privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Charta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from King John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes. Such was the Petition of Right assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign. Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an Act of Parliament called the Bill of Rights. It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to Constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the People, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the People surrender nothing; and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations. "We, the People of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State Bills of Rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics, than in a Constitution of Government.
But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the Nation, than to a Constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns. If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the Convention, on this score, are well founded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the Constitution of this State. But the truth is, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.
