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Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 24, 5 October 1848, Page 1

From UNKNOWN Charta to the declaration of right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate belonging to the people of this Kingdom nuhout any o;her reference whatever to any other more general i r prior tight. By this means our constitution preserves an unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown, and an iuberlt. hie peeiage; and a house of commons, and a people inheriting privileges, fraucbises, and liberties, from a long hue of ancestors. This policy appears to me to be the re,ult of profound reflection ; or rather the hippy effect of loduwing nature, rrhtch is wi-dom without reflection, una above it. A spirit of innovation iB fJenernlly the result of a selfish temper and confined viens. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors Besides, the people of England well know, that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission ; wi'tont at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition free, but it reeures win, it acquires. Whatever advantages are obtained by a state these maxim's, are locked fas 6 as in a sort of fami.y settlement ; grasped as in a kind of moitmain for ever. By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we transmit ouc government and our privileges in the Same manner in ivh'ch we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of pulicy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are banded down to us and from us in the suine course and order. Our political systeai is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of aransitory parts ,■ wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, rqouluiug together tne great mysterious incorporation ot the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, ot middle-aged, or but in a condition of inchangeable in-tauces, moves on through the varied teuour of jerpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Tnus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the s-a e, .u ■what we improve, we are never whol'y new ; m wbat weretain, we ate never who.ly obsohte. Byadhenng in this manner and on those principle! to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition of an. iiguaruus, but by the sp.rit of philosophic analogyIn this choice of inheritance we have Kiven lo our frame of polity the image of a relation ill blood; binding up the constitution of the country with our dearest domestic lies ; adopting our fund unental laws into the bosom of our family affections : Uepiuji mieperable, and chenshing with the warmth of all tiieir comb ned and mutuilly reflected charities, our state, ou' hear. 11-, our sepulchies and our altars. Though the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institu'ions, and by calling "■ the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts, to fortify the fallible aud feeble contrivance of our reasun, we have derived several other, aud those no sin ill benefits-, from consideringoo r liberties in the h£ht of an inheritance. Alwajs acting as in the presence of rationiled fire-fathers." the spirit ol iieedom, leadhir in itself to misiule and excess' L- tempered uitb unawful gravi'y. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, winch prev.uts that upitart insolence almost inevlUbly adhering lo and disgracing those who are the first acquirers ot any dlstuctioti. Hy this means cut liberty becomes a noale It his a pedigree, and illustrious ancestors. It ho* its bearings and ensign*nrinuilul. It his i'« ga'.leri of pjitraits ; us monumental inscriptions, its records, evidences, and titles. We piueute reveience to iur civil institutions on the p'inciplo upon which Homo teaches us to re.ee individual men; on tieiouiitof their age; ai.d on account of thnse from uhom they are descended. Al jour soj.l.i tc.s cannot proJnto manly Iretdom tiun the couise that we bavo purniee', who have choseu our nature lather than onr sp.'cnl.ilations, out brea-ts rathe; than our inventions, toi tho great conservatories and nui-niities of our rights ai.d privilege";— -BrntKii, liefi, ctianson the l/esql«tltm !