16. The majority, and through it the people, are protected' by the principle that the administration is Inunded- on party' principles.
17.'A very important guarantee of liberty is the division of- government Rita 'three distinct fUnctions, —legislative, administrative, and judicial. The union of these is absolutism or despotism on -the one hand, and slavery on' the other.
18. As a general the principle preVails 113 Anglican liberty that the executive may do what is positively allowed by fundamental or other law, and not all that which is .not, prohibited: 19. The supremacy of law requires that, where enacted constitution's form the fundamental law, there be some authority which can pronounce wheth er the legislature-Jtfielf lrgs' 'or• has not trans gressed it. This -power must be vested in courts of law. • 20 There is no guarantee of liberty more impor tant and more -peculiarly Anglican than the repre sentative government. Lieber, Civ. Lib. p. 168. In connection with this, a very important ques tion is, whether there should -be direct elections by the people, or whether there should be double elec tions. The Anglican principle, favors simple 'elec tions; and double' elections' have often been resorted to as the very means of avoiding the object of a representative government.
The management of the elections should also he in the hands of the voters, and government espe cially should not be allowed to interfere.
Representative bodies must be free. They must be freely chosen, and, when chosen, act under no threat or violence of the executive or any portion of the people. They must be protected as repre sentative bodies; and a wise parliamentary law and usage should secure the rights of each member and the elaboration of the law.
A peculiar protection is afforded to members of the legislature in England and the United States their freedom from arrest, except for certain specified crimes.
Every member must possess the right to propose any measure or reaolution.
Not only must the legislature be the judge of the right each member has to his seat, but the whole internal management belongs to 'itself, It is indis pensable that it possesa the power and privileges to protect ilia own dignity.
The principle of two houses, or the bicameral eye tem, is an equally efficient guarantee of liberty, by excluding impassioned legislation and embody ing in the law the collective mind of the legislature.
21. The independence of the law, of which the in dependence of the judiciary forms a part, is one of the main stays of civil liberty. It requires "a liv
ing common law, a clear division of the judiciary from other -powers, the ptiblic accusatorial process, the independence of the judge, the trial by jury, and an independent position of the advocate." See Lieber, Civil Liberty and Self-Government 208-260.
22. Another constituent of our liberty is local and institutional self-government. It arises out of a willingness of the people to attend to their owe affaira, and an unwillingness to permit of the•inter ference of the executive, and administration with them beyond what it necessarily must do, or which cannot or ought not to be done by self-action. A pervading self-government, in the Anglican sense, is organic ; it consists in organs of combined self action, in institutions, and in a systematic conaec tion of these institutiona. It is, therefore, equally opposed to a disintegration of society and to des potism.
American liberty belofiga to the great division of Anglican liberty, and is founded upon the checks, guarantees, and self-government of the Anglian race. The following features are, however, pecul iar to American liberty: Republican federalism, strict separation of the state from the church, greater equality and acknowledgment of abstract rights in citizen, and a more popular or demo cratic cast of the whole polity. With reference to the last two may be added these further character istics: We have everywhere established voting by ballot. The executive has never possessed the power of dis solving or proroguing the legislature. The list of states has not been closed. We admit foreigners to the rights of citizenship, and we do not believe in inalienable allegiance.
There is no attainder of blood. We allow no ex post 'facto laws. American liberty possesses, also, as a characteristic, the enacted constitution,—dis tinguishing it from the English polity, with its ac cumulative constitution. Our legislatures are, there fore, not omnipotent, as the British parliament theoretically is ; but the laws enacted by them may be declared by the courts to conflict with the con stitution.
The liberty sought for by the French, as a iar system, was founded chiefly, in theory, on the idea of equality and the abstract rights of man. Rousseau's Social Contract. Sea Faasnon; 1:'ett soNAY., LIBERTY, and titles here following.
The four great charters of Anglo-Saxon liberty are: Magna Carta (1215); Petition of Right (1M); Bill of Rights (1689)'; Act of Settlement (1700)