The prerogatives of the crown, and the rights and privileges of the people, flowing from the two fore-mentioned articles, are the ground of all the laws that from time to time have been made by unanimous consent of king and people.
Lysander Spooner
The Public Record
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphleteer, political philosopher, and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition.
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It was necessary that the king should obtain the assent of these (the members o the Witena-gemotes) to all legislative enactments; because, without their acquiescence and support, it was impossible to carry them into execution.
It is ridiculous to suppose that the assent of such an assembly gave any authority to the laws of the king, or had any influence in securing obedience to them, otherwise than by way of persuasion.
If this body had had any real legislative authority, they would have constituted an aristocracy, having, in conjunction with the king, absolute power over the people.
Conclusive proof that the legislation of the king was of little or no authority, is found in the fact that the kings enacted so few laws.
If their laws had been received as authoritative, in the manner that legislative enactments are at this day, they would have been making laws continually.
The code of Alfred would not fill twelve pages of the statute book of Massachusetts, and was little or nothing else than a compilation of the laws of Moses, and the Saxon customs, evidently collected from considerations of convenience…
How is this abstinence from legislation, on the part of the ancient kings, to be accounted for, except on the supposition that the people would accept, and juries enforce, few or no new laws enacted by their kings?
But it is in the administration of justice, or of law, that the freedom or subjection of a people is tested.
If this administration be in accordance with the arbitrary will of the legislator that is, if his will, as it appears in his statutes, be the highest rule of decision known to the judicial tribunals, the government is a despotism, and the…
If, on the other hand, the rule of decision be these principles of natural equity and justice, which constitute, or at least are embodied in, the general conscience of mankind, the people are free in just so far as that conscience is…
If the authority be vested in the government, the governmnt is absolute, and the people have no liberties except such as the government sees fit to indulge them with.