Royal prerogative

“ Such an unprecedented disregard of the royal prerogative had never before occurred in France; and it no sooner became known to the ministers than they hastened to represent it in its most heinous aspect to the Queen, impressing upon her in no measured terms the danger of such a precedent, which could not fail to bring contempt upon her authority, and to introduce disorder into the finances of the nation; and entreating her to remember that should she sanction an alliance between the imprudent favourite and a Prince of the Blood, she could no longer hope to restrain his extravagances. ”

“ It is not enough that they have secured the whole power of the state in their hands,—that they carry every measure they please without the chance of an effectual opposition to it: but a word uttered against it is torture to their ears,—a thought that questions their wanton exercise of the royal prerogative rankles in their breasts like poison. ”

“ A more cautious politician might have suspected some ulterior design beneath this promising external appearance, might have questioned the possibility of some extraordinary exercise of the royal prerogative, and at length concluded that no measure was safe, coming from a sovereign who actually seemed to imagine that divine right was delegated to him to annul any obligation whatever, however freely tendered by himself, provided he could satisfy his own conscience that his so acting would be to the advantage of the Crown. ”

“ In a modified sense those devises are held to be void even at this day, and to need the aid of a royal prerogative still existing in the court, to relieve the devisees against the rules of the common law. ”

“ We are really curious to know by what arguments it is to be proved, that the power of interfering in the lawsuits of individuals is part of the just authority of the executive government.
It is not strange that a man so careless of the common civil rights, which even despots have generally respected, should treat with scorn the limitations which the constitution imposes on the royal prerogative. ”

“ That neither the heir presumptive, nor any other person, is entitled to exercise [Pg 190] the royal prerogative during the king's infancy (or, by parity of reasoning, his infirmity) , nor to any title that conveys them; the sole right of determining the persons by whom, and fixing the limitations under which, the executive government shall be conducted in the king's name and behalf, devolving upon the great council of parliament. ”

“ This was, the promulgation of pragmáticas, or royal ordinances, and that to a greater extent, probably, than under any other reign, before or since. This important prerogative was claimed and exercised, more or less freely, by most European sovereigns in ancient times. Nothing could be more natural, than that the prince should assume such authority, or that the people, blind to the ultimate consequences, and impatient of long or frequent sessions of the legislature, should acquiesce in the temperate use of it. ”

“ It may be the case in some nations, who have no public assemblies of the states, that of necessity the royal prerogative must compel obedience—a power too great, and approaching to tyranny—but we speak (says Mariana) not of barbarians, but of the monarchy which exists, and ought to exist among us, and of that form of polity which of itself is the best. Whether any nation has a right to surrender its liberties to a king, he declines to inquire, observing only that it would act rashly in making such a surrender, and the king almost as much so in accepting it. ”

“ If some few instances are found of violations made on the petition of right, which he himself had granted, there is an easier and more natural way for preventing the return of like inconveniencies, than by a total abolition of royal authority. Let the revenue be settled, suitably to the ancient dignity and splendor of the crown; let the public necessities be fully supplied; let the remaining articles of prerogative be left untouched; and the king, as he has already lost the power, will lay aside the will, of invading the constitution. ”

“ Between those who misrepresent a nation so calm and loyal, and we, who with a deep conviction deposit in your bosom the complaints of an entire people, jealous of the esteem and confidence of their King, let the exalted wisdom of your Majesty decide! Your royal prerogatives have placed in your hands the means of establishing between the authorities of the State, that constitutional harmony, the first and most essential condition for the security of the Throne and the greatness of the country. ”

“ The Englishmen of the first half of the seventeenth century were the fathers of the men who fired shots at Lexington and Concord, "heard round the world."
But how do the royal prerogatives affect our ancestors in England? Our fathers were of common mould, and feel the unjust demand of the tax-gatherer and the insolent demeanor of the Crown officers, who threaten fines and imprisonment for a refusal to obey. The people are aroused and are united; some are hopeless, some hopeful. The Crown seems to have its sway, but the far-sighted see the people on the coming throne of righteous judgement. ”

“ But after the rebellion, and especially after the revolution, when the limits of prerogative became marked out with some degree of precision, and monarchs could no longer effect their purposes by open violence, then more subtle means were resorted to, but scarcely less dangerous, to destroy those who were so unfortunate as to become the objects of royal or ministerial enmity. The king, if he could not make the law, could still appoint the judges of the law ”

“ And yet your said humble subjects ne their predecessors could ever be privy to the said laws; ne any of the said laws have been declared unto them in the English tongue, or otherwise published, by knowledge whereof they might have eschewed the penalties, dangers, or censures of the same; which laws so made your said most humble and obedient servants, under the supportation of your Majesty, suppose to be not only to the diminution and derogation of your imperial jurisdiction and prerogative royal, but also to the great prejudice, inquietation, and damage of your said subjects. ”

“ He is expected to provide for the poor of his realm, and there are always a large number of pensioners on the royal bounty. The princes of the blood are most jealously excluded from power, and their interference in the slightest degree in a matter of politics is regarded as treason. The nobles, however, have within the present century extended their influence, and infringed on the royal prerogatives. ”

“ Although, as after the invasion of property, when sometimes time appears to give a right to possession, the usurpation of royal prerogatives, in the course of years, by a degraded and servile people, may be not merely submitted to, but acknowledged as lawful ”

“ Oh! why is it tolerated that royalty should be allowed to exercise the prerogative of inflicting the deepest wounds without the possibility of the injured party ever receiving redress? Is it not contrary to all laws, both human and divine, to suppose "the king can do no wrong?" If a prince commit an act of injustice, ought he not to be equally amenable with the peasant to the laws of his country? We think so, and hope to see the day when the whole world will acknowledge its justness, and act upon its principle. ”

“ We have been formerly stunned with the big word prerogative, by those who contend for unlimited loyalty: Men, who while they reserve to themselves a right to be the most turbulent of all subjects, would make all others the tamest and the blindest of all slaves. But what prerogative do they mean? I know no prerogative in the crown, which is not at the same time a certain privilege of the people, for their sake granted, and for their sake to be exerted: And where a prerogative is claimed in opposition to the rights and interests of the people, so far a tyranny is claimed ”

“ But, under a limited monarchy, or in a democracy, the case is different. There, those bodies, which an arbitrary monarch would reduce to obedience at once, stand upon prerogative themselves; they form a band in the legislature, and act true to their own interests; so that the sovereign himself is compelled to admit of abuses, which he is willing but not able to remedy. ”

“ There cannot be a stronger proof of that genuine freedom, which is the boast of this age and country, than the power of discussing and examining, with decency and respect, the limits of the king’s prerogative. ”

“ But you, my lord, upon whom the crown has never cast any peculiar marks of favour or displeasure, ought better to consider the duty you owe your sovereign, not only as a subject in general, but as a member of the peerage, who have been always the strenuous asserters of just prerogative against popular encroachments, as well as of liberty against arbitrary power! So that it is something unnatural, as well as unjust, for one of your order to oppose the most mild and gracious prince that ever reigned, upon a party pique, and in points where prerogative was never disputed. ”

“ Many will be ready to say, It is a Slavish and Dangerous Condition to be subject to the Will of any One Man, who is not subject to the Laws. But such Men consider not, 1. That the Prerogative of a King is to be above all Laws, for the good only of them that are under the Laws, and to defend the Peoples Liberties, as His Majesty graciously affirmed in His Speech after His last Answer to the Petition of Right: Howsoever some are afraid of the Name of Prerogative, yet they may assure themselves the Case of Subjects would be desperately miserable without it. ”

“ If we consult history, we shall find that the thing called Prerogative has been claimed and contended for chiefly by those who never intended to make a good use of it; and as readily resigned and thrown up by just and wise princes, who had the true interest of their people at heart. How like senseless stocks do they act, who, by complimenting some capricious mortal, from time to time, with parcels of prerogative, at last put it out of their power to defend and maintain themselves in their just and natural liberty! ”

“ Again, to say that the King's prerogative, as exercised in the choice of his advisers, is a thing so sacred that no abuse of it, or want of judgment shown in its exercise, can warrant a complaint, is inconsistent with every principle of constitutional government, and with every conceivable idea of the privileges of Parliament. ”

“ But it cannot judge if it is to be kept in ignorance; it cannot interpose if it does not know. A secret prerogative is an anomaly—perhaps the greatest of anomalies. That secrecy is, however, essential to the utility of English royalty as it now is. Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it. ”

“ Not to go back to the more ancient periods of our history, when the great weight of the prerogative bore down all opposition, whether of the parliament or the people; even since the prerogative has been defined and limited by the Revolution, when the people, having recently shaken off their yoke, were likely to have stretched their newly-acquired rights to the utmost, there has not been a reign in which the influence of the Crown has been so unceasingly controlled by the jealousy of the House of Commons as that of His present Majesty. ”

“ We know that sovereigns in other countries, where the assertion of absolute regal power is as high as the assertion of absolute power in any politic body can possibly be here, have received many petitions in direct opposition to many of their claims of prerogative,—have listened to them,—condescended to discuss, and to give answers to them. This refusal to admit even the discussion of any part of an undefined prerogative will naturally tend to annihilate any privilege that can be claimed by every inferior dependent community, and every subordinate order in the state. ”

“ Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution.
"A despotic minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honor of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty. ”

“ And hence we order and decree, for its further confirmation, that if any one, no matter who, should venture to desire or appropriate anything which could be injurious to the sovereign rule and monarchical power in any way, everything obtained in this manner shall be declared null and void, and those who have got possession of such things shall be punished as insulters of majesty, because they have impudently committed the greatest crime against the supremacy of the royal monarchical power. ”

“ Its utility is sufficiently displayed in the British System. Nothing could maintain the harmony and subordination of the various parts of the empire, but the prerogative by which the Crown stifles in the birth every Act of every part tending to discord or encroachment. It is true the prerogative is sometimes misapplied thro' ignorance or a partiality to one particular part of the empire: but we have not the same reason to fear such misapplications in our System. [6] ”

“ It is more easy, however, to give hard names to a measure originating with an obnoxious government, than to prove that it did not afford a considerable security to the established church, and impose a very remarkable limitation on the prerogative. ”