resisting it to the utmost of their ability.

Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and
I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a
contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in
politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent
of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist?
To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and
governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We
may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall be made to know ourselves,
and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will
substitute _will_ in the place of it is an enemy to GOD.

Despotism does not in the smallest degree abrogate, alter, or lessen any
one duty of any one relation of life, or weaken the force or obligation
of any one engagement or contract whatsoever. Despotism, if it means
anything that is at all defensible, means a mode of government bound by
no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or
well-settled orders in the state. But if it has no written law, it
neither does nor can cancel the primeval, indefeasible, unalterable law
of Nature and of nations; and if no magistracies control its exertions,
those exertions must derive their limitation and direction either from
the equity and moderation of the ruler, or from downright revolt on the
part of the subject by rebellion, divested of all its criminal
qualities. The moment a sovereign removes the idea of security and
protection from his subjects, and declares that he is everything and
they nothing, when he declares that no contract he makes with them can
or ought to bind him, he then declares war upon them: he is no longer
sovereign; they are no longer subjects.

No man, therefore, has a right to arbitrary power. But the thought which
is suggested by the depravity of him who brings it forward is supported
by a gross confusion of ideas and principles, which your Lordships well
know how to discern and separate. It is manifest, that, in the Eastern
governments, and the Western, and in all governments, the supreme power
in the state cannot, whilst that state subsists, be rendered criminally
responsible for its actions: otherwise it would not be the supreme
power. It is certainly true: but the actions do not change their nature
by losing their responsibility. The arbitrary acts whic