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jure the effect of nullifying all votes subsequently given for him , and enabling t Qe presiding officer to declare a rival candidate with a minority of votes to be duly elected : thus putting it into the power of any intriguing electioneer to rob the majority of their franchise , and thrust upon them an individual obnoxious in the highest
degree . This was exemplified in the case of the King v . Parry and Phillips , 1811 , reported 14 East , 549 , where informations , in the nature of a quo warranto , were exhibited against the defendants as Common-councilmen of
Haverfordwest . It appeared that their votes more than trebled the numbers of votes for the candidates whose election wa 3 sought to be established , and would have been established but that the Mayor refused to admit them into office , and the defendants , in the
mean time , removed their disabilities , by complying with the terms of the Indemnity Act . See also the case of the King v . Hawkins , 10 East , 211 , in which the candidate , having the
majority of legal , but a minority of actual , votes , had been declared duly elected , and was considered as legally filling " the office ; and the case of King v . Bridge , 1 Maule , and Selwyn , 7 f > , which decides that a candidate cannot
gain his election by a minority of votes given before notice of the disqualification of his opponent . The existing notion , therefore , that the Corporation and Test Acts are in their actual operation a mere dead letter , is far from being founded in truth -, and should the fashion of
forming associations for enforcing the penal laws be extended to the laws against Nonconformity , there are many openmgs through which the astuteness of a legal secretary may pounce upon the luckless Dissenter , who may have trusted to common opinion for that protection which the laws , strictly construed , do not and were never intended
lo secure . It has been suggested , that the Jud ges would , in deference to the ge ~ Ueral impression as to the intent * U ( 1 operation of these Acts of
Inaenanit y , delay the trial or judgment m any proceeding which might be indiluted under the Test Laws , so as to K've the defendant the benefit of the ext indemnit y Act : but this expec-
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tation appears to me whblly unjustifiable - I y * and , for one , would deprecate such an unprincipled interference with the course of the law on the part of any court of justice , the more especially as I feel convinced , that if those judicial characters who have , at various
periods , signalized themselves by their enlarged views on the subject of religious liberty , had , by giving full scope to these barbarous enactments , exposed them to the eye of the public in all their naked deformity , they would have rendered a more essential and
permanent service to that great cause , than any departure from the spirit of the statute book , in deference to the general spirit of the times could possibly effect . In this point , of view , even the decision in Allen Evans's case f affords matter of doubtful tri-* The case of Rex v . Brown , 29 Geo .
III ., reported in a Note to 3 Term Reports , p . 574 , will , perhaps ^ be thought conclusive upon this point . A rule for an information , in the nature of a quo warranto , against the defendants as Common-couucilmen of York , for not having received the Sacrament , was obtained within six months after their election
and Erskine shewed cause against the rule , urging , that if the court thought the granting of these informations discretionary , no case could occur where that discretion might be more properly exercised ; for the necessity of the statute in question had been long since done away , and the defendants had been elected
without their knowledge , and in their absence , and by their affidavits state , unequivocally , that they are members of the Church of England . Lord Kenyou said , " I think we are bound to grant this information . The law has said that
the magistracy of the country shall be in the hands of those who profess the religion of the Church of England . This law lias been revised and softened dowu since the accession of the House of Hanover ; but we are now called upon to
pare away the provisions of it still more than the Legislature have yet thought fit to do /' +- See 2 Burn ' s EccL Law . Tit . Disseuters : A ' Brown ' s Pml . Cases , 476 .
It seems the question ultimately decided in that celebrated case was very early agitated m the cases of the Mayor , &cof GuiWford v . Clerk , ( 2 William and Mary , ) 2 Veiitri * , £ 47 , and the King w . 4 «< U'ivood , ( 6 William-III ., ) reported iu Skinoar , 574 , 4 Modern , 270 . The latter was upon an'information against the
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The Nfinebnforffitef . - Nt > . XX # . l ^
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V xvii . T
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 137, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/9/
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