Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/67

§. 2. elected for their piety, their birth, their widom, their valour, or their property; and, thirdly, the houe of commons, freely choen by the people from among themelves, which makes it a kind of democracy; as this aggregate body, actuated by different prings, and attentive to different interets, compoes the Britih parliament, and has the upreme dipoal of every thing; there can no inconvenience be attempted by either of the three branches, but will be withtood by one of the other two; each branch being armed with a negative power, ufficient to repel any innovation which it hall think inexpedient or dangerous. then is lodged the overeignty of the Britih contitution; and lodged as beneficially as is poible for ociety. For in no other hape could we be o certain of finding the three great qualities of government o well and o happily united. If the upreme power were lodged in any one of the three branches eparately, we mut be expoed to the inconveniences of either abolute monarchy, aritocracy, or democracy; and o want two of the three principal ingredients of good polity, either virtue, widom, or power. If it were lodged in any two of the branches; for instance, in the king and houe of lords, our laws might be providently made, and well executed, but they might not always have the good of the people in view: if lodged in the king and commons, we hould want that circumpection and mediatory caution, which the widom of the peers is to afford: if the upreme rights of legilature were lodged in the two houes only, and the king had no negative upon their proceedings, they might be tempted to encroach upon the royal prerogative, or perhaps to abolih the kingly office, and thereby weaken (if not totally detroy) the trength of the executive power. But the contitutional government of this iland is o admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing can endanger or hurt it, but detroying the equilibrium of power between one branch of the legilature and the ret. For if ever it hould happen that the independence of any one of the three hould be lot, or that it hould become ubervient to the views of either of the other two, there would Rh