The object of the following Essay is to set forth the unconstitutional nature of certain recent Acts of the Legislature, and the danger arising there from, with the view of arousing the country to a sense of that danger.

The enactments called the Contagious Diseases Acts, passed respectively in 1866, 1868, and 1869, may be regarded from several points of view. With their medical aspect and the statistical consideration of their results on public health, it is not my intention to deal. It has been dwelt on by other people, and in other places, fully.

The moral side of the question is undoubtedly the most important, and has been dwelt upon by the religious portion of the community, almost to the exclusion of others, although it may be truly said that it of necessity includes all others.

There is, however, one aspect of the question which has not been sufficiently set forth, that is, the constitutional aspect, including the effect which such legislation must have on our social and moral life as a nation, from a political point of view.

In almost all the great meetings which have been held throughout the country on the subject of these Acts, resolutions have been passed embodying the word “unconstitutional” as characteristic of the Acts, proving that the mass of the people of England have a strong instinct, if it be nothing more, of what is constitutional and what is not. Few terms, it has been said, are more vaguely or loosely employed than this.