erfere with or disturb for any reasons less imperious than
such as would authorize an interference with the right of succession
to private property. Indeed, it is probable that, with most men at
that time, an inherited right to _govern_ was regarded as the most
sacred of the two.

The fact seems to be, that the right of a son to come into the place
of his father, whether in respect to property, power, or social rank,
is not a natural, inherent, and indefeasible right, but a _privilege_
which society accords, as a matter of convenience and expediency. In
England, expediency is, on the whole, considered to require that all
three of these things, viz., property, rank, and power, in certain
cases, should descend from father to son. In this country, on the
other hand, we confine the hereditament to property, abrogating it in
the case of rank and power. In neither case is there probably any
absolute natural right, but a conventional right is allowed to take
its place in one, or another, or all of these particulars, according
to the opinion of the community in respect to what its true interests
and the general welfare, on the whole, require.

The kings themselves of this Stuart race--which race includes Mary
Queen of Scots, the mother of the line, and James I., Charles I.,
Charles II., and James II.--entertained very high ideas of these
hereditary rights of theirs to govern the realm of England. They felt
a determination to maintain these rights and powers at all hazards.
Charles ascended the throne with these feelings, and the chief point
of interest in the history of his reign is the contest in which he
engaged with the English people in his attempts to maintain them.

The body with which the king came most immediately into conflict in
this long struggle for ascendency, was the Parliament. And here
American readers are very liable to fall into a mistake by considering
the houses of Parliament as analogous to the houses of legislation in
the various governments of this country. In our governments the chief
magistrate has only to execute definite and written laws and
ordinances, passed by the Legislature, and which the Legislature may
pass with or without his consent; and when enacted, he must be
governed by them. Thus the president or the governor is, in a certain
sense, the agent and officer of the legislative power of the state, to
carry into effect its decisions, and this _legislative_ power has
really the control.

B