1821. April 8th.

Constitutional Law.

/First Lines/

Const[?]

Explanation

Constitutional Law has for its object security against misrule: security against those adversaries of the community to whom while /in whose instance/ their situation bestows on them the denomination of rulers, the use they make of it adds the sdjunct evil and thus denominates them evil rulers.

In a Code Of Constitutional Law, /it may seem/ arrangements of two different complexions may be distinguished /must have place/: one set of the nature of those belonging to the distributive /or civil/ branch of law, having for their occupation the distribution of the powers of Government with the opposite and correspondent burthens: the other set presenting a penal aspect: having for their subject /occupation/ the giving a description of a particular class of crimes and of the arrangements employed against them in the character of remedies. /But that the thread may not be interrupted, convenience - recommends the placing what belongs in these countries, in company with what belongs to others, in the penal code?/

In the situation of a ruler, as such, no act that he can committ, be it in ever so high a degree mischievous, wears the denomination of a crime: King, or by what other denomination designated, a ruler can do no wrong. For the same evil act which, if committed by a subject, would be wrong, becomes, by the mere circumstances of its being committed by a ruler, - becomes not wrong, but right.

So far as it wears the complexion of penal law, constitutional law has these two for its distinguishable and contrasted objects: first, the ordering matters so that those who to some purposes and on some occasions, occupy the situation of rulers, shall, in respect of their conduct in that and other situations, be liable to be dealt with in the character of offenders delinquents, criminals: 2. the prdering matters so that for /to/ acts done in resistance to, or for prevention of, misrule, and thence productive or more good than evil - to such acts, of whatever penal denomination they may appear susceptible, no such punishment, if any, shall be allotted as might, with propriety, be allotted to them, if the application of them to the prevention of misrule had no place