find something in this
argument differing from that on which every mode of despotism has been
defended, I shall not be inclined to pay it any great compliment. The
people are satisfied to trust themselves with the exercise of their own
privileges, and do not desire this kind intervention of the House of
Commons to free them from the burthen. They are certainly in the right.
They ought not to trust the House of Commons with a power over their
franchises; because the constitution, which placed two other co-ordinate
powers to control it, reposed no such confidence in that body. It were a
folly well deserving servitude for its punishment, to be full of
confidence where the laws are full of distrust; and to give to an House
of Commons, arrogating to its sole resolution the most harsh and odious
part of legislative authority, that degree of submission which is due
only to the Legislature itself.

When the House of Commons, in an endeavour to obtain new advantages at
the expense of the other orders of the State, for the benefits of the
_Commons at large_, have pursued strong measures; if it were not just, it
was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their
proceedings; because we were ourselves ultimately to profit. But when
this submission is urged to us, in a contest between the representatives
and ourselves, and where nothing can be put into their scale which is not
taken from ours, they fancy us to be children when they tell us they are
our representatives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the stripes
they give us are for our good. The very desire of that body to have such
a trust contrary to law reposed in them, shows that they are not worthy
of it. They certainly will abuse it; because all men possessed of an
uncontrolled discretionary power leading to the aggrandisement and profit
of their own body have always abused it: and I see no particular sanctity
in our times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to
overrule the course of nature.

But we must purposely shut our eyes, if we consider this matter merely as
a contest between the House of Commons and the Electors. The true
contest is between the Electors of the Kingdom and the Crown; the Crown
acting by an instrumental House of Commons. It is precisely the same,
whether the Ministers of the Crown can disqualify by a dependent House of
Commons, or by a dependent court of _Star Chamber_, or by a dependent
court of King'