Note 26 — Chapter XVI · THE SECOND-CHAMBER PROBLEM[21]

“The proposal for a revived Second Chamber was, on the contrary, carried with an unexpected degree of unanimity. The Protector pressed it strongly upon the officers. ‘I tell you,’ he said, ‘that unless you have some such thing as a balance we cannot be safe. Either you will encroach upon our civil liberties by excluding such as are elected to serve in Parliament—next time for aught I know you may exclude four hundred—or they will encroach upon our religious liberty. By the proceedings of this Parliament you see they stand in need of a check or balancing power, for the case of James Naylor might happen to be your case. By the same law and reason they punished Naylor they might punish an Independent or an Anabaptist. By their judicial power they fall upon life and member, and doth the Instrument enable me to control it? This Instrument of Government will not do your work.’”—J. A. R. Marriott, Second Chambers, p. 38.