it to be so. We may shut our eyes indeed to the dangerous consequences of suffering one branch of the legislature to declare new laws, without argument or example, and it may perhaps be prudent enough to submit to authority; but a mere assertion will never convince, much less will it be thought reasonable to prove the right by the fact itself. The ministry have not yet pretended to such a tyranny over our minds. To support the affirmative fairly, it will either be necessary to produce some statute, in which that positive provision shall have been made, that specific disability clearly created, and the consequences of it declared; or, if there be no such statute, the custom of parliament must then be referred to; and some case or cases[1], strictly in point, must be produced, with the decision of the court upon them; for I readily admit, that the custom of parliament, once clearly proved, is equally binding with the common and statute law.
The consideration of what may be reasonable, or unreasonable, makes no part of this
- ↑ Precedents, in opposition to principles, have little weight with Junius; but he thought it necessary to meet the Ministry upon their own ground.
