12.19. 19. In what Manner the Use of Liberty is suspended in a Republic.
In countries where liberty is most esteemed, there are laws by which a
single person is deprived of it, in order to preserve it for the whole
community. Such are in England what they call Bills of Attainder.
[54]
These are in relation to those Athenian laws by which a private
person was condemned,
[55]
provided they were made by the unanimous
suffrage of six thousand citizens. They are in relation also to those
laws which were made at Rome against private citizens, and were called
privilege.
[56]
These were never passed except in the great meetings of
the people. But in what manner soever they were enacted, Cicero was for
having them abolished, because the force of a law consists in its being
made for the whole community.
[57]
I must own, notwithstanding, that the
practice of the freest nation that ever existed induces me to think that
there are cases in which a veil should be drawn for a while over
liberty, as it was customary to cover the statues of the gods.
Footnotes
[54]
It is not sufficient in the courts of justice of that
kingdom that the evidence be of such a nature as to satisfy the judges; there
must be a legal proof; and the law requires the deposition of two
witnesses against the accused. No other proof will do. Now, if a person
who is presumed guilty of high treason should contrive to secrete the
witnesses, so as to render it impossible for him to be legally
condemned, the government then may bring a hill of attainder against
him; that is, they may enact a particular law for that single fact. They
proceed then in the same manner as in all other bills brought into
parliament; it must pass the two houses, and have the king's consent,
otherwise it is not a bill: that is, a sentence of the legislature. The
person accused may plead against the hill by counsel, and the members of
the house may speak in defence of the bill.
[55]
Legem de singulari aliquo rogato,
nisi sex millibus ita visum. — From Andocidis,
"De Mysteriis." This is what they call Ostracism.
[56]
De privis hominibus latæ. —
Cicero, De Leg., iii. 19.
[57]
Scitum est jussum in omnes. -- Ibid.
