He observes that the question of the right of the people to resistance, in certain cases, has been established by the laws of England, which look upon it as the “ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of power.”[94] He further adds: “It was resistance that gave birth to the Great Charter, that lasting foundation of English liberty; and the excesses of a power established by force were also restrained by force. It has been by this same resistance that at different times the people have procured the confirmation of the same charter.” Lastly, this resource of resistance, which for some time continued to be an act of force opposed to other acts of force was, at the era of our glorious Revolution, expressly recognised by the law itself. Judge Blackstone, in his chapter on “the rights of persons,” after examining the absolute rights which pertain to every Englishman, says, “But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the law, if the Constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established certain other auxiliary rights of the subject, which serve principally as outworks or barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property.... “To vindicate these rights when actually violated or attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law. “Next, to the right of petitioning the King and Parliament for redress of grievances. “And lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence. “And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy entire.”[95] Now this solemn right of resistance, carrying with it, as it does, great responsibilities, would be in itself but a vain shadow, did there not exist in the nation the means of effecting a general union, of bringing about great and widely-spread co-operation, and, to use a French word, that _solidarité_ which are the requisite conditions of success in any national enterprise for the redress of national wrongs. Private individuals—and most particularly is it the case in the instance of which we are treating in this Essay—are forced to bear in silence injuries in which they do not see other people take a concern. They tremble in their solitude and weakness at the formidable power of those who oppress them, and as the latter well know the advantages of their own position, they think they may venture upon anything. But when, with the suffering of one—even the meanest member—the sympathy of all the other members of the body politic comes to be expressed, and finds an organized utterance, then the throes of this agony begin at last to be felt as a simultaneous resistance to the power that inflicted it.