himself commit some act that
amounts to a forfeiture. Neither do divine or natural _duties_ (such
as, for instance, the worship of God, the maintenance of children, and
the like) receive any stronger sanction from being also declared to be
duties by the law of the land. The case is the same as to crimes and
misdemesnors, that are forbidden by the superior laws, and therefore
stiled _mala in se_, such as murder, theft, and perjury; which
contract no additional turpitude from being declared unlawful by the
inferior legislature. For that legislature in all these cases acts
only, as was before observed, in subordination to the great lawgiver,
transcribing and publishing his precepts. So that, upon the whole, the
declaratory part of the municipal law has no force or operation at
all, with regard to actions that are naturally and intrinsically right
or wrong.

BUT with regard to things in themselves indifferent, the case is
entirely altered. These become either right or wrong, just or unjust,
duties or misdemesnors, according as the municipal legislator sees
proper, for promoting the welfare of the society, and more effectually
carrying on the purposes of civil life. Thus our own common law has
declared, that the goods of the wife do instantly upon marriage become
the property and right of the husband; and our statute law has
declared all monopolies a public offence: yet that right, and this
offence, have no foundation in nature; but are merely created by the
law, for the purposes of civil society. And sometimes, where the thing
itself has it's rise from the law of nature, the particular
circumstances and mode of doing it become right or wrong, as the laws
of the land shall direct. Thus, for instance, in civil duties;
obedience to superiors is the doctrine of revealed as well as natural
religion: but who those superiors shall be, and in what circumstances,
or to what degrees they shall be obeyed, is the province of human laws
to determine. And so, as to injuries or crimes, it must be left to our
own legislature to decide, in what cases the seising another's cattle
shall amount to the crime of robbery; and where it shall be a
justifiable action, as when a landlord takes them by way of distress
for rent.

THUS much for the _declaratory_ part of the municipal law: and the
_directory_ stands much upon the same footing; for this virtually
includes the former, the declaration being usually collected from the
direction. The law t