This act, proceeding on these principles, that is, preparing to end the present troubles by a trial of one sort of hostility under the name of piracy, and of another by the name of treason, and executing the act of Henry the Eighth according to a new and unconstitutional interpretation, I have thought evil and dangerous, even though the instruments of effecting such purposes had been merely of a neutral quality.

But it really appears to me that the means which this act employs are at least as exceptionable as the end.  Permit me to open myself a little upon this subject; because it is of importance to me, when I am obliged to submit to the power without acquiescing in the reason of an act of legislature, that I should justify my dissent by such arguments as may be supposed to have weight with a sober man.

The main operative regulation of the act is to suspend the Common Law and the statute Habeas Corpus (the sole securities either for liberty or justice) with regard to all those who have been out of the realm, or on the high seas, within a given time.  The rest of the people, as I understand, are to continue as they stood before.

I confess, Gentlemen, that this appears to me as bad in the principle, and far worse in its consequence, than an universal suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; and the limiting qualification, instead of taking out the sting, does in my humble opinion sharpen and envenom it to a greater degree.  Liberty, if I understand it at all, is a general principle, and the clear right of all the subjects within the realm, or of none.  Partial freedom seems to me a most invidious mode of slavery.  But, unfortunately, it is the kind of slavery the most easily admitted in times of civil discord:  for parties are but too apt to forget their own future safety in their desire of sacrificing their enemies.  People without much difficulty admit the entrance of that injustice of which they are not to be the immediate victims.  In times of high proceeding it is never the faction of the predominant power that is in danger:  for no tyranny chastises its own instruments.  It is the obnoxious and the suspected who want the protection of law; and there is nothing to bridle the partial violence of state factions but this,—­“that, whenever an act is made for a cessation of law and justice, the whole people should be universally subjected to the same suspension of their franchises.”  The alarm of such a proceeding would then be universal.  It would operate as a sort of call of the nation.  It would become every man’s immediate and instant concern to be made very sensible of the absolute necessity of this total eclipse of liberty.  They would more carefully advert to every renewal, and more powerfully resist it.  These great determined measures are not commonly so dangerous to freedom.  They are marked with too strong lines to slide into use.  No plea, nor pretence, of inconvenience