And how had the common people made known their
approbation or selection of these laws? Plainly, in no
other way than this that the juries composed of the
common people had voluntarily enforced them.
The common people had no other legal form of making
known their approbation of particular laws.
The word "concede," too, is an important word. In the
English statutes it is usually translated grant as if with
an intention to indicate that "the laws, customs, and
liberties" of the English people were mere privileges,
granted to them by the king; whereas it should be
translated concede, to indicate simply an acknowledgment,
on the part of the king, that such were the laws, customs,
and liberties, which had been chosen and established
by the people themselves, and of right belonged to them,
and which he was bound to respect.
I will now give some authorities to show that the foregoing
oath has, in substance, been the coronation oath from
the times of William the Conqueror, (1066,) down to the
time of James the First, and probably until 1688.
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