given, they declare that they know, esteem, love, and trust. This
right is a matter within their own power of judging and feeling; not
an ens rationis and creature of law: nor can those devices, by
which anything else is substituted in the place of such an actual
choice, answer in the least degree the end of representation.

I know that the courts of law have made as strained constructions in
other cases. Such is the construction in common recoveries. The
method of construction which in that case gives to the persons in
remainder, for their security and representative, the door-keeper,
crier, or sweeper of the Court, or some other shadowy being without
substance or effect, is a fiction of a very coarse texture. This
was however suffered, by the acquiescence of the whole kingdom, for
ages; because the evasion of the old Statute of Westminster, which
authorised perpetuities, had more sense and utility than the law
which was evaded. But an attempt to turn the right of election into
such a farce and mockery as a fictitious fine and recovery, will, I
hope, have another fate; because the laws which give it are
infinitely dear to us, and the evasion is infinitely contemptible.

The people indeed have been told, that this power of discretionary
disqualification is vested in hands that they may trust, and who
will be sure not to abuse it to their prejudice. Until I find
something in this argument differing from that on which every mode
of despotism has been defended, I shall not be inclined to pay it
any great compliment. The people are satisfied to trust themselves
with the exercise of their own privileges, and do not desire this
kind intervention of the House of Commons to free them from the
burthen. They are certainly in the right. They ought not to trust
the House of Commons with a power over their franchises; because the