William Blackstone
William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone SL KCwas an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle-class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionJudge
Date of Birth10 July 1723
The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity.
The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength, - the floating bulwark of our island.
Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.
There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.
To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.
Trial by jury is a privilege of the highest and most beneficial nature [and] our most important guardian both of public and private liberty. The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, ... but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it.
The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.. are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.