In this conference, however, if the whigs had every advantage on the solid grounds of expediency, or rather political necessity, the tories were as much superior in the mere argument, either as it regarded the common sense of words, or the principles of our constitutional law. Even should we admit that an hereditary king is competent to abdicate the throne in the name of all his posterity, this could only be intended of a voluntary and formal cession, not such a constructive abandonment of his right by misconduct as the Commons had imagined. The word "forfeiture" might better have answered this purpose; but it had seemed too great a violence on principles which it was more convenient to undermine than to assault. Nor would even forfeiture bear out by analogy the exclusion of an heir, whose right was not liable to be set aside at the ancestor's pleasure. It was only by recurring to a kind of paramount, and what I may call hyper-constitutional law, a mixture of force and regard to the national good, which is the best sanction of what is done in revolutions, that the vote of the Commons could be defended. They proceeded not by the stated rules of the English government, but the general rights of mankind. They looked not so much to Magna Charta as the original compact of society, and rejected Coke and Hale for Hooker and Harrington. The House of Lords, after this struggle against principles undoubtedly very novel in the discussions of parliament, gave way to the strength of circumstance and the steadiness of the Commons. They resolved not to insist on their amendments to the original vote; and followed this up by a resolution, that the Prince and Princess of Orange shall be declared King and Queen of England, and all the dominions thereunto belonging.[149] But the Commons with a noble patriotism delayed to concur in this hasty settlement of the Crown, till they should have completed the declaration of those fundamental rights and liberties for the sake of which alone they had gone forward with this great revolution.[150] That declaration, being at once an exposition of the misgovernment which had compelled them to dethrone the late king, and of the conditions upon which they elected his successors, was incorporated in the final resolution to which both houses came on the 13th of February, extending the limitation of the Crown as far as the state of affairs required: "That William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the crown and dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them, the said prince and princess, during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and executed by, the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said prince and princess, during their joint lives; and after their decease the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and