Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/83

occurred, from royal contrivance, ambition, or policy.^[1] But, even when parliament was accustomed to sit every year, the members were not chosen every year. On the contrary, as the dissolution of parliament was solely dependent on the will of the crown, it might, and formerly it sometimes did happen, that a single parliament lasted through the whole life of the king, who convened it.^[2] To remedy these grievances, it was provided by a statute, passed in the reign of Charles the Second, that the intermissions should not be protracted beyond the period of three years; and by a subsequent statute of William and Mary, that the same parliament should not sit longer than three years, but be, at the end of that period, dissolved, and a new one elected. This period was, by a statute of George the First, prolonged to seven years, after an animated debate; and thus septennial became a substitute for triennial parliaments.^[3] Notwithstanding the constantly increasing influence of the house of commons, and its popular cast of opinion and action, more than a century has elapsed without any successful effort, or even any general desire, to change the duration of parliament. So that, as the English constitution now stands, the parliament must expire, or die a natural death, at the end of the seventh year, and not sooner, unless dissolved by the royal prerogative.^[4] Yet no man, tolerably well acquainted with the history of Great Britain for the last century, would venture to affirm, that the people had not enjoyed a higher degree of liberty and

---

1. The Federalist, No. 52.
2. 1 Black. Comm. 189, and note.
3. 1 Black. Comm. 189; The Federalist, No. 52, 53; 1 Elliot's Debates, 37, 39; 2 Elliot's Debates, 42.
4. 1 Black. Comm. 189; The Federalist, No. 52.