Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/229

Ch. 3. ment which was built upon this foundation, and obliged by every tie, religious as well as civil, to maintain it. , while we ret this fundamental tranaction, in point of authority, upon grounds the leat liable to cavil, we are bound both in jutice and gratitude to add, that it was conducted with a temper and moderation which naturally aroe from it’s equity; that, however it might in ome repects go beyond the letter of our antient laws, (the reaon of which will more fully appear hereafter ) it was agreeable to the pirit of our contitution, and the rights of human nature; and that though in other points (owing to the peculiar circumtances of things and perons) it was not altogether o perfect as might have been wihed, yet from thence a new aera commenced, in which the bounds of prerogative and liberty have been better defined, the principles of government more thoroughly examined and undertood, and the rights of the ubject more explicitly guarded by legal proviions, than in any other period of the Englih hitory. In particular, it is worthy obervation that the convention, in this their judgment, avoided with great widom the wild extremes into which the viionary theories of ome zealous republicans would have led them. They held that this miconduct of king James amounted to an endeavour to ubvert the contitution, and not to an actual ubverion, or total diolution of the government, according to the principles of Mr Locke : which would have reduced the ociety almot to a tate of nature; would have levelled all ditinctions of honour, rank, offices, and property; would have annihilated the overeign power, and in conequence have repealed all poitive laws; and would have left the people at liberty to have erected a new ytem of tate upon a new foundation of polity. They therefore very prudently voted it to amount to no more than an abdication of the government, and a conequent vacancy of the throne; whereby the government was allowed to ubit, though the executive magitrate was gone, and the kingly office to remain, though king James was no longer king. And thus the contitution