"
Though the sneers at the possibility of Parliament preferring "the head
of the ruling faction" to the heir-apparent be hardly consistent with
the impartial candor which is one of the most imperative duties of an
historical critic, and though the allusion to the principles of the
Polish monarchy be not very intelligible, yet no one will refuse to
attach due weight to the deliberate opinion of one who won for himself
so high a professional reputation as Lord Campbell. But, with all
respect to his legal rank, we may venture to doubt whether he has not
laid down as law, speaking as a literary man and an historian, a
doctrine which he would not have entertained as a judge. For, if we
consider the common law of the kingdom, it is certain that, in the case
of subjects, if a man becomes deranged, his next heir does not at once
enter on his property "as if he were naturally as well as civilly dead."
And if, as in such cases is notoriously the practice, the Court of
Chancery appoints a guardian of the lunatic's property, analogy would
seem to require that the Houses of Parliament, as the only body which
can possibly claim authority in such a matter, should exercise a similar
power in providing for the proper management of the government to that
which the law court would exercise in providing for the proper
management of an estate; and that, therefore, the principles of
constitutional[122] statesmanship, which is deeply interested in
upholding the predominant authority of Parliament, must justify the
assertion of the ministers that the two Houses had the entire and sole
right to make regulations for the government of the kingdom during the
incapacity of the sovereign; and that the next heir, even when a son of
full age, can have no more right to succeed to his father's royal
authority in his lifetime than, if that father were a subject, he would
have to succeed to his estate.
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