Jeremy Bentham

“ Viewed by different persons, it might present different aspects: to men in power it might recommend itself, and that from the first, under the character of a practical lesson of obedience for the use of the people; while among the people themselves it might pass muster, for a time at least, in quality of a string of abstract scientific propositions of jurisprudence. It is not till some occasion for making application of it should occur, that its true use and efficacy would be brought to light. The people, no matter on what occasion, begin to murmur, and concert measures of resistance. ”

“ To say this, however, of all governments without exception;to say that no assemblage of men can subsist in a state of government, without being subject to some one body whose authority stands unlimited so much as by convention ”

“ A task of no less intricacy was here to be travelled through, than that of adjusting the claims of those two jealous antagonists, Liberty and Government. A more invidious ground is scarcely to be found any where within the field of politics. Enemies encompass the traveller on every side. He can scarce stir but he must expect to be assaulted with the war-hoop of political heresy from one quarter or another. ”

“ Let us now introduce the mention of the person: let us add the word `person' to the definition; it will be the same definition still in substance, only a little more fully and precisely worded. For a person to possess the supreme authority, is for a person to possess the power of making laws. This then is what in substance has been already laid down in the antecedent. ”

“ This argument, setting out, as we have seen, without an object, seems however to have found something like one at last, as if it had picked it up by the way. This object, if I mistake it not, is to persuade men, that the supreme power, (that is the person or persons in use to exercise the supreme power in a state) ought, in all points without exception, to be obeyed. What men intend, he says, to do when they are in a state, is to act, as if they were but `one man.' But one man has but one will belonging to him. ”

“ Let the law for instance, be a law imposing a tax: a man who should go about to levy the tax by force would be punishable as a trespasser: should he chance to be killed in the attempt, the person killing him would not be punishable as for murder: should he kill, he himself would, perhaps, be punishable as for murder. ”

“ It is then, we may say, and not till then, allowable to, if not incumbent on, every man, as well on the score of duty as of interest, to enter into measures of resistance; when, according to the best calculation he is able to make, the probable mischiefs of resistance (speaking with respect to the community in general) appear less to him than the probable mischiefs of submission. This then is to him, that is to each man in particular, the juncture for resistance. ”

“ Those who say nothing about forfeiture are commonly less violent in their views. These are they who, were they to ground themselves on the principle of utility, and, to use our language, would have spoken of the law as being mischievous indeed, but without speaking of it as being mischievous to the degree that has been just mentioned. The mode of opposition which they point to is one which passes under the appellation of a legal one. ”

“ For a body then, which is in other respects supreme, to be conceived as being with respect to a certain sort of acts, limited, all that is necessary is, that this sort of acts be in its description distinguishable from every other. ”

“ Still what benefit would, from the general tendency of such a doctrine, and such a practice in conformity to it, accrue to the body of the people is more than I can conceive. A Parliament, let it be supposed, is too much under the influence of the Crown: pays too little regard to the sentiments and the interests of the people. ”

“ In this case, what we are to understand is, that the word `right' was meant to introduce a new idea into this latter part of the sentence, over and above any that was meant to be suggested by the former. `Right' then, according to this construction, in the one place, is to be considered as put in contradistinction to fact in the other. The sense is then, that whatever persons do actually exercise supreme power, (or what, according to the antecedent of the enthymeme, is the same thing, the power of making laws) those persons have the right to exercise it. ”

“ Right of the Supreme Power to Make Laws
1 We now come to the third topic touched upon in the digression; namely, the right, as our Author phrases it, which the Supreme Power has of making laws. And this topic occupies one pretty long paragraph. The title here given to it is the same which in the next succeeding paragraph he has found for it himself. This is fortunate: for, to have been obliged to find a title for it myself, is what would have been to the last degree distressing. To intitle a discourse, is to represent the drift of it. ”

“ God forbid, that from any thing here said it should be concluded that in any society any convention is or can be made, which shall have the effect of setting up an insuperable bar to that which the parties affected shall deem a reformation:God forbid that any disease in the constitution of a state should be without its remedy. ”

“ The people at any rate, if not so great a share as they might and ought to have, have had, at least, some share in chusing it. Give to the Judges a power of annulling its acts; and you transfer a portion of the supreme power from an assembly which the people have had some share, at least, in chusing, to a set of men in the choice of whom they have not the least imaginable share ”

“ The consequence of a private instrument's being void is, that all persons concerned are to act as if no such instrument had existed. The consequence, accordingly, of a law's being void must be, that people shall act as if there were no such law about the matter: and therefore that if any person in virtue of the mandate of the law should do anything in coercion of another person, which without such law he would be punishable for doing, he would still be punishable ”

“ A public and authorized debate on the propriety of the law is by this means brought on. The artillery of the tongue is played off against the law, under cover of the law itself. An opportunity is gained of impressing sentiments unfavourable to it, upon a numerous and attentive audience. ”

“ The discontented party would then take their resolution to resist or to submit, upon just grounds, according as it should appear to them worth their while according to what should appear to them, the importance of the matter in dispute according to what should appear to them the probability or improbability of success according, in short, as the mischiefs of submission should appear to bear a less, or a greater ratio to the mischiefs of resistance. ”

“ Now these past facts are almost always numerous: so numerous, that till brought into view for the purpose of the debate, a great proportion of them are what may very fairly have escaped the observation of one of the parties: and it is owing, perhaps, to this and nothing else, that that party is of the persuasion which sets it at variance with the other. ”

“ In the word here chosen there lurks a fallacy which makes the proposition the more dangerous as it is the more plausible. It is too important to be altogether past over: at the same time that a slight hint of it, in this place, is all that can be given. Murder is killing under certain circumstances.Is the human law then to be allowed to define, in dernier resort, what shall be those circumstances, or is it not? ”

“ With men of the same party, with men whose affections are already listed against the law in question, any thing will go down: any rubbish is good that will add fuel to the flame. But with regard to an impartial by-stander, it is plain that it is not denying the right of the legislature, heir authority, their power, or whatever be the word it is not denying hat they can do what is in question it is not that, I say, or any discourse verging that way that can tend to give him the smallest satisfaction.
28. Grant even the proposition in general:What are we the nearer? ”

“ Armed, and full of indignation, our malecontents are making their way to the royal palace. In vain. A certain estoppel being made to bolt out upon them, in the manner we have seen, by the force of our Author's legal engineering, their arms are to fall, as it were by enchantment, from their hands. To disagree, to clamour, to oppose, to take back, in short, their wills again, is now, they are told, too late: it is what cannot be done: their wills have been put in hotchpot along with the rest: they have `united', they have `consented', they have `submitted'. ”

“ Let us avow then, in short, steadily but calmly, what our Author hazards with anxiety and agitation, that the authority of the supreme body cannot, unless where limited by express convention, be said to have any assignable, any certain bounds.That to say there is any act they cannot do,to speak of any thing of their's as being illegal,as being void; to speak of their exceeding their authority (whatever be the phrase) their power, their right, is, however common, an abuse of language.
27. The legislature cannot do it? The legislature cannot make a law to this effect? Why cannot? ”

“ If, instead of saying that a law is a will, he had called it the expression of a will, and that sort of expression of a will which goes by the name of a command, his definition would, so far as this goes, have been clear as well as right. As it is, it is neither the one nor the other. But of this more, if at all, in another place. The definition of law is a matter of too much nicety and importance to be dispatched in a note.↑ I Comm. ”

“ It is not that no human laws should contradict them: but that no human laws should be SUFFERED to contradict them. He then proceeds to give us an example. This example, one might think, would be such as should have the effect of softening the dangerous tendency of the rule:on the contrary, it is such as cannot but enhance it ”