Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/29

 “Exactor,” the capricious Will of mere temporal fallible Sovereigns, which he supposes to be Law, independent of all Compacts or Covenants expressed or implied!

Thus I hope I have traced, to the very foundation, the Baron's error in denying the principle or maxim beforementioned, (concerning the necessity of popular assent in Legislation;) for, if he had not attempted to separate the idea of a Covenant from Law, he could not have overlooked the absolute illegality of those pretended Laws which are ordained only by the Will and “Power of the Exactor!” because the meanest professor of the English Common-Law would have told him, that every submission, promise, or agreement, that is extorted by fear and compulsion, is (according to the Law of Nature) totally null and in itself; and he himself is sufficiently sensible of this in another place. And, even if