Jeremy Bentham

“ None at all of the duty of government to make laws; none at all of the British constitution; though, of the four other topics we have mentioned, there is no one on which he has been near so copious as on this last. The right of Government to make laws, that delicate and invidious topic, as we shall find it when explained, is that which for the moment, seems to have swallowed up almost the whole of his attention. ”

“ It is as follows:'But farther: municipal law is a rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme power in a state.' `For legislature, as was before observed, is the greatest act of superiority that can be exercised by one being over another. Wherefore it is requisite, to the very essence of a law, that it be made' (he might have added, or at least supported) `by the supreme power. Sovereignty and legislature are indeed convertible terms; one cannot subsist without the other.' I Comm. ”

“ After treating of `LAW in general', of the `LAW of Nature', LAW of Revelation', and `LAW of Nations', branches of that imaginary whole, our Author comes at length to what he calls `LAW municipal': that sort of Law, to which men in their ordinary discourse would give the name of Law without addition ”