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" In consenting to such a statute, the crown would
act at least as agreeable to the laws of God, and to the true profession
of the Gospel, and to the laws and customs of the kingdom, as George the
First did, when he passed the statute which took from the body of the
people everything which to that hour, and even after the monstrous acts
of the 2nd and 8th of Anne, (the objects of our common hatred,) they
still enjoyed inviolate.
It is hard to distinguish with the last degree of accuracy what laws are
fundamental, and what not. However, there is a distinction between them,
authorized by the writers on jurisprudence, and recognized in some of
our statutes. I admit the acts of King William and Queen Anne to be
fundamental, but they are not the only fundamental laws. The law called
_Magna Charta_, by which it is provided that "no man shall be disseised
of his liberties and free customs but by the judgment of his peers or
the laws of the land," (meaning clearly, for some proved crime tried and
adjudged,) I take to be _a fundamental law.


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