"
With the Romans there existed a law that in certain cases the verdict of
the jury might be given CLAM VEL PALAM, viz., _privily_ or _openly_, or
in other words, by _tablet_ or _ballot_, or by _voices_. Now as the
essence of a Parliament or council of the people was its representative
character, and as secrecy would be inconsistent with such a character,
it was doubtless a _sine qua non_ that its proceedings should be
conducted "_palam_," in an open manner. The absence of the letter "_r_"
may possibly be objected to, but a moment's reflection will cast it into
the shade, the classical pronunciation of the word _palam_ being the
same as if spelt _PARlam_; and the illiterate state of this country when
the word Parliament was first introduced would easily account for a
_phonetic_ style of orthography. The words enumerated by Blackstone's
annotator are purely of English composition, and have no _correspondent_
in the dead languages; whilst _testament_, _sacrament_, _parliament_,
and many others, are Latin words Anglicised by dropping the termination
"_um_"--a great distinction as regards the relative value of words,
which the learned annotator seems to have overlooked. "_Mentum_" is
doubtless the offspring of "_mens_", signifying the mind, thought,
deliberation, opinion; and as we find "_palam populo_" to mean "_in the
sight of the people_," so, without any great stretch of imagination, may
we interpret "_palam mente_" into "_freedom of thought or of
deliberation_" or "_an open expression of opinion_:" the essential
qualities of a representative system, and which our ancestors have been
careful to hand down to posterity in a word, viz.
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