a parallel is not to be found in the history of his father.  Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have violated.  He had, according to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quartered troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner.  Not a single session of Parliament had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the freedom of debate; the right of petition was grossly violated; arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments were grievances of daily occurrence.  If these things do not justify resistance, the Revolution was treason; if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable.

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures?  Why, after the king had consented to so many reforms, and renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the Parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of provoking a civil war?  The ship-money had been given up.  The Star-chamber had been abolished.  Provision had been made for the frequent convocation and secure deliberation of parliaments.  Why not pursue an end confessedly good by peaceable and regular means?  We recur again to the analogy of the Revolution.  Why was James driven from the throne?  Why was he not retained upon conditions?  He too had offered to call a free parliament, and to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute.  Yet we are in the habit of praising our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant.  The Long Parliament acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the same praise.  They could not trust the king.  He had, no doubt, passed salutary laws; but what assurance was there that he would not break them?  He had renounced oppressive prerogatives; but where was the security that he would not resume them?  The nation had to deal with a man whom no tie could bind, a man who made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose honor had been a hundred times pawned, and never redeemed.

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still stronger ground than the Convention of 1688.  No action of James can be compared to the conduct of Charles with respect to the Petition of Right.  The Lords and Commons present him with a bill in which the constitutional limits of his power are marked out.  He hesitates; he evades; at last he bargains to give his assent for five subsidies.  The bill receives his solemn assent; the subsidies are voted; but no sooner is the tyrant relieved than he returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very act which he had been paid to pass.