It is highly neceſſary for preſerving the ballance of the conſtitution, that the executive power ſhould be a branch, though not the whole, of the legiſlature. The total union of them, we have ſeen, would be productive of tyranny; the total disjunction of them for the preſent, would in the end produce the ſame effects, by cauſing that union, againſt which it ſeems to provide. The legiſlature would ſoon become tyrannical, by making continual encroachments, and gradually aſſuming to itſelf the rights of the executive power. Thus the long parliament of Charles the firſt, while it acted in a conſtitutional manner, with the royal concurrence, redreſſed many heavy grievances and eſtabliſhed many ſalutary laws. But when the two houſes aſſumed the power of legiſlation, in excluſion of the royal authority, they ſoon after aſſumed likewiſe the reins of adminiſtration; and, in conſequence of theſe united powers, overturned both church and ſtate, and eſtabliſhed a worſe oppreſſion than any they pretended to remedy. To hinder therefore any ſuch encroachments, the king is himſelf a part of the parliament: and, as this is the reaſon of his being ſo, very properly therefore the ſhare of legiſlation, which the conſtitution has placed in the crown, conſiſts in the power of rejecting, rather than reſolving; this being ſufficient to anſwer the end propoſed. For we may apply to the royal negative, in this inſtance, what Cicero obſerves of the negative of the Roman tribunes, that the crown has not any power of doing wrong, but merely of preventing wrong from being done[1]. The crown cannot begin of itſelf any alterations in the preſent eſtabliſhed law; but it may approve or diſapprove of the alterations ſuggeſted and conſented to by the two houeſs. The legiſlative therefore cannot abridge the executive power of any rights which it now has by law, without it’s own conſent; ſince the law muſt perpetually ſtand as it now does, unleſs all the powers will agree to alter it. And herein indeed conſiſts the true excellence of the Engliſh government, that all the parts of it form a mutual check upon
- ↑ Sulla—tribunis plebis ſua lege injuriae faciendae poteſtatem ademit, auxilii ferendi reliquit. de LL. 3. 9.
