n this is an exertion of power, which the
legislature indulges with caution, and which nothing but the
legislature can perform.

NOR is this the only instance in which the law of the land has
postponed even public necessity to the sacred and inviolable rights of
private property. For no subject of England can be constrained to pay
any aids or taxes, even for the defence of the realm or the support of
government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his
representatives in parliament. By the statute 25 Edw. I. c. 5 and 6.
it is provided, that the king shall not take any aids or tasks, but
by the common assent of the realm. And what that common assent is, is
more fully explained by 34 Edw. I. st. 4. cap. 1. which enacts, that
no talliage or aid shall be taken without assent of the arch-bishops,
bishops, earls, barons, knights, burgesses, and other freemen of the
land[r]: and again by 14 Edw. III. st. 2. c. 1. the prelates, earls,
barons, and commons, citizens, burgesses, and merchants shall not be
charged to make any aid, if it be not by the common assent of the
great men and commons in parliament. And as this fundamental law had
been shamefully evaded under many succeeding princes, by compulsive
loans, and benevolences extorted without a real and voluntary consent,
it was made an article in the petition of right 3 Car. I, that no man
shall be compelled to yield any gift, loan, or benevolence, tax, or
such like charge, without common consent by act of parliament. And,
lastly, by the statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. it is declared, that
levying money for or to the use of the crown, by pretence of
prerogative, without grant of parliament; or for longer time, or in
other manner, than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.

[Footnote r: See the historical introduction to the great charter, &c,
_sub anno_ 1297; wherein it is shewn that this statute _de talliagio
non concedendo_, supposed to have been made in 34 Edw. I, is in
reality nothing more than a sort of translation into Latin of the
_confirmatio cartarum_, 25 Edw. I, which was originally published in
the Norman language.]

IN the three preceding articles we have taken a short view of the
principal absolute rights which appertain to every Englishman. But in
vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the
dead letter of the laws, if the constitution had provided no other
method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefo