It is scarcely consistent with sound reason to contend that
the _habeas corpus_, which had been enacted by Parliament, could not be
suspended by the authority which had enacted it; that the constitution,
which exists for the benefit of the people, could not be suspended by
the people; or to deny, if it was in appearance transgressed by these
enactments, that it was yet transgressed by strictly constitutional
acts, by the decision of the Parliament, to whose power the constitution
prescribes no limits.
But it is not sufficient that in this point of view these measures may
have been defensible. In judging of their statesmanship, it is almost
equally to be considered whether they were expedient and politic,
whether the emergency or necessity were such as to justify such rigorous
methods of repression. It was fairly open to doubt whether some of them,
and especially the Traitorous Correspondence and the Seditious Meetings
Bills, did not treat as treasonable acts which did not go beyond
sedition, and whether so to treat them were not to invest them with an
importance which did not belong to them. And on this part of the
question the general judgment has, we think, been unfavorable to the
government; and it has been commonly allowed that the Chancellor, whose
advice on legal subjects the Prime-minister naturally took for his
guide, gave him impolitic counsel.
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