hree
powers entirely independent of each other; first the King, secondly the
lords spiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of
persons, chosen for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour
or their property; and, thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen by
the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy;
and as this aggregate body, actuated by different springs and attentive
to different interests, composes the British Parliament and has the
supreme disposal of everything; there can be no inconvenience attempted
by either of the three branches, but will be withstood by one of the
other two; each branch being armed with a negative power, sufficient to
repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous." It
is in the king in Parliament that British sovereignty resides. Eschewing
the notion of an original contract, Blackstone yet thinks that all the
implications of it are secured. "The constitutional government of this
island," he says, "is so admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing
can endanger or hurt it, but destroying the equilibrium of power between
one branch of the legislature and the rest."

All this is not enough; though, as Bentham was to show in his _Fragment
on Government_, it is already far too much. "A body of nobility," such
is the philosophic interpretation of the House of Lords, "is also more
peculiarly necessary in our mixed and compounded constitution, in order
to support the rights of both the Crown and people, by forming a barrier
to withstand the encroachments of both ... if they were confounded with
the mass of the people, and like them had only a vote in electing
representatives, their privileges would soon be borne down and
overwhelmed by the popular torrent, which would effectually level all
distinctions." "The Commons," he says further, "consist of all such men
of property in the kingdom as have not seats in the House of Lords." The
legal irresponsibility of the King is emphasized. "He is not only
incapable of doing wrong," says Blackstone, "but even of thinking wrong;
he can never mean to do an improper thing; in him is no folly or
weakness," though he points out that the constitution "has allowed a
latitude of supposing the contrary." The powers of the King are
described in terms more suitable to the iron despotism of William the
Norman than to the backstairs corruption of George III. The right of
revolution is noted