g
in an inferior secondary sphere.

IN all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right
both of _making_ and of _enforcing_ the laws, is vested in one and the
same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two
powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. The
magistrate may enact tyrannical laws, and execute them in a tyrannical
manner, since he is possessed, in quality of dispenser of justice,
with all the power which he as legislator thinks proper to give
himself. But, where the legislative and executive authority are in
distinct hands, the former will take care not to entrust the latter
with so large a power, as may tend to the subversion of it's own
independence, and therewith of the liberty of the subject. With us
therefore in England this supreme power is divided into two branches;
the one legislative, to wit, the parliament, consisting of king,
lords, and commons; the other executive, consisting of the king alone.
It will be the business of this chapter to consider the British
parliament; in which the legislative power, and (of course) the
supreme and absolute authority of the state, is vested by our
constitution.

THE original or first institution of parliaments is one of those
matters that lie so far hidden in the dark ages of antiquity, that the
tracing of it out is a thing equally difficult and uncertain. The
word, _parliament_, itself (or _colloquium_, as some of our historians
translate it) is comparatively of modern date, derived from the
French, and signifying the place where they met and conferred
together. It was first applied to general assemblies of the states
under Louis VII in France, about the middle of the twelfth century[a].
But it is certain that, long before the introduction of the Norman
language into England, all matters of importance were debated and
settled in the great councils of the realm. A practice, which seems to
have been universal among the northern nations, particularly the
Germans[b]; and carried by them into all the countries of Europe,
which they overran at the dissolution of the Roman empire. Relics of
which constitution, under various modifications and changes, are still
to be met with in the diets of Poland, Germany, and Sweden, and the
assembly of the estates in France; for what is there now called the
parliament is only the supreme court of justice, composed of judges
and advocates; which neither is in practice, nor is supposed