Cite as: 529 U. S. 513 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
would be required under the two-witness law,18 and despite the repeated importuning against the passing of an ex post facto law.19 The bill then was taken up and passed by the
18 See, e. g., id., at 270 ("I believe this House can't take away any Persons Life upon less Evidence than Inferiour Courts could do"); id., at 288 ("Shall we that are the Supream Authority . . . go upon less Evidence to satisfie ourselves of Sir John Fenwick's Guilt, than other Courts?"); id., at 317 ("I can't satisfie my self in my Conscience, and should think some misfortune might follow me and my Posterity, if I passed Sentence upon Sir John Fenwick's Life, upon less Evidence than the Law of England requires"); id., at 342 ("But the Liberty of the People of England is very much concerned in the Revocation of that Act; and none of the Arguments that have been used can Convince me, That I ought to give Judgment upon less Evidence than is required by that Act").
19 See, e. g., id., at 145 ("I can't say, but those Persons, who in the last Sessions of Parliament, were Imprisoned by an Act Ex Post Facto, and subsequent to the Fact Complained of, yet when it was passed into a Law, they were Legally Detained: but, I hope, I may take notice of their Case, as some kind of Reason against this, to the end that those Laws may not grow familiar, that they may not easily be obtained; because Precedents generally grow, and as that Law Ex Post Facto, extended to Liberty, so this extends to Life . . ."); id., at 152-153 ("It would be too much at once to make a subsequent Law to condemn a Man to Death . . . . I am afraid none are safe if that be admitted, That a subsequent Law may take away a Man's Life . . ." (emphasis added)); id., at 197 ("Sir, It hath been urged to you, of what ill Consequence it would be, and how much Injustice to make a Law to Punish a Man, Ex post Facto . . ."); id., at 256 ("But how shall they Judge? By the Laws in being. . . . That you may Judge that to be Treason in this House, that was not so by the Law before. So that give me leave to say, therefore there is no such Power reserved to the Parliament, to Declare any thing Treason that is not Treason before" (emphasis added)); id., at 282-283 ("[F]or according to your Law, no Man shall be declared Guilty of Treason, unless there be two Witnesses against him . . . . But how can a Man satisfie his own Conscience, to Condemn any Man by a Law that is subsequent to the Fact? For that is the Case . . ." (emphasis added)); id., at 305 ("I think I may confidently affirm, there is not so much as one Precedent where a Person . . . was taken away from his Tryal, . . . and cut off extrajudicially by an Act made on purpose, Ex post Facto"); id., at 331-332 ("Those Acts that have been made since, are made certainly to provide, That in no Case whatsoever, a Man should be so much as accused without two Witnesses
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