power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist?
To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal
laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall
be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he
that will substitute will in the place of it is an enemy to GOD.
Despotism does not in the smallest degree abrogate, alter, or lessen any one duty of any one
relation of life, or weaken the force or obligation of any one engagement or contract
whatsoever. Despotism, if it means anything that is at all defensible, means a mode of
government bound by no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or well-
settled orders in the state. But if it has no written law, it neither does nor can cancel the
primeval, indefeasible, unalterable law of Nature and of nations; and if no magistracies
control its exertions, those exertions must derive their limitation and direction either from
the equity and moderation of the ruler, or from downright revolt on the part of the subject
by rebellion, divested of all its criminal qualities. The moment a sovereign removes the idea
of security and protection from his subjects, and declares that he is everything and they
nothing, when he declares that no contract he makes with them can or ought to bind him, he
then declares war upon them: he is no longer sovereign; they are no longer subjects.
No man, therefore, has a right to arbitrary power. But the thought which is suggested by the
depravity of him who brings it forward is supported by a gross confusion of ideas and
principles, which your Lordships well know how to discern and separate. It is manifest,
that, in the Eastern governments, and the Western, and in all governments, the supreme
power in the state cannot, whilst that state subsists, be rendered criminally responsible for
its actions: otherwise it would not be the supreme power. It is certainly true: but the actions