unique nomini subjectum est; quod habet spiritum unum." The notion, therefore, of a Legislative institution becoming "a dead letter on the departure of one generation, until revived by the succeeding, is totally irreconcileable with the nature of human society, "wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole at one time is never old, or middle aged, or young; but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression."† Having considered so much of the Reviewer's "reply," as bears upon what the author of this work had advanced, it only remains to observe, that there are sundry other positions which the Reviewer has taken the opportunity, with some vehemence, to lay down-prove them indeed he could not, inasmuch as there is nothing in nature more evident. Whence any contradiction to those propositions could have arisen, "like a phantasma or a hideous dream," to scare the imagination of the Reviewer, it is difficult to conceive. This only the author may undertake to say, that could his censor have prevailed upon himself to give one glance * Grotius, 1. 3. c. 9. s. 3. + Burke on the French Revolution. through the work before him, nothing of the kind would have there presented itself. "O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear!" It will now, it is hoped, be manifest, that this objection of the independence of the Legislature, like that of its omnipotence, impairs not, but rather (in the consideration of it) strengthens the position before taken, that an Oath, of which the terms were dictated, and the taking enjoined by the Legislature, must be construed and performed according to the intention with which it was instituted. SECTION XII. THIRD OBJECTION, THAT THE KING WOULD BE ABSOLVED FROM HIS OATH BY THE PASSING OF A BILL FOR THE CONCESSION HOWEVER demonstrable may be the futility of the last objection, it certainly avails little, if the King can be released by the following expedient. "Promises are not binding which are released by the promisee-in the case of the Coronation Oath, the people, by their re the original.t presentatives, are the promisees, and the King, at their desire, promises to maintain certain and established laws for their benefit, and for that alone. If afterwards the people call upon the King to alter or repeal those laws, it follows that the King is immediately released from his promise."* This is more neatly expressed in After stating, that in every case it is competent to the person to whom, or in whose favour an oath has been taken, to release the person taking it from the obligationMr. Butler says: "The Coronation Oath is made to the people as represented by parliament, therefore (upon the supposition that the Coronation Oath really extends to the present case) the people, represented by the parliament, being the only persons entitled to the benefit of the Oath, have full power and authority to release the monarch who took the Oath, and all his successors from its obligation." There is no sophism more commonly resorted to, or which more frequently escapes detection, than that which consists in the use of the same term or phrase in a different sense in one part of the argument, from that in which it is employed in another. If that be not the case in the present instance, we must admit the conclusion to have been rightly deduced, but if it * Christian Remembrancer. + Butler's Letter on the Coronation Qath. be, we shall be able to form no conclusion from such false premises-except, perhaps, as to the degree of ingenuousness displayed in stating them. The Coronation Oath, we are told, is made" to the people as represented by parlia ment, "to the people by their representatives." Were these expressions intended to be taken literally? We must suppose not; because if so taken, they would express that which is not the fact. The Oath can in no sense be said to be taken to the people representatively. Allowing, however, that nothing more was meant to be conveyed by these expressions, than that the Oath is taken to the people, not by their representatives, there can be no doubt that where the people are spoken of in the conclusion, as represented by the parliament," as calling upon the King to alter or repeal laws," they are spoken of as acting by their representatives. Here then the phrases, "the people as represented by parliament," by their representatives," do not stand for the same idea in the premises which we must infer them to signify in the conclusion, namely, the House of Commons, or at most, the two Houses of Parliament. But it will, perhaps, be said, this is merely a verbal difference-that "the people," and the representatives of the people," are (as far as this question is concerned) equipotent and convertible terms. If this be so clear, 66 why, in speaking of "the moral person" to whom, or for whose benefit the Oath is takenthe people, add words which, taken absolutely, render the assertion false, and which, if not so taken, are surplusage? "The why's as plain as way to parish church." It is to produce a seeming consonance between the premises and the conclusion, The Oath is asserted to have been taken to the people in that manner, in order to support the inference, that at the expression of the will of the " representatives of the people," the obligation of the Coronation Oath (which, for the purpose of this argument, is supposed to have "extended to the present case") is dissolved! Is this doctrine constitutional? If the expression of the opinion of "the representatives of the people" be sufficient to reduce the Act for Establishing the Coronation Oath to "a dead letter," may it not be found equally efficacious in other cases? If we are to resort to first principles, let us at least be consistent in the application of them. Was that oath peculiarly established for the public good? Are not all laws presumed to be enacted with the same view? And if the people, by their representatives, declare that the longer maintaining of any of them would be detrimental, is not that upon the same principle a virtual abolition of them?* Salus populi, *Sec Milton's Iconoclastes. |