I am perfectly aware that the absolute letter of this law has been for a period of years set aside in what are called “minor cases.” With the propriety of thus infringing on Magna Charta, even in respect to these minor cases, many great lawyers have had grave doubts, and have strongly expressed an opinion that these cases should not be multiplied or extended. Into this question of minor cases I shall enter more fully in a subsequent chapter; but this case is one of an utterly different nature, involving both the determination of a grave question and the infliction of a grave and prolonged penalty. It is quite possible for a law to be contrary to law. I maintain that this law is contrary to law when judged by the higher laws of the Constitution, to which every law in England is as amenable, and by which it may be as distinctly put on its trial, as we who live in England are amenable to, and may be tried by, the laws of the land. “There are,” says Chancellor Fortescue[25] “laws made which may better deserve to be called corruptions than laws.” We maintain that this law is a corruption, and we unhesitatingly call on all men and women in England to unite in putting it down; in doing which we have a very great cause to contend for—the cause of the liberties of England, concerning which I will quote what Blackstone says. “It is therefore,”[26] says he, speaking of trial by jury, “upon the whole a duty which every man owes to his country, his friends, his posterity, and himself, to maintain to the utmost of his power this valuable constitution in all its rights, to restore it to its ancient dignity, if at all impaired by the different value of property, or otherwise deviated from its first institution, to amend it wherever it is defective; and, above all, to guard with the most jealous circumspection against the introduction of new and arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of plausible pretences, may in time imperceptibly undermine this best preservative of English liberty.”