But in its more immediate objects--that of establishing the two principles, that the constitution knows of no limitation to the authority of Parliament, and of no distinction between the power of taxation and that of any other kind of legislation--Lord Mansfield's speech is now universally admitted to have been unanswerable.[38] The abstract right was unquestionably on the side of the minister and the Parliament who had imposed the tax.

But he is not worthy of the name of statesman who conceives absolute rights and metaphysical distinctions to be the proper foundation for measures of government, and pays no regard to custom, to precedent, to the habits and feelings of the people to be governed; who, disregarding the old and most true adage, _summum jus summa injuria_, omits to take into his calculations the expediency of his actions when legislating for a nation which he is in the daily habit of weighing in his private affairs.

The art or science of government are phrases in common use; but they would be void of meaning if all that is requisite be to ascertain the strict right or power, and then unswervingly to act upon it in all its rigor.

And, therefore, while it must be admitted that the character of the power vested in King, Lords, and Commons assembled in Parliament is unlimited and illimitable, and that the legal competency to enact a statute depends in no degree whatever on the wisdom or folly, the justice or wickedness, of the statute, the advice given to a constitutional sovereign by his advisers must be guided by other considerations.

To quote by anticipation the language addressed to the Commons on this subject by Burke eight years afterward, the proper policy was "to leave the Americans as they anciently stood ...