_ Now, although this Magna
Charta, or some of the statutes establishing it, provide that that law
shall be perpetual, and all statutes contrary to it shall be void, yet I
cannot go so far as to deny the authority of statutes made in defiance
of Magna Charta and all its principles. This, however, I will say,--that
it is a very venerable law, made by very wise and learned men, and that
the legislature, in their attempt to perpetuate it, even against the
authority of future Parliaments, have shown their judgment that it is
_fundamental_, on the same grounds and in the same manner that the act
of the fifth of Anne has considered and declared the establishment of
the Church of England to be fundamental. Magna Charta, which secured
these franchises to the subjects, regarded the rights of freeholders in
counties to be as much a fundamental part of the Constitution as the
establishment of the Church of England was thought either at that time,
or in the act of King William, or in the act of Queen Anne.
The churchmen who led in that transaction certainly took care of the
material interest of which they were the natural guardians.
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