Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/183

 rtion of royal Prerogative, above-mentioned, was certainly illegal, and therefore must be esteemed a bad precedent; for Mr. Barrington himself, who cites it, does not pretend to justify it; and I know that he will as readily allow, that one bad precedent cannot justify another; so that his adding still more precedents of the same kind adds no weight to his argument, because the authority of precedents must always be weighed and governed by First-Principles and constitutional Law; otherwise we should be liable to adopt the most dangerous doctrines, since there is nothing so bad but that a Precedent may be found for it!