The very aim and intention of the democratical part, or the house of commons, is to secure the rights of the people. It’s very being depends upon those rights. Its whole power is derived from them, and must be terminated by them.
Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
The government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions – a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism- the last, of liberty.
Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected.
