Nor is this the only inſtance in which the law of the land has poſtponed even public neceſſity to the ſacred and inviolable rights of private property. For no ſubject of England can be conſtrained to pay any aids or taxes, even for the defence of the realm or the ſupport of government, but ſuch as are impoſed by his own conſent, or that of his repreſentatives in parliament. By the ſtatute 25 Edw. I. c. 5 and 6. it is provided, that the king ſhall not take any aids or taſks, but by the common aſſent of the realm. And what that common aſſent is, is more fully explained by 34 Edw. I. ſt. 4. c. 1. which[1] enacts, that no talliage or aid ſhall be taken without aſſent of the arch-biſhops, biſhops, earls, barons, knights, burgeſſes, and other freemen of the land: and again by 14 Edw. III. ſt. 2. c. 1. the prelates, earls, barons, and commons, citizens, burgeſſes, and merchants ſhall not be charged to make any aid, if it be not by the common aſſent of the great men and commons in parliament. And as this fundamental law had been ſhameſully evaded under many ſucceeding princes, by compulſive loans, and benevolences extorted without a real and voluntary conſent, it was made an article in the petition of right 3 Car. I, that no man ſhall be compelled to yield any gift, loan, or benevolence, tax, or ſuch like charge, without common conſent by act of parliament. And, laſtly, by the ſtatute 1 W. & M. ſt. 2. c. 2. it is declared, that levying money for or to the uſe of the crown, by pretence of prerogative, without grant of parliament; or for longer time, or in other manner, than the ſame is or ſhall be granted, is illegal.
In the three preceding articles we have taken a ſhort view of the principal abſolute rights which appertain to every Engliſhman. But in vain would theſe rights be declared, aſcertained, and protected by the dead letter of the laws, if the conſtitution
- ↑ See the introduction to the great charter, (edit. Oxon.) ſub anno 1297; wherein it is ſhewn that this ſtatute de talliagio non concedendo, ſuppoſed to have been made in 34 Edw. I, is in reality nothing more than a ſort of tranſlation into Latin of the confirmatio cartarum, 25 Edw. I, which was originally publiſhed in the Norman language.
