at that period (as at the present hour) Roman Catholics were excluded from political employments and the Legislature, were enacted many years prior to the Revolution. In the next place, we have proof, that the statesmen of that day regarded the essential character and principles of the Romish religion. The following were the sentiments of the first among them, of him who actually drew the declaration of rights :—“ Are we not," asks Lord Somers," sufficiently acquainted, from daily experience, with that undoubted popish principle, that a Papist is obliged to break his oath, taken not to extirpate heresy, as soon as he is in a capacity to root out what he thinks heresy, under no less pain than eternal damnation? King Lewis (in his proceedings relative to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) has satisfied the world, that this is no calumny; and King James cleared all our doubts upon the matter, by what he likewise really did and endeavoured to do . . . By the principles of his religion, he (James the Second) is obliged, in conscience, not to keep either word given, or oath taken, to protect and promote heresy, if he is once in power to destroy it."* Is it probable, that this great man, in those measures for the preservation of our Pro

* "A Vindication of the late Parliament," &c. Somers's Tracts. 1 Coll. vol. 2. p. 341. And see Puffendorff, lib. 4. cap. 2. sec. 24.

testant Constitution, to which he so mainly contributed, would have employed merely

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temporary expedients," to guard that Constitution against the " undoubted principles" of an immutable system? A system, of which (observes triumphantly a Roman Catholic writer) the "distinctive characteristic, and boasted glory," are its "unity, universality, and irreformability."*

SECTION VI.

THE NATURE OF THE COMPACT OF THE REVOLUTION.

THOUGH, however, it were admitted, that the Legislature of 1688 only confirmed a principle of government long before introduced, and that, in so doing, they regarded not merely the immediate dangers to be apprehended from the adherents of the expelled family, but the political tendency, in a Protestant state, of the principles of the Roman Catholic religion; still, could nothing further be adduced, it might perhaps be urged, that there is not any thing to show that the exclusion of Roman Catholics from political power was designed to be established

* Plowden's Jura Anglorum, p. 296.

as a permanent principle of the Constitution. The answer to this objection must be, that the maintenance of this principle, of excluding Roman Catholics from power, was an article of the express contract of 1688, one of the conditions upon which the Crown was settled in the Protestant, to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic line of succession. For the terms of this contract, we can, it is conceived, alone refer to those legislative enactments, by which the settlement of the Crown was made; namely, the Bill of Rights, as incorporated with the Act for settling the succession of the Crown,* and the several Acts passed, as circumstances required, in corroboration of the principle there laid down. "If any thing," observes De Lolme, "is capable of conveying to us an adequate idea of the soundness, as well as peculiarity of the principles on which the English Government is founded, it is the attentive perusal of the system of public compacts to which the Revolution gave rise,—of the Bill of Rights, with all its different clauses, and of the several Acts which, under two subsequent reigns, till the accession of the House of Hanover, were made, in order to strengthen it." The Bill of Rights may be termed the head-stone of the Constitution, as

"

First of William and Mary, Stat. 2. cap. 2.

↑ De Lolme on the Constitution, Book 2. chapter 15.

settled in 1688;-all the important Acts of the Legislature were founded upon, and are intimately connected with it. That this public compact involved the conditions upon which the settlement of the Crown was made, and that every article and clause contained in it, was intended to be equally binding and permanent, there is no pretence to deny. The Declaration of Rights consists of three parts, distinct in their office, but joint in their operation, each stamped with the same authority, and so necessary to give efficacy to the rest, that without any one, the whole work would have been imperfect.

The preamble contains (as has before been observed) an enumeration of the Acts by which James "did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of this kingdom;" and also, a declaration, that the object of the Convention Parliament in assembling was, "in order to such an establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, might not again be in danger of being subverted." "Taking," continues the Declaration, "into their most serious consideration, the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid," they did, in the first place, declare what were the undoubted rights and liberties of this people.* Here we

* Vide Note D.

may observe, that in the series of propositions in which these rights and liberties are expressed, there is nothing which had not been as distinctly laid down in the existing laws, defining the authority of the sovereign, and the rights of the people. Had the Convention confined themselves to an assertion of rights, which had been often acknowledged, and often violated, without, at the same time, strengthening and extending the fences by which alone the important interests confided to them could be ever after defended from the dangers which had immediately before threatened their destruction, their work would indeed have been imperfect. Their conduct would then have been strangely inconsistent with their professions, and have merited the charge sought to be established against them, of having been guided by a short-sighted policy. The fact, however, is, that at the same time they insisted upon these rights and liberties, they declared what were those "best means of attaining the ends aforesaid." This part of the Declaration of Rights is most important to the present question. They "resolved," that the succession of the Crown should be limited exclusively to Protestants, and that the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, therein set forth, should in future be taken by all persons of whom, the former oaths of supremacy and allegiance might be required by law. This new oath of supremacy, we have observed, was