Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/162

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E are next to treat of the rights and duties of perons, as they are members of ociety, and tand in various relations to each other. Thee relations are either public or private: and we will firt conider thoe that are public.

mot univeral public relation, by which men are connected together, is that of government; namely, as governors and governed, or, in other words, as magitrates and people. Of magitrates alo ome are upreme, in whom the overeign power of the tate reides; others are ubordinate, deriving all their authority from the upreme magitrate, accountable to him for their conduct, and acting in an inferior econdary phere. all tyrannical governments the upreme magitracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is veted in one and the ame man, or one and the ame body of men; and wherever thee two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. The magitrate may enact tyrannical laws, and execute them in a tyrannical manner, ince he is poeed, in quality of dipener of jutice, with all the power which he as legilator thinks proper to give himelf. But, where the legilative and executive authority are in ditinct hands, the former will take care not to entrut the latter with o large a power, as may tend to the ubverion of it’s own independence, and therewith of the liberty of the ubject. With us therefore in England this upreme