Lest there should be lurking in the minds of any of my readers the thought that Parliament is an authority which it is in vain to try to resist, and that we are to endure now from Parliament invasions of our rights more tyrannical than we should have endured formerly from a King, and therefore that we ought to sit still in inaction, or in a pusillanimous indifference and criminal submission to such invasions of our rights, I venture to urge the people of this country, by the noble examples of the past, to let no day pass over their head without some effort to effect the purification of our country from the great evil established in it by Parliament. And I cannot resist quoting here once more the words of that venerable peer, who has set us an example, worthy to be studied at this day, in resisting the encroachments of the Legislature. These words were spoken under the pressure of ill-health, and have in them a solemn pathos, to which the present crisis enables those of us who recognise its gravity to respond:— “The constitution of this country has been openly invaded, in fact, and I have heard with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended upon principle.... My Lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long since been exploded.... No man respects the House of Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would to preserve them their just and legal authority. Within the bounds prescribed by the constitution, that authority is necessary to the well-being of the people; beyond that line every exertion of power is arbitrary, is illegal, it threatens tyranny to the people and destruction to the State. Power without right is the most odious object that can be offered to the human imagination. It is not only pernicious to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction.... Tyranny, my Lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants....