If the oath has never been changed, it follows that judges have not only never been sworn to support any statutes whatever of the king, or of parliament, but that, for five hundred years past, they actually have been sworn to treat as…
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 impossible that this right of the jury could subsist consistently with any right, on the part of the king, to impose any authoritative legislation upon them.
This oath, then, is conclusive proof that his legislation was of no authority with a jury, and that they were under no obligation whatever to enforce it, unless it coincided with their own ideas of justice.
By the Lex Terrae and Lex Regni is understood the laws of Edward the Confessor, confirmed and enlarged as they were by William the Conqueror; and this Constitution or Code of Laws is what even to this day are called 'The Common Law of the…
All arguments founded on the apparent chronology of the subjects included in the laws, are liable to great fallacies.
Written laws were modified and controlled by customs of which no trace can be discovered until after the lapse of centuries, although those usages must have been in constant vigor during the long interval of silence." 1 Palgrave's Rise and…
The courts, or civil arrangements, which were modelled in Germany, preserved the independence of the people; aud having followed the Saxons into England, and continuing their importance, they supported the envied liberty we boast of.
The judicial power thus invested in the people was extensive; they were able to preserve their rights, and attended this court in arms.
Every man, in his district, was bound to inform him concerning criminals, and to assist him to bring them to trial; and, as in rude and violent times the poor and helpless were ready to be oppressed by the strong, he was instructed…
It was necessary that a court should be erected, of supreme authority, where the disputes of the great should be decided, where the disagreeing sentiments of judges should be reconciled, and where protection should be given to the people…
Upon the whole, we cannot but admire the wise economy and admirable provision of our ancestors in settling the distribution of justice in a method so well calculated for cheapness, expedition, and ease.
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.