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THE

ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

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1435,27

1850, CXL. 14.

$2.33

PRINTED BY

JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,

LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, LONDON.

PREFACE.

My object, in the following work, has been to trace, historically, the rise and growth of the English Constitution, down to the period when our political institutions had acquired all the elements of their present maturity, -that is, to the Revolution; and then to describe and explain the rights, duties, and mutual action of those institutions as they now exist, modified by changes in the laws, and by Parliamentary Government and procedure since the Revolution. The work originated in a lecture I delivered in 1854; and I have employed the leisure which a retirement of three years from the profession of the Law has afforded me, and in that employment found a pursuit congenial to my former professiona] occupations, to amplify and extend it. The result is the present book, which I venture to hope may be found to contain a concise but comprehensive account of the Constitution;-of its institutions; of the legislation by which the freedom and rights it confers on the people have been secured; and of its merits and advantages as a system of Government.

The history follows the course of our Parliamentary career and legislation; and considering it subordinate to the main design of the treatise, I have in general

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