_Its constructive interpretation._--It seems impossible not to observe that the want of distinct arrangement natural to so unphilosophical an age, and which renders many of our old statutes very confused, is eminently displayed in this strange conjunction of offences; where to counterfeit the king's seal, which might be for the sake of private fraud, and even his coin, which must be so, is ranged along with all that really endangers the established government, with conspiracy and insurrection. But this is an objection of little magnitude, compared with one that arises out of an omission in enumerating the modes whereby treason could be committed. In most other offences, the intention, however manifest, the contrivance, however deliberate, the attempt, however casually rendered abortive, form so many degrees of malignity, or at least of mischief, which the jurisprudence of most countries, and none more than England, formerly, has been accustomed to distinguish from the perpetrated action by awarding an inferior punishment, or even none at all. Nor is this distinction merely founded on a difference in the moral indignation with which we are impelled to regard an inchoate and a consummate crime, but is warranted by a principle of reason, since the penalties attached to the completed offence spread their terror over all the machinations preparatory to it; and he who fails in his stroke has had the murderer's fate as much before his eyes as the more dexterous assassin. But those who conspire against the constituted government connect in their sanguine hope the assurance of impunity with the execution of their crime, and would justly deride the mockery of an accusation which could only be preferred against them when their banners were unfurled, and their force arrayed. It is as reasonable, therefore, as it is conformable to the usages of every country, to place conspiracies against the sovereign power upon the footing of actual rebellion, and to crush those by the penalties of treason, who, were the law to wait for their opportunity, might silence or pervert the law itself. Yet in this famous statute we find it only declared treasonable to compass or imagine the king's death; while no project of rebellion appears to fall within the letter of its enactments, unless it ripen into a substantive act of levying war.