n this
chapter.--_25 Edward_ I., ch. 1, (1297.)

In conclusion of this chapter, it may be safely asserted that the
veneration, attachment, and pride, which the English nation, for more
than six centuries, have felt towards Magna Carta, are in their nature
among the most irrefragable of all proofs that it was the fundamental
law of the land, and constitutionally binding upon the government; for,
otherwise, it would have been, in their eyes, an unimportant and
worthless thing. What those sentiments were I will use the words of
others to describe,--the words, too, of men, who, like all modern
authors who have written on the same topic, had utterly inadequate ideas
of the true character of the instrument on which they lavished their
eulogiums.

Hume, speaking of the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest, as
they were confirmed by Henry III., in 1217, says:

"Thus these famous charters were brought nearly to the shape in which
they have ever since stood; and they were, during many generations,
the peculiar favorites of the English nation, and esteemed the most
sacred rampart to national liberty and independence. As they secured
the rights of all orders of men, they were anxiously defended by all,
and became the basis, in a manner, of the English monarchy, and a
kind of original contract, which both limited the authority of the
king and ensured the conditional allegiance of his subjects. Though
often violated, they were still claimed by the nobility and people;
and, as no precedents were supposed valid that infringed them, they
rather acquired than lost authority, from the frequent attempts made
against them in several ages, by regal and arbitrary power."--_Hume_,
ch. 12.

Mackintosh says, "It was understood by the simplest of the unlettered
age for whom it was intended. It was remembered by them.... For
almost five centuries it was appealed to as the decisive authority on
behalf of the people.... To have produced it, to have preserved it,
to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the
esteem of mankind. Her Bacons and Shakspeares, her Miltons and
Newtons, with all the truth which they have revealed, and all the
generous virtues which they have inspired, are of inferior value when
compared with the subjection of men and their rulers to the
principles of justice; if, indeed, it be not more true that these
mighty spirits coul