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 people are slaves.
Spooner argues that a government becomes despotic when its laws are enforced without regard for natural justice.
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Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs.
Proud from victory, and with their swords in their hands, would they surrender their liberties to a private man?
They cannot claim or expect that the whole people shall practise the folly of taking on trust their pretended superior knowledge, and of committing blindly into their hands all their own interests, liberties, and rights, to be disposed of…
One answer is, that this power, which juries have of judging of the law, is not a power of absolute decision in all cases.