They have established it as a maxim "That even a statute which should be enacted in contradiction to any article of that charter, cannot have force or validity." But with regard to that important article which secures personal liberty, so far from attempting at any time any legal infringement of it, they have corroborated it by six statutes, and put it out of all doubt and controversy.

If in practice it has often been violated, abuses can never come in the place of rules; nor can any rights or legal powers be derived from injury and injustice.

But the title of the subject to personal liberty not only is founded on ancient, and, therefore, the most sacred laws; it is confirmed by the whole analogy of the government and constitution.

A free monarchy in which every individual is a slave, is a glaring contradiction: and it is requisite, where the laws assign privileges to the different orders of the state, that it likewise secure the independence of the members.
If any difference could be made in this particular, it were better to abandon even life or property to the arbitrary will of the prince; nor would such immediate danger ensue, from that concession, to the laws and to the privileges of the people.

To bereave of his life a man not condemned by any legal trial, is so egregious an exercise of tyranny, that it must at once shock the natural humanity of princes, and convey an alarm throughout the whole commonwealth.