A member of the House cannot be cited for his conduct in parliament before any other court; and there

fore if the house cannot punish him, he may attack with impunity the rights of the people, and the title of the king.

This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the principles of government. If legislative powers are not co-ordinate, they cease in part to be legislative; and if they be co-ordinate, they are unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no superiour?

The House of Commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation has of late been very clamourously told; but while it subsists it is coordinate with the other powers, and this co-ordination ceases only when the House by dissolution ceases to subsist.

As the particular representatives of the people are in their publick character above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject to the jurisdiction of the House; and as the House, in the exercise of its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent decision of the whole legislature.

This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact, but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised, probably from their first institution, but certainly, as their records inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member, for derogating from their privileges.

It may perhaps be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences

in the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an offence against society as an offence against the House.

They have therefore divested notorious delinquents of their legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment, naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of parliament.

It is allowed that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in Parliament, and the Commons probably judged, that not being bound to the forms of law, they might treat those as felons, whose crimes were, in their opinion, equivalent to felony and that as a known felon could not be chosen, a man so like a felon, that he could not easily be distinguished, ought to be expelled.

The first laws had no law to enforce them, the first authority was constituted by itself. The power exercised by the House of Commons is of this kind, a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and precedents have made legal.

It will occur that authority thus uncontrolable, may, in times of heat and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who suffers injustice, is without redress, however innocent, however miserable.

The position is true, but the argument is useless. The Commons must be controlled, or be exempt from control. If they are exempt, they

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may do injury which cannot be redressed, if they are controlled, they are no longer legislative.

If the possibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no authority ever can be established; if the actual abuse destroys its legality, there is no legal government now in the world.

This power, which the Commons have so long exercised, they ventured to use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and on the 3rd of February, 1769, expelled him the House, "for having printed and published a seditious libel, and three obscene and impious libels."

If these imputations were just, the expulsion was surely seasonable; and that they were just, the House had reason to determine, as he had confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term seditious, and was convicted in the King's Bench of both the publications.

But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John Wilkes, Esq., expelled the House, his friends on the 16th of February chose him again.

On the 17th, it was resolved, “that John Wilkes, Esq., having been in this session of parliament expelled the House, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament."

As there was no other candidate, it was resolved at the same time, that the election of the 16th was a void election.

The freeholders still continued to think that no other man was fit to represent them, and on

the 16th of March elected him once more. Their resolution was now so well known, that no oppcnent ventured to appear.

The Commons began to find, that power without materials for operation can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be negative. They, however, made void the last election, and ordered a new writ.

On the 13th of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was used, and some acts of violence were done to hinder Mr. Lutterel from appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited for

Mr. Wilkes

Mr. Lutterel

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The Sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the House on April the 15th, determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.

From this day begun the clamour which has continued till now. Those who had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.

Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discontent and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been

filled with exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has spread through all ranks and through both sexes; women and children have

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