Both these acts, in which are heard the unerring,
unambiguous oracles of revolution policy, instead of countenancing the
delusive, gipsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors",
prove to a demonstration how totally adverse the wisdom of the
nation was from turning a case of necessity into a rule of law.
Unquestionably, there was at the Revolution, in the person of King
William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of
a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine
principles of jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made in a
special case and regarding an individual person. Privilegium non
transit in exemplum. If ever there was a time favorable for
establishing the principle that a king of popular choice was the
only legal king, without all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not
being done at that time is a proof that the nation was of opinion it
ought not to be done at any time. There is no person so completely
ignorant of our history as not to know that the majority in parliament
of both parties were so little disposed to anything resembling that
principle that at first they were determined to place the vacant
crown, not on the head of the Prince of Orange, but on that of his
wife Mary, daughter of King James, the eldest born of the issue of
that king, which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his.
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