It is not merely so in this or that government, but in all countries. The king in this country is undoubtedly unaccountable for his actions. The House of Lords, if it should ever exercise, (God forbid I should suspect it would ever do what it has never done!)--but if it should ever abuse its judicial power, and give such a judgment as it ought not to give, whether from fear of popular clamor on the one hand, or predilection to the prisoner on the other,--if they abuse their judgments, there is no calling them to an account for it. And so, if the Commons should abuse their power, nay, if they should have been so greatly delinquent as not to have prosecuted this offender, they could not be accountable for it; there is no punishing them for their acts, because we exercise a part of the supreme power. But are they less criminal, less rebellious against the Divine Majesty? are they less hateful to man, whose opinions they ought to cultivate as far as they are just? No: till society fall into a state of dissolution, they cannot be accountable for their acts. But it is from confounding the unaccountable character inherent in the supreme power with arbitrary power, that all this confusion of ideas has arisen. Even upon a supposition that arbitrary power can exist anywhere, which we deny totally, and which your Lordships will be the first and proudest to deny, still, absolute supreme dominion was never conferred or delegated by you,--much less, arbitrary power, which never did in any case, nor ever will in any case, time, or country, produce any one of the ends of just government. It is true that the supreme power in every constitution of government must be absolute, and this may be corrupted into the arbitrary. But all good constitutions have established certain fixed rules for the exercise of their functions, which they rarely or ever depart from, and which rules form the security against that worst of evils, the government of will and force instead of wisdom and justice. But though the supreme power is in a situation resembling arbitrary, yet never was there heard of in the history of the world, that is, in that mixed chaos of human wisdom and folly, such a thing as an _intermediate_ arbitrary power,--that is, of an officer of government who is to exert authority over the people without any law at all, and who is to have the benefit of all laws, and all forms of law, when he is called to an account. For that is to let a wild beast (for such is a man without law) loose upon the people to prey on them at his pleasure, whilst all the laws which ought to secure the people against the abuse of power are employed to screen that abuse against the cries of the people.