Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries ... With a glossary, questions, notes and introduction, by Rev. Samuel Warren

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A. Maxwell, 1837 - 428 pages

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Page 83 - Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole — where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol,...
Page 127 - That king James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom, by breaking the original Contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits, and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental Laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the Kingdom, has abdicated the Government, and that the Throne is thereby become vacant.
Page 129 - ... to be to the heirs of the body of the said princess ; and for default of such issue to the princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body ; and for default of such issue to the heirs of the body of the said prince of Orange.
Page 240 - They are not : there is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property ; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.
Page 52 - Such colonists carry with them only so much of the English law, as is applicable to their own situation and the condition of an infant colony; such, for instance, as the general rules of inheritance, and of protection from personal injuries.
Page 67 - Personal liberty," it has been well said, "consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law.
Page 328 - A crime, or misdemeanor, is an act committed, or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it.
Page 84 - God, the original of all just power: . . . that the commons of England, in parliament assembled, being chosen by, and representing, the people, have the supreme power in this nation : . . . that whatsoever is enacted, or declared for law, by the commons, in parliament assembled, hath the force of law; and all the people of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent and concurrence of king, or house of peers be not had thereunto'.
Page 233 - The eleemosynary sort are such as are constituted for the perpetual distribution of the free alms, or bounty, of the founder of them to such persons as he has directed. Of this kind are all hospitals for the maintenance of the poor, sick, and impotent: and all colleges, both in our universities and out e of them : which colleges are founded for two purposes ; 1.
Page 61 - The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and, with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind.

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