[152]
That you are empowered to pass sentence of imprisonment I prove
by this argument; and I take it that everybody will agree that to invalidate
judicial decisions is monstrous, impious, and subversive of popular government.
Our commonwealth, gentlemen of the jury, is administered by laws and by votes of
the people; and if once decisions by vote are repealed by a new law, where will
be the end of it? Can we justly call this thing a law? Is it not rather the
negation of law? Does not such a lawgiver merit our strongest resentment?
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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