A state without the means of some change is without the means of its
conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that
part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to
preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated
strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution,
when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the
nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did
not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases
they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the
parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they
were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the
ancient organized states in the shape of their old organization, and not
by the organic moleculae of a disbanded people. At no time, perhaps,
did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that
fundamental principle of British constitutional policy than at the time
of the Revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary
succession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it
had before moved; but the new line was derived from the same stock. It
was still a line of hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent
in the same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified with
Protestantism. When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the
principle, they showed that they held it inviolable.