None of this species of _secondary and
subsidiary laws_ have been held fundamental. They have yielded to
circumstances; particularly where they were thought, even in their
consequences, or obliquely, to affect other fundamentals. How much more,
certainly, ought they to give way, when, as in our case, they affect,
not here and there, in some particular point, or in their consequence,
but universally, collectively, and directly, the fundamental franchises
of a people equal to the whole inhabitants of several respectable
kingdoms and states: equal to the subjects of the kings of Sardinia or
of Denmark; equal to those of the United Netherlands; and more than are
to be found in all the states of Switzerland. This way of proscribing
men by whole nations, as it were, from all the benefits of the
Constitution to which they were born, I never can believe to be politic
or expedient, much less necessary for the existence of any state or
church in the world. Whenever I shall be convinced, which will be late
and reluctantly, that the safety of the Church is utterly inconsistent
with all the civil rights whatsoever of the far larger part of the
inhabitants of our country, I shall be extremely sorry for it; because I
shall think the Church to be truly in danger.
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