The freeholders ftill continued to think that no other man was fit to reprefent them, and on the fixteenth of March elected him once more. Their refolution was now fo well known, that no opponent ventured to appear.

The Commons began to find, that power without materials for operation can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be negative. They, however, made yoid the laft election, and ordered a new writ.

On the thirteenth of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was used, and fome acts of violence were done to hinder Mr. Lutterel from appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited for

The sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the House, on April the fifteenth, determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.

From this day begun the clamour which has continued till now. Those who had undertaken to oppofe the miniftry, having no grievance of greater magnitude, endeavoured to fwell this decifion into bulk, and distort it into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.

Every artifice of fedition has been fince practifed to awaken difcontent and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with exhortations and menaces of faction. The madnefs has

fpread

fpread through all ranks and through both fexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr. Wilkes, honeft fimplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wife have escaped infection.

The greater part may justly be suspected of not believing their own pofition, and with them it is not neceffary to difpute. They cannot be convinced who are convinced already, and it is well known that they will not be ashamed.

The decifion, however, by which the fmaller number of votes was preferred to the greater, has perplexed the minds of fome, whofe opinions it were indecent to defpife, and who by their integrity well deserve to have their doubts appeafed.

Every diffufe and complicated question may be examined by different methods, upon different principles; and that truth, which is eafily found by one' investigator, may be miffed by another, equally honeft and equally diligent.

Thofe who inquire, whether a smaller number of legal votes can elect a reprefentative in oppofition to a greater, must receive from every tongue the fame anfwer.

The question, therefore, must be, whether a smaller number of legal votes, fhall not prevail against a greater number of votes not legal?

It must be confidered, that thofe votes only are legal which are legally given, and that those only are legally given, which are given for a legal candidate.

It remains then to be difcuffed, whether a man expelled can be fo difqualified by a vote of the

House,

House, as that he shall be no longer eligible by lawful electors?

Here we must again recur, not to pofitive inftitutions, but to the unwritten law of focial nature, to the great and pregnant principle of political neceffity. All government supposes subjects, all authority implies obedience. To fuppofe in one the right to command what another has the right to refuse, is abfurd and contradictory. A ftate fo conftituted muft reft for ever in motionless equipofe, with equal attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of power balancing each other.

Laws which cannot be enforced, can neither prevent nor rectify disorders. A fentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to reform. If the Commons have only the power of difmiffing for a few days the man whom his conftituents can immediately fend back, if they can expel but cannot exclude, they have nothing more than nominal authority, to which perhaps obedience never may be paid.

The representatives of our ancestors had an opinion very different they fined and imprisoned their members; on great provocation they difabled them for ever; and this power of pronouncing perpetual difability is maintained by Selden himself.

Thefe claims feem to have been made and allowed, when the conftitution of our government had not yet been fufficiently studied. Such powers are not legal, because they are not neceffary: and of that power which only neceffity juftifies, no more is to be admitted than neceffity obtrudes.

The

The Commons cannot make laws, they can only pass refolutions, which, like all refolutions, are of force only to those that make them, and to thofe only while they are willing to obferve them.

The vote of the Houfe of Commons has therefore only fo far the force of a law, as that force is neceffary to preserve the vote from lofing its efficacy, it must begin by operating upon themselves, and extends its influence to others, only by confequences arifing from the first intention. He that starts game on his own manor, may pursue it into another.

They can properly make laws only for themselves: a member, while he keeps his feat, is fubject to these laws; but when he is expelled, the jurisdiction ceases, for he is now no longer within their dominion.

The disability, which a vote can fuperinduce to expulfion, is no more than was included in expulfion itself; it is only a declaration of the Commons, that they will permit no longer him whom they thus cenfure to fit with them in parliament; a declaration made by that right which they neceffarily poffefs, or regulating their own House, and of inflicting punishment on their own delinquents.

They have therefore no other way to enforce the fentence of incapacity, than that of adhering to it. They cannot otherwife punish the candidate fo difqualified for offering himself, nor the electors for accepting him. But if he has any competitor, that competitor must prevail, and if he has none, his election will be void; for the right of the Houfe to reject, annihilates with regard to the man fo rejected the right of electing.

It has been urged, that the power of the House terminates with their feffion; fince a prifoner committed by the Speaker's warrant cannot be detained during the recefs. That power indeed ceafes with the feffion, which muft operate by the agency of others, because, when they do not fit, they can employ no agent, having no longer any legal exiftence; but that which is exercifed on themfelves revives' at their meeting, when the fubject of that power ftill fubfifts. They can in the next feffion refuse to re-admit him, whom in the former feffion they expelled.

That expulfion inferred exclufion in the present cafe, must be, I think, eafily admitted. The expulfion and the writ iffued for a new election were in the fame fef. fion, and fince the Houfe is by the rule of parliament bound for the feffion by a vote once paffed, the expelled member cannot be admitted. He that cannot be admitted, cannot be elected; and the votes given to a man ineligible being given in vain, the highest number for an eligible candidate becomes a majority.

To thefe conclufions, as to moft moral, and to all political pofitions, many objections may be made. The perpetual fubject of political difquifition is not abfolute, but comparative good. Of two fyftems of government, or two laws relating to the fame fubject, neither will ever be fuch as theoretical nicety would. defire, and therefore neither can easily force its way against prejudice and obftinacy; each will have its excellencies and defects, and every man, with a little help from pride, may think his own the best.