It is clear that the leaders of the opposition in 1215 did not consider the constitutional powers of a national Parliament the best safeguard of the rights and liberties theoretically guaranteed by the Charter. Only one practical or constitutional expedient seems to have occurred to them, namely, that embodied in chapter 61. Twenty-five barons were to be appointed by their fellow-barons to act as Executors of the Charter; but their functions were apparently only to be called into play in the event of King John or his officers breaking any of the provisions of the Charter. If this occurred, intimation might be made to a smaller sub-committee of four, chosen from the twenty-five, and these four would straightway ask the King to redress the grievance complained of. If this was not done within forty days, John granted to the Committee of twenty-five, assisted by “the whole community of the realm,” the right practically to make war upon him. He conferred on them in the most explicit terms full power “to distrain and distress us in all possible ways, by seizing our castles, lands, possessions, and in any other way they can, until the grievances are redressed according to their pleasure.” Such a provision can hardly be described as constitutional, since it is rather the negation of all constitutional principles—nothing more nor less than legalized rebellion. Provision is made not for the orderly conduct of government, but rather to provide an organization for making war upon the king in certain abnormal circumstances which are defined. Such a scheme was clearly impracticable, and the fact that it recommended itself as a possible expedient to the barons speaks eloquently of their complete ignorance of the most elementary principles of the science of government. Civil war levied on a warrant granted beforehand by the king is treated as a constitutional expedient for the redress of particular grievances as they arise.[225] ----- Footnote 225: Details of this scheme, and a fuller discussion of its defects will be found _infra_ under chapter 61. ----- The same inability to devise practical remedies for specific evils may be traced in several minor clauses of the Charter.[226] When John promised in chapter 16 that no one should be compelled to do greater service than had been formerly due from any holding, no attempt was made, in case of dispute, to provide constitutional machinery to define what such service actually was; while chapter 45, providing that only men who knew the law, and meant to keep it, should be made justiciars, sheriffs or bailiffs, laid down no criterion of fitness, and contained no suggestion of any way in which so laudable an ambition might be realized. ----- Footnote 226: