The Origin of Law

The law under which we live, that law which is now so liberally construed, altered, misinterpreted, and bent to private ends by members of the legal profession, has always been intended, from its earliest records, as a fixed power. The word "law" in its pristine meaning, is recorded in its Old English roots, "Lauh," or "Laucht," meaning "laid" or "fixed." This in turn was earlier derived from the Aryan "logh," also meaning fixed, and in the Teutonic root, "lag," meaning, "to lie in a fixed manner," and evenly. In Latin, it was "lex," or law, and in Old French, "loi" a word similar to the earlier Aryan logh.

In previous civilizations, the law was not only regarded as a fixed power; it was deemed to originate in the heavens, and in godly rule. We find in the Cairo Museum a nineteenth century B.C. papyrus, the "Hymn to Amen-Ra": "Hail to thee, Ra, Lord of Law; father of the gods; maker of men."

Biblical Foundation of Law

Civilized nations have generally acknowledged that the ultimate source of the law and its authority is the will of God, as it was codified in scripture. In Isaiah 2;3, "The law shall come forth from Zion." In Micah, 4;2, "The law shall go forth from Zion." Isaiah 51 declares,

"Thus saith the Lord; Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My Law; fear ye not the reproach of men. Neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My Righteousness shall be forever, and My Salvation from generation to generation."

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries, a primary source in the English common law, states a profound belief in the origin of law:

"When the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be."

Blackstone's observation, offered as an article of his faith, has been remarkably verified by the modem discovery of DNA, the gene structure which controls our actions. The law, then, is not only the law of God, the law of men, and the law of our people, but it is also the law of nature, the very law which binds our physical being. This explains the multitude of "psychosomatic" illnesses which plague millions of people, and which stem directly from the perversion of law and the rape of justice. In my book of health, "Murder by Injection," I quoted the great scientist, Morley Roberts, on "Malignancy and Evolution,"

"Malignancy is the diversion of energy from high differentiation into the proliferation of low-grade epithelia which can endure irritation but only differentiate with difficulty. May we go further and even say that the common tendency to malignancy is the result of sociological refinements which ask for a higher role for epithelia?"

In short, Morley Roberts is asking whether the widespread cases of cancer are not due to sociological factors, which demand that we alter our genetic makeup in order to proliferate low-grade epithelia.

The courts have led the way in this "crusade," punishing the healthier and more productive members of society in favor of "the deprived, the homeless, the malformed." This has been accompanied by the systematic debauching of our monetary unit through international central bank manipulation, as I pointed out in "Secrets of the Federal Reserve," impoverishing the healthier, productive members of society. The subsequent ruin, in turn, has resulted in the weakening of our immune systems, creating the phenomena of AIDS, cancer, and many other degenerative types of illnesses.

The first codifications of law recorded in civilization acknowledged the importance of law to our human systems. Noah enjoined his sons to observe justice, to cover the shame of their flesh, to bless their Creator, to honor their father and mother, and to refrain from iniquity and uncleanness. These principles were later refined into the form in which we know them, the Ten Commandments. Man's very existence was predicated upon his obedience to the Law of God. Tradition maintains that this law was formulated as a verbal acknowledgement of the covenant between God and His People. It entailed consideration from both parties, and thus was a legal and binding contract according to the established principles of law. However, this Covenant did not encompass all of the known population of the world, but merely that group known as God's People, the People of Israel. As chronicled in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Man, that is, Adam, was ruddy of complexion. This ruddiness was the conscious reminder of his dedication to upholding the Law of God. Whenever he transgressed this law, he would blush, in conscious acknowledgement that he had been disobedient. The blood would rush to his face, in a visible blush, as the mark of his disobedience and the reminder that he must fulfill the Law.

Because of this dedication, Adam had an immortal soul. His son, Enoch, differed from Adam because he was mortal. Henceforth, God's Law would deal with the mortality of His People. God later blessed the seed of Isaac, because "Abraham obeyed My Charge and kept My Commandments and obeyed My Law." Among Isaac's sons, a term later shortened to more popular usage as "Saxons," was Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel. Since that day, Israel has been the chosen People of God. Isaac's sons, the Saxons, brought God's Law to the nations of the world, as they emigrated and settled in other lands. This law was codified by the jurists of England, principally by Coke and Blackstone, as the English common law. It was later transformed, after having been brought across the Atlantic Ocean by English colonists, as the Constitution of the United States. The Founding Fathers were acutely conscious of their precepts and their mission. Samuel Adams, the main instigator of the struggle for American independence from England, declared, "We have come here to establish our Israel."

Roman Law

The history of civilization has always been marked by the clearly defined milestones of codified law. In 2250 B.C., the Code of Hammurabi was promulgated "to establish law and justice in the land." We have also been greatly influenced by the codes of Roman jurisprudence, which were administered as the ruling code of the world for some thirteen hundred years. Kent's Commentaries, the principal legal textbook for American lawyers throughout the nineteenth century, notes, Vol. I, p 556,

"The great body of the Roman or civil law was collected and digested by order of the Emperor Justinian, in the former part of the sixth century. . . . It exerts a very considerable influence upon our own municipal law."

The Roman jurists developed the principle of jus naturale, that is, a code of laws which reflected the laws of nature and the natural order. In his Commentaries, Blackstone expands upon this "law of nature."

"Law of nature — the Will of his maker is called the Law of Nature, being coeval with mankind, and directed by God Himself as a course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over the globe in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this."

Blackstone also writes that

"Revealed Law is only scripture. Upon these two foundations, one, the law of nature, and two, the Law of Revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human law should be suffered to contradict them."

This is in strange contrast to our present day legal system, in which the rape of justice daily contradicts both the Law of Revelation, and the law of nature.

Because it was developed over a period of many centuries, Roman law had ample time to respond to the emerging problems brought on by its historical growth. Founded by Romulus in 753 B.C., Rome became a Republic in the year 509, after the expulsion of the Etruscan kings. In 450 B.C., the Laws of the Twelve Tables were formulated. The earliest Roman law was the Jus Quiritium, developed by the Quirites, who were the First Families of the Republic. As patricians, the Quiritian Law was developed primarily to protect their families and their property. These families were known as gentes, or the clans. Their descendants have since been known to history as "gentlemen," as contrasted to the less distinguished masses, or plebs, as the freedmen, or non-gentiles, were known. The Latin "gentilis" meant belonging to the same clan or gentes. In those European nations which developed from these Roman antecedents, the gentes' descendants were known by the sobriquet "gentilhomme" in France, and as "gentlemen," later, aristocrats, in England.

The privileges arrogated by the First Families, the gentlemen, became a source of constant criticism and contention from the plebs. In fact, ancient Rome soon developed into the two groups which have remained fairly constant for three thousand years, the older families, which held the majority of property, and the masses. In the twentieth century, they are usually known as Republicans, and Communists.

The essential difference between the two classes was that the patricians, or gentlemen, knew who their parents were, and the plebs, who paid little attention to such niceties, did not. Because of their family records, the patricians were able to hand down their property to their heirs, while the plebs, even if they prospered, had no family records with which to protect their holdings. This fundamental distinction led to the demands of the plebs that the government intervene to support them, demands which, some twenty-five centuries later, led to the Communist Manifesto, and Karl Marx's demand that all inheritance be abolished. In the United States, this precept of Communism was enshrined in punitive inheritance taxation and income taxes.

The Quiritian Laws in ancient Rome served to protect the family lines of the patrician families, and to provide inheritances for their descendants, their rightful and acknowledged heirs. Property and inheritance laws have been a basic part of our laws since that time. Roman law was divided into the fas jus and the boni mores. By fas was understood the will of the gods. The scholar Breal derives this word from the Greek "oeuis," meaning, the divinely inspired word, the laws given by heaven for earth. Jus also derived from the Sanskrit ju, to join, bond or unite, meaning the family bonds and ties which transcended the mortality of man. This was later interpreted as the jos or jaus of the Vedas, and the jaes or jaos of the Zend-Avesta. Boni mores was an essential ingredient of the maintenance of the patrician family; it meant dutiful service, respect, chastity, and fidelity to the law of contract, the law of the family.

The stem family discipline of the Roman patricians, which enabled them to continue their family lines, was steadily battered by the rapidly multiplying plebs, whose mathematical proliferation and willingness to endure a lower standard of living resulted in their greatly outnumbering the patricians. Under this pressure, the great landed estates were broken up into smaller, individually held parcels of property, as the gentes, or clans, began to disintegrate. Heretofore, strict laws had governed the ownership of property in Rome. Heredia, that is, plots of land within the city proper, had been granted to the heads of the gentes, the leaders of the patricians. Our word heredity derives from this custom, referring to the passing on of these plots of land to the heirs of the patricians.

Emboldened by their increasing numbers, the plebs began to demand more and more "rights" for themselves. The issuance of the Twelve Tables marked a watering down of the original Jus Quiritium. This process was greatly enhanced with the Jus Civile, at the establishment of the Republic. Our "civil law" derives its name from the outcome of the centuries long struggle between the patricians and the plebs, when the plebs insisted upon a law which granted them more privileges, as "civil" laws. In 471 B.C., the plebs celebrated their final triumph, with the establishment of the "tribunes," as the expression of their newfound political power. Thus the patrician age in Rome lasted a scant three hundred years, a short period in the long history of Rome. Nevertheless, much of the power and organization of Rome continued to be based on the stem precepts of its founding patricians, just as much of the protection afforded to its citizens in the United States by the Constitution had been laid down by the stem precepts of our own Founding Fathers. Even today, our lawgiving bodies are frequently referred to as "tribunals," as recognition of the triumph of the plebs in Rome in 471 B.C.

In 445 B.C., Caious Canuleius led the final assault of the plebs against the entrenched privileges of the patrician families. He wrested from them the source of their continuing power, the protection of their blood lines. By very stringent and exclusive marriage bans, they had managed to preserve their blood lines by prohibiting marriage with a pleb. Canuleius now succeeded in overcoming this ancient prohibition. From that time on, plebs were allowed to marry into the patrician families.

Rome was now "democratized." With this democratization came the inevitable dimunition of the powerful blood lines which had so encouraged the ascendancy of Rome. Rome, in the time of the passage of a mere three centuries, had already begun her downhill road to decline. With the new democracy came increasing power and growing complexity of the Roman legal system. Cicero was led to publicly denounce the well known practice of bribing jurors. By the end of the fourth century, B.C., Ammianus Marcellinus protested that "We see the most violent and rapacious classes of men besieging the houses of the rich, cunningly creating lawsuits. Doors are now daily more and more opened to plunder by the depravity of judges and advocates who are all alike."

We could remind Marcellinus of the old saw that "The more things change the more they remain the same. " Certainly his complaint could be echoed in any American city today. At the present time, our economy is imperiled by the burgeoning merger and acquisition activity among the large corporations, as they prey upon and swallow up each other. Corporations were well known in Roman law; the provisions for the establishment of corporations had been copied from the laws of Solon. Private companies were entitled to stay in business as long as they did nothing contrary to the public law.

This precept was soon ignored. Both Augustus and Julius Caesar were forced to dissolve the corporations, because their machinations created widespread faction and discord among the people. It was during this crisis that a schism developed which has remained fairly constant to the present time, the schism between the civil law, which was designed to protect the public, and the law merchant, or the law of commercial activities, which was designed solely to protect the merchant. Although civil law takes into consideration the rights of the individual, commercial law only recognizes the stipulations of the contract, however this might infringe upon the rights of the citizen. Also, commercial law was pragmatic in its origins, having developed strictly from mercantile operations, whereas civil law ostensibly was based upon religious precepts and the Law of God.

By 467 A.D., Roman civil law, overtaken by historical developments, had reached the end of its legal authority. In 476, the Roman Catholic Church sought to resuscitate the power and authority of the ancient Roman law through its worldwide operations, with the present day version of the Roman Empire headquartered in the Vatican, in Rome. The Roman Senate re-emerged as the Vatican's College of Cardinals. In contrast to this development, England became the repository of the ancient law of Isaac's sons, or Saxon law. Three branches of this law were established there; the Danes brought Dane Lag, the Danish Law, to England; the West Saxons brought the West Saxon Law to England; and the ancient Britons had their traditional Mercan-Lage, or Mercian Laws. King Alfred the Great codified the English common law in 872 A.D., as the Dooms of Alfred, taking his inspiration from the Covenant of Moses. By this upholding of the contract with God, Alfred assumed the title of "Great," becoming the representative of the People of Israel.

Anglo Saxon Law

Blackstone notes that "The common law of England is generally founded in Biblical principles." Alfred the Great began his Dooms of Alfred with the Ten Commandments. In the eleventh century, Henriciius Bracton blended the English common law with the Roman law, as it had been revised in the Justinian Code of 533 A.D. This became operative in England as a Christian version of Roman law. Hugo Grotius, a lawgiver whom one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison, called "the father of the modem code of nations" firmly believed that God's law was superior to human laws. This view upheld Cicero's earlier contention that a law of the state which was in contradiction of natural law could not be viewed as law.

The Anglo-Saxon common law developed in three distinct steps: first, as the common law; second, as Equity; and third, as Parliamentary enactments. Each development represented a further watering down and perversion of the original Teutonic or Anglo Saxon precepts. In the United States, we have followed a similar path. American law began as Constitutional law, the enshrinement of the ancient Teutonic strictures which protected the rights of the individual from powerful lords, which today we call the State. Commercial legal requirements then gradually took over as equity law or the law merchant, continually subduing Constitutional precepts of law, a process which was typified by the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. These amendments contraverted the original intent of the Constitution, as Congressional or Parliamentary enactments, which were and are legislative powers delegated to the law merchant. Included in these developments are the Federal Reserve Act, the Internal Revenue Service code, and the National Recovery Act of the Roosevelt Administration. The latter was overturned by the Supreme Court, as obviously being unconstitutional. However, the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Service have never been challenged before the Supreme Court.

The principal feature of the ancient Teutonic law, from which our common law derives, was "veragelt," a legal principle which established the payment of compensation for death or injury. Also known as "manngold," it evolved into the term "wergeld" under Saxon (or Isaac's sons) law. The amount of wergeld was always stated in schillings. After William the Conqueror invaded England and established the power of the "Black Nobility" there (see "The Curse of Canaan," by Eustace Mullins), the nation was once again divided into two classes, the foreign lords and the native born population. The natives became known as borders, or villeins. A "border" was a villein of the lowest rank, who held his cottage only at his lord's pleasure, and only if he produced sufficient income to the lord to justify his continued presence. This became known as the legal principle of Bordlands Anglice, governing the land held by a border in tenure under Anglican law, which was also known as villeinage.

The fundamental change in legal authority in England after the Norman Conquest eliminated many of the principles of the ancient Anglo-Saxon law. However, it continued to be the basis of the legal system, because it was so firmly rooted in long recognized Roman and Saxon precepts. These precepts could be traced all the way back to Alaric the Goth Visigoth, who issued laws for his Roman subjects well before Justinian. His code was known as the Breviarium Alarici, or the Lex Romana Visigothorum. In England, Alaric's precepts were preserved in the Lex Salica, circum 500 A.D., in the Dooms of Ethelbert, of 600 A.D., and in the Lex Saxonum. However, legal historians often choose to ignore these precepts, preferring to attribute the development of the co mm on law to Henry of Bratton, whose name was later corrupted to Bracton. He died in 1268 A.D. These historians claim that "legal memory," that is, the record of our legal system, can only be traced through written precepts to the coronation of Richard I in 1189. Bracton served King Henry 111 for many years, as the model for Henry's justices. His legal work was based upon the treatise of Azo of Bologna, who is remembered as "Master of all the masters of the laws." Bracton, in turn, served as the model for the most illustrious name in English common law, Sir Edward Coke.

Institutes of Edward Coke

Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), was born of an old Norfolk family, which traced its lineage back to William of Coke of Dedlongton, in 1206. Coke not only managed to codify the English common law in his Institutes; he was also embroiled in most of the major political disputes of his time. He was born to the lord of the manor of Milkham. At the age of nineteen, he began the study of law in 1571 at Cliffords Inn at the Inner Temple in London. He completed his studies some seven years later, in 1578, and was called to the bar on April 20 of that year. His first marriage, in 1582, was a fortunate one. He married Bridget, the daughter of John Poston of Suffolk. She brought him a dowry of thirty thousand pounds. After her death, he made an even more advantageous second marriage, choosing Lady Elizabeth Hatton, granddaughter of the great Cecil, Lord Burghley. The Burghley family, the Cecils, were one of the three ruling families of England. Coke's political future was now assured. His first marriage had brought him money; his second marriage, power. He had now become privy to the small inner circle of the men who actually led England.

Coke had won Lady Elizabeth despite the fact that, as a very desirable partner, she had been actively pursued by two of England's most powerful lords, the Earl of Essex, and Sir Francis Bacon. Essex was rumored to be the lover of Queen Elizabeth; Bacon, a founder of the Rosicrucian Society, maintained secret alliances with Freemasons throughout Europe. In his continuing quest for power, he was able to draw upon these sources for support. He also became Coke's principal rival in seeking the influential post of chief justice of the common pleas. Again, Coke won the post. As the protege of Lord Burghley, he was named Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1613. In this office, he had the pleasure of prosecuting another former rival, the Earl of Essex, in 1600. Later, he was the prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603; in 1605, he prosecuted the perpetrators of the Gunpowder Plots.

When his daughter married the elder brother of the Duke of Buckingham at his wife's home, Oatlands, Coke further cemented his growing political alliances. Throughout a long legal career, Coke dedicated himself to completing his monumental work on law, first published in 1628 as Coke's Institutes; it was also known as Coke on Littleton. Subsequent volumes of this work continued to appear until 1644. Coke's work remains the fundamental treatise on law, although it is seldom taught in American law schools. After the triumph of equity, the system of the law merchant, in our system of jurisprudence, Coke and Blackstone's works were relegated to remote shelves in the rare book rooms.

The lasting influence of Coke's work may be attributed to its firm grounding in both Roman and Anglo-Saxon law. Coke returned to the principles of the ancient Jus Quirites, when he divided the people into two classes, the nobility and the commonalty. This was a restatement of the earliest legal division in Rome, the patricians or the gentes, and the plebs. Coke began his work with the statement,

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing but reason. . . " He continues with a Latin maxim, "neminam oportet essem sapientorem legibus; no man (out of his own private reason) ought to be wiser than the law, which is the perfection of reason."

Coke also commented in the Institutes that "the common law of England is called right, sometimes common right, and sometimes communis justitia." He dwelt on the principle of ligeance, or a ligando, that is, the quality of allegiance as "the highest and greatest obligation of duty and obedience." With this precept, he had returned to that stem sense of duty which had guided the patricians of Rome and the establishment of the Roman Empire. It was just such a sense of duty which guided our Founding Fathers, and such leaders as General Robert E. Lee.

These basic qualities of Coke in his work later made a great impression on the imprisoned poet Ezra Pound, who had been shut away without trial because of his obedience to such a stem sense of duty. Coke also spent much of his later life as a political prisoner. During his years as a prisoner, Pound was able to study the entire work of Coke, which had appeared in four parts: 1. The reprint of Littleton's treatise on tenure, which was to serve law students during ensuing centuries as their first textbook; 2. the text of various statutes of the Statute de Donis, and other statutes to Magna Carta to James I; 3. criminal law; 4. the jurisdiction of the different courts of law. He later published his further studies of the law, Coke's Reports, which appeared in thirteen parts.

Despite his powerful political patrons, Coke frequently found himself under attack by his many enemies. On Feb. 26, 1620, he delivered an important speech on the problems of the scarcity of money, a statement which increased the number of his enemies by the number of those whose fortunes were made by trading in money. After much study of the problem, he found that the scarcity of money could be traced to seven causes, which he enumerated as: 1. the turning of money into plate; 2. the use of gold folia in gilding; 3. the undervaluing of silver; 4. the East India Company "who intercept the dollars and other moneys that would otherwise come into the Kingdom and bring in for it nothing but toys and trifles;" 5. the excess of imports over exports; 6. the French merchants for wine carry forth 780,000 pounds per annum and bring nothing but wines and laces and such like trifles; 7. the patent for gold and silver lace and thread which "wastes our bullion and coin and hinders the bringing of it into the kingdom."

Much of Coke's definition of the problem facing his nation four centuries ago is applicable to the plight of the United States as we approach the twenty-first century. We too are plagued by an excess of imports over exports. We import not only wine and lace, but oil and many other expensive products. Coke's emphasis on the necessity of maintaining the nation's supply of bullion echoes the preoccupation of our Founding Fathers, when they inserted into the Constitution the specific provision that lawful money should consist of gold and silver.

However, it was Coke's open criticism of the activities of the East India Company which caused him to undergo the most severe pressures. This company represented then, and for many years afterward, the secret government of the British Empire. With full knowledge of this power, Coke refused to hold his tongue, when more prudent men would have remained silent. The passion for justice which ruled his life was not confined to the courtroom, but was applied to every realm of life. Chambers Encyclopaedia notes that "from 1606, Coke stood as the champion of national liberties, opposing any illegal encroachment of both church and crown." He openly criticized the Spanish marriage of King James I, who married a Catholic. This marriage resulted in a civil war, the end of the Stuart dynasty in England, and the Glorious Revolution.

King James I responded to this criticism by sending Coke to the Tower of London. The imprisonment lasted for nine months; Coke was released in August of 1622. While he was in prison, his enemies sought to close in on him. Five different lawsuits were filed against him. He won them all. He was called up by government agents four times for lengthy examination "on state interests" with no incriminating results. His chambers were repeatedly ransacked; again, no evidence against him was found. Nevertheless, his private papers were seized and brought to the council to be searched. His victorious emergence from these trials later caused him to refer to his "seven great deliveries while in the Tower" (Holkham Ms 727).

For the remainder of his life, Coke remained under suspicion. In 1631, King Charles I gave the order that his papers should be secured (SPDP S.P.D. clxxxiii 490) lest he be an influence on the people. However, Coke continued to denounce any interference by the Crown with the liberties of Parliament. He opposed King Charles I's demands for additional subsidies for the Crown; he continued to speak against illegal taxation; and he denounced the King's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham. For these reasons, his career as a citizen of England was as illustrious as his career as a jurist and as a legal scholar. After his imprisonment in the Tower of London, he was secluded in his home in Stoke Poges. On the news that he was seriously ill, a King's Warrant had been prepared (S.P.D. cclxxii 65), and an envoy, Sir Francis Windebank, was sent to Stoke Poges to seize Coke's personal papers. These effects were kept by the government for seven years. Many of his most important manuscripts disappeared; even his will was never returned to his heirs. They had to assign his belongings without the benefit of his testament. Sir Edward Coke died at Stoke Poges on September 3, 1634. His personal story is typical of the treatment of a great man by envious and lesser rivals, who knew how to abuse their governmental powers. Many years later, one of his descendants, Thomas Coke, was finally named Lord of Holkham; his present heir is known as the Viscount of Coke.

Sir Edward Coke's long and fruitful life embraced the years of the British Empire's greatest power, which had been attained under Queen Elizabeth, from 1558 to 1603. James I followed, from 1603-1625; Charles I from 1625 to 1649. Coke had entertained Queen Elizabeth at his home in Stoke Poges in 1601. During that visit, he presented her with gifts worth at that time more than one thousand pounds. Coke's patron, Lord Burghley, was Elizabeth's secretary of state. Whether because of or in spite of his illustrious patronage, Coke never hesitated to challenge Elizabeth's successor, King James I. Coke's successful impeachment of Sir Francis Bacon was widely interpreted as a direct attack upon the authority of King James, and the king himself believed this was the case. Coke had stood before the King, citing Bracton to his face, "The king should be subject to no man, but to God and the law."

After King James' death, his enemies circulated the claim that he had been a homosexual, a slander which has been traced to but one originator, Anthony Weldon, who had been excluded from court circles. As a consequence of this exile, he developed a pathological hatred of the Stuart family. He first penned the story about King James in 1650, twenty-five years after James' death. Antonia Fraser, a prominent historian, attributes the slanders to the fact that James had begun to suffer from early senility, years before his death, causing "peculiar unorthodox behaviour." In support of King James, historians cite cardinal facts of his life; that he was the first in history to unite the feuding tribes of Scotland into one nation; the man who united Scotland and England; and the man who encouraged the propagation of the Bible in the language of the people; the King James version of the Bible.

Coke's impeachment of Sir Francis Bacon not only caused King James to imprison him; it also brought down upon him the wrath of the rapidly growing Masonic movement throughout Europe. Freemasons and their shock troops, the Illuminati, have continuously sought to wreak their sinister program on the people through control of the legal system. To lose the chief justice of England was a serious setback to their plans. In retrospect, we can only wonder that he was not executed, as the death penalty was a frequently employed punishment of political offenders. Apparently the Cecil connection was too great, and Coke was allowed to die quietly at his home. The Dictionary of National Biography honors him with an effusive memorial:

"In his mode of stating what he believes or wishes to believe, he often reaches a perfection of form, exhibiting that freedom from flabbiness and that careful use of terms which is essential to a good legal style."

Legal historians have pointed out that perhaps never before or since has one man made so much law. He denied the right of the king to judge cases personally, or to give jurisdiction to ecclesiastical courts at the expense of the courts of the common law. He asserted that it was unlawful to give a commission (such as a royal commission) the power to hear and determine offenses which should be heard in the ordinary courts. Such practice robbed the citizen of the protection of established law. Coke maintained that no martial law which was executed by military law should be carried out without following the co mm on law process. He brilliantly expounded the common law, simultaneously defeating Sir Francis Bacon's project to codify the law, a tactic for which Bacon had apparently been engaged by his Masonic conspirators. Coke thus gave us an exposition of the common law which has spread it throughout the English-speaking world. Coke laid down in Peacham's case (1615) that it is contrary to law to ask the judges separately before trial in a pending case to give their opinions in camera and ex parte. This practice has become a growing abuse in the American legal system. It was Sir Edward Coke, standing alone, who denied the right of the king to delay or stop proceedings in the common law courts. Coke further denied the right of the King to make law by proclamation.

Coke's monumental Institutes fixed the common law for the next three centuries, and established its supremacy over the Church, the Admiralty, the Star Chamber, and the code system of law which was propounded by Sir Francis Bacon. Coke also established its supremacy over the royal prerogative, through his insistence upon grand jury indictments, jury trial protection against unlawful searches and seizures (from which he himself was not protected), protection against double jeopardy, and the right of habeas corpus. It seems impossible that one man could have done so much, and thus he remains an inspiration to all who share his passion for justice. Few Americans today are aware of Sir Edward Coke's influence upon our Founding Fathers. Our historians ignore Coke's great feat in backing the Petition of Right of 1628 in England, which directly challenged the ascendancy of King Charles I. King Charles not only ignored the Petition of Right; he continued on his arrogant course while his popular support steadily eroded. He was executed in 1649. The Petition of Right later became a major factor in the drafting of our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The Glorious Revolution

The rivalry between Sir Edward Coke and Sir Francis Bacon continued to affect the history of England long after both were gone. Ironically, it was Coke's challenge to the Crown as an absolute monarchy which resulted in the limited monarchy which we find today in England. His challenge exposed the vulnerability of the absolute monarchy, a situation which was eagerly exploited by a group of bankers in Amsterdam. They financed Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces' military takeover of England, resulting in the execution of King Charles I. When Cromwell's death without a suitable heir led to the collapse of this dictatorship, and the restoration of the monarchy with King Charles II, the Amsterdam bankers used their financial skills to cause unrest and economic chaos in England. After King James II succeeded Charles, the resulting problems proved too much for him, and he was forced to leave the throne, being succeeded by William of Orange, the Amsterdam bankers' choice, who became King William III. This event is known historically as "the Glorious Revolution."

The Glorious Revolution is a historical event which is little noted in the United States. It refers, not to our own successful American Revolution, but to the even more momentous revolution of 1688 in England. No historian has noted that the history of the world since 1688 has been directed by the consequences of the Glorious Revolution, which not only ended the attempts of the Vatican to recover its extensive landed holdings in England which had been seized by King Henry the Eighth, but also resulted in the establishment of the Bank of England and its espionage service, Great Britain's notorious SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, which in turn set up our own Central Intelligence Agency, under the name of Office of Strategic Services, during World War II.

The Glorious Revolution not only made possible the chartering of the Bank of England, which was to become the world's most influential central bank; it also opened the door for the subsequent usurping of the English Crown by the Illuminati in 1714, when George I, Duke of Hanover, ascended to the throne of England. Since that date, the English monarchy has been prominent in the world machinations of the Freemason movement. The Amsterdam bankers had first subdued the English Crown when they financed Oliver Cromwell's rule of England as a Calvinist dictator, controlling England as Lord High Protector from December 1653 to September 1658, when he died. After Charles II, King James II succeeded to the throne. A Stuart who had converted to Catholicism in 1670, James married a Catholic, Mary of Modena, in 1673, and launched a campaign to rescind more than one hundred years of Protestant rule in England, by returning the nation to the fold of the Roman hierarchy. However, this goal was strongly resisted by the great majority of the English people, who were Protestant, and had no wish to return to submission to Rome. At first, James' crusade was not taken too seriously in England, because he had two daughters who had been baptised as Protestant. However, he now had a son and heir who was baptised as a Catholic, ensuring that the throne of England would descend to a Catholic prince. It was this birth which provoked the Glorious Revolution against him.

A small group of English aristocrats, led by the "Kingmaker," the Duke of Devonshire, with his associate, the Duke of Marlborough, sent a cypher letter to William at the Hague, inviting him to take the throne of England. William had married James' daughter, but his claim could only be exercised legally at the demise of James and his Catholic heir. James further angered the English people in June of 1688, when he jailed seven bishops in the Tower of London. Their offense was that they had refused to read his latest proclamations about religion from their pulpits. The bishops were then tried by a jury, and were acquitted on all counts.

At the time of the Glorious Revolution, King James had an army of 40,000 men, led by carefully chosen officers, all of whom were Roman Catholics. The challenger, William of Orange, had only 13,000 men. To compound his problems, his fleet was blown off course and missed their landing spot. The Duke of Devonshire hastened to their rescue, and received William's daughter, Princess Anne, at his castle. James was then informed that despite his superior numbers, his troops would not obey their Catholic officers, and he had little chance of succeeding against the invaders. He abdicated to France. His abortive attempt to make a comeback in Ireland also met with defeat. William was now King William III, the King of England. He signed a Declaration of Rights on February 13,1689, which ended the king's power to suspend the deliberations of Parliament or to dispense with its laws, which had been the goal of Sir Edward Coke's mission. Coke's Petition of Right had now become the law of the land. England has been a constitutional monarchy ever since. The official release of the British Information Service, the propaganda arm of England, states that "the United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy with a limited constitutional monarchy. Government is carried on by Her Majesty's Government in the name of the Queen, who reigns but does not rule. The Queen is an integral part of Parliament."

The Declaration of Rights of 1689 was followed by an even more powerful contract between the English monarchy and the people of England, the Act of Succession of 1701. This Act specifically barred the Stuarts from ever again claiming the throne. The Act further placed the Hanover line of Germany, which was waiting in the wings, in the direct line of succession. It specified that all future monarchs must belong to the Anglican Church, the Church of England. It specifically barred Catholics from the throne. Later monarchs received the title of head of the Church of England. Other clauses of this Act secured parliamentary supremacy by requiring that the monarch must go to Parliament each year and request his annual stipend. The royal household now existed at the pleasure of Parliament, which controlled its purse strings.

In 1694, King William III chartered the Bank of England. Since that date, there has never been another revolution in England. A history of civil wars and revolutions against the throne had come to an end. A privately owned central bank, the Bank of England, now controlled the issuance of money, which had formerly been a royal prerogative. The throne's goodwill was secured by the assignment of a large number of shares to the royal family.

The sudden access to funds provided by the Bank of England ushered in a great flowering of English culture and international prestige. The Bank's monetary manipulations created enormous fortunes for its shareholders, and great estates were built throughout the countryside. The fortunate few who had invited William to take the English throne, and who had subsequently been invited to become charter subscribers to the Bank for 10,000 pounds each (the equivalent of ten million dollars in today's currency), made certain the success of the Glorious Revolution. One of these chosen few, the Duke of Devonshire, was appointed Lord High Steward of England by King William, given a seat on the Privy Council, named Steward of the Royal Household, and given the coveted award, the Most Noble Order of the Garter. After William's death, his daughter, now Queen Anne, continued the Duke's appointment as Steward of the Royal Household.

Queen Anne married Prince George of Denmark. Although seventeen children were produced, they all died. Anne was extremely self-indulgent, and was plied with rich foods by her solicitous staff. She became very fat, and endured poor health because of her excesses, which finally caused her death. Once again, the throne of England was a matter of contest. Historians have suspected that Queen Anne's overindulgences were deliberately encouraged by some of her staff, to ensure that there would be no heir to the throne. She ruled from 1702 until her death in 1714.

The successful claimant who replaced Queen Anne was the Elector of Hanover, in Germany. Although he was merely the head of a small principality, the Elector was descended from Henry the Lion (1129-1195). Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, was the only son of Henry the Proud, and was a prominent member of the Guelph dynasty. At that time, the fate of Europe was contended for by two opposing forces, the Guelphs, representing the new "Black Nobility," and descended from the Canaanites, or Phoenicians (see Mullins' "The Curse of Canaan"), and the Ghibellines, who represented the ancient Teutonic Knights and the ruling dynasty of Europe. Frederick of Barbarossa, a member of the Hohenstaufen family, was head of the Ghibellines during the time of Henry the Lion. Henry the Lion persuaded the Hohenstaufens to make peace with the Guelphs, (known as Welfs in that area of Europe). Henry, whose capital was Brunswick, a city later to figure importantly in the development of the Illuminati movement, married Matilda, daughter of Henry H, King of England. The Hanovers later came into possession of the Gospel Book, a twelfth century manuscript from the Abbey of Helmarhausen, which sold it to the King of Hanover in 1861. In 1983 the family put it up for sale; it was purchased by a consortium of German interests in 1983 for eleven million, nine hundred and twenty-thousand dollars.

The Hanover family had spent some twenty years diligently preparing their claim to the throne of England. Their official genealogist and historian was one of the most well known scholars in Europe, Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz (1646-1716). Leibniz had been secretary of the Rosicrucian Society in Nuremberg in 1667. He then moved to Frankfort, where he was employed by the Elector of Mainz from 1676 until his death in 1716. Not only did he serve the Brunswick family loyally as their historian; he was also a lawyer, and served them as a judge and administrator. His massive work, Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus Hannoverae, not only traced the descent from Henry the Lion, who had married into the British royal family; it also documented the later developments. Elizabeth, one of King James I's Protestant daughters, had married Frederick the Fifth, the Elector of Palatine. Their daughter, Sophie, married Ernest Augustus, the first Elector of Hanover. Although Sophie was not a claimant to the English throne, having died before Queen Anne, her son, who was now Elector of Hanover, was able to overcome the other claimants by the sheer weight of Leibniz' tremendous amount of research. Thus Leibniz, secretary of the Rosicrucian Society, not only brought the Hanovers to the throne of England; with him came the fraternity known as the Freemasons.

Because of these mystical connections, Leibniz, who founded such esoteric systems as economic science, and many other branches of physical science, was a close correspondent with his fellow Rosicrucian, Sir Francis Bacon in England, the historic opponent of Sir Edward Coke. Bacon, subsequently given the title of Baron Verulam, authored a book, "The New Atlantis," which describes the purpose of the House of Solomon. Nicolai, among others, has ascribed to this celebrated romance the origin of Masonry in its present form. Leibniz was at the very heart of the new intellectual movement of the eighteenth century, a spirit of liberalism and humanism which has been traced directly back to the ancient cult of Baal (The Curse of Canaan). He was a major influence in the development of legal doctrine, reaffirming doctrines of Christian natural law which originated in the Golden Renaissance of the fifteenth century. His writings shaped the thinking of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in their phrasing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

In addition to providing intellectual inspiration for the American Revolution, Leibniz's writings also became the inspiration for the Industrial Revolution. It was his influence which led Benjamin Franklin to establish the American Philosophical Society. Franklin served as colonial Postmaster General, and carried on a worldwide correspondence. He went to England in 1757; the following year, he worked with Matthew Boulton Jr. on electricity, metallurgy, and the harnessing of steam power. Josiah Wedgwood, the potter, and Boulton's personal physician, Erasmus Darwin, organized a group which duplicated the aims of Franklin's Junto in Philadelphia, the organization being known as the Junto of Birmingham. It was later known as the Lunar Society. Through its influence, Manchester by the year 1790 had become a major industrial power. Boulton built the massive Soho Works, the first great manufacturing plant. It used water through a system of canals and steam power. The Soho plant became well known as the headquarters of the Lunar Society.

With Leibniz' able assistance, the Elector of Hanover became George I, King of England, in 1714. He spoke no English, and stubbornly refused to learn a single word. Only German was spoken at the royal court in London. He ruled from 1714-1727. George II ruled from 1727-1760, and George HI, whose name figures so prominently in American history, ruled after 1760, placing him in the crucial role of provoking the American colonists until they erupted in revolution. He was succeeded by William IV in 1830. In 1837, the granddaughter of King George III, Victoria, became Queen. She married Prince Albert of the German province of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose family name was Wettin. During the First World War, this sounded suspiciously German, and it was legally changed to Windsor, the name by which the present royal family of England is known.

The Glorious Revolution unleashed many currents in history which remain strong today. The European battle between the rival forces of Protestant and Catholic was exacerbated by the ascension of William of Orange in 1688. For more than a hundred years, the historical enemies, England and France, had been at peace. William changed this arrangement, by joining the League of Augsburg against France, which resulted in seven wars between England and France between 1689 and 1815. The alliance of France with the rebelling American colonists was but one minor aspect of this longstanding struggle. One legacy of this rivalry is the present contretemps between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. The Protestants proudly wave banners depicting their great patron, William of Orange. William's participation in the League of Augsburg was but one aspect of the growing conspiratorial work of the Masons. The League was essentially a Masonic foreign policy apparat which was determined to destroy the traditional balance of power between the reigning monarchies of Europe, finally displacing them by setting up their own World Order.

In effect, Leibniz and his fellow intellectuals, with the ascent of George I in 1714 to the throne of England, became the secret powers behind the throne. In 1717, it was announced that Freemasonry was officially revived in England. From this base of power, Lord Sackville was dispatched to Italy in 1733 to set up Freemason lodges there; in 1735, Lord Derwentwater was sent to Paris to organize a Grand Lodge. The result was the destruction of the monarchy in those nations. Through the secret forces which led to revolution, England was finally able to dispatch its great rival, France, and to end her claims to world power. The new order was announced at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when the triumphant Masons, led by the banking power of the Rothschilds, dictated their terms, not only to France, but to the other nations of Europe. Financed by the monetary power of the Bank of England, enforced by the British Navy and the worldwide intrigues of the Secret Intelligence Service, the Masons were well on their way to fulfilling their historic goals.

Leibniz' accomplice, Sir Francis Bacon, had paved the way as the apostle of the new humanism in England. He thus imposed on this nation his interpretation of the ancient rites of Baal, the cult of Canaan, and the predecessors of Europe's Black Nobility. He was one of the founders of the Rosicrucians, the Knights of the Rosy Cross, and the group known as the Free and Accepted (Speculative) Masons, who had departed from the function of the Masons as a craft organization. Scholars have identified much of Bacon's work as reflecting the Rosicrucian Manifesto.

Under the Hanovers, the Freemasons were able to step up their own monopoly of secret societies in England. On the 12th of July, 1798, an Act was passed in Great Britain, known as the Sedition Act, for the Suppression of Secret Societies. In his definitive work, "The Brotherhood, the Secret World of the Freemasons," Stephen Knight complains that the Masons have never complied with the stringent requirements for listing their members under this Act. However, he seems unaware that the Act specifically exempts the Freemasons from compliance. Its language reads,

"And whereas certain societies have long been accustomed to beholden in this kingdom, under the denomination of Lodges of Freemasonry, the meetings whereof have been in great measure directed to charitable purposes; be it therefore enacted, that nothing in this Act shall extend to the meetings of any such Society or Lodge which, shall, before the passing of this Act, have been usually holden under the said denomination, and in conformity to the rules prevailing among the said Societies of Freemasons."

In effect, this Act banned all secret societies except the Freemasons. Such a powerful ban reflected the active participation of the now reigning family of England, the Hanovers, in the lodges. From 1782-1790, the Grand Master of England was His Royal Highness Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland; from 1791-1812, His Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales, who subsequently became King George IV; from 1812-1842, His Royal Highness Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, son of King George III. The Duke of Sussex united the rival lodges, the Ancient and the Modem, into a single potent force. Thomas Howard, the Catholic Duke of Norfolk, had been Grand Master in 1730 despite many Catholic edicts issued against membership in the Freemasonry movement. Several Earls of Strathmore have also been Grand Masters of England. A Strathmore married the Duke of York, later King George V, and is now Queen Mother of England.

Blackstone Commentaries

A century after the passing of Sir Edward Coke, another great legal scholar appeared in England. Sir William Blackstone published his monumental Commentaries in 1765. Blackstone continued and expanded Coke's work, by further defining the language and the principles of the common law. In Book 1 of his Commentaries, he lays down the three absolute rules of civil liberties: one, the right of personal security; two, the right of personal liberty; and, three, the right to private property. Blackstone divided the law into the rights of persons and the rights of things, private wrongs as opposed to civil or public wrongs, and crimes and misdemeanours.

In Section 2 of his Commentaries, he writes that "Ignoranti juris, quod quisque tanatur scire, neminem excusat. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, because who can ignore God's will." This became the presentday legal maxim, "Ignorantia non excusat legem; ignorance of the law is no excuse." This was further qualified by the presence of fraud, or a mistake in fact, as "Ignorantia facti excusata."

Sir William Blackstone was born in 1723. He was called to the bar in 1746, and was named Solicitor General to the Queen in 1761. Like his predecessor, Sir Edward Coke, he also had a powerful benefactor, Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, who named him to the prestigious foundation of the Charterhouse School, and to Oxford's exclusive Fellow of All Souls. The Commentaries appeared in four volumes, the first brought out in 1765, and the other three volumes appearing over the next four years. He made fourteen thousand pounds from the sale of the Commentaries, an enormous sum for that age. The Commentaries also proved to be a great influence in the legal doctrines of the United States for the next century. They were finally supplanted by a native product, Kent's Commentaries, as the basic textbook for American lawyers.

Influences on American Law

Calvinism, a stem branch of Protestantism which had originated in Switzerland under the aegis of a French leader, Calvin, had played an important role in the winning of England from the Catholic Stuart dynasty. Oliver Cromwell had been an ardent Calvinist, as was the eventual victor over the Stuarts, William of Orange. After the American Revolution, an adept combination of Calvinist and Masonic influences was brought to bear at the Constitutional Convention. Although the principles of Sir Edward Coke had been a contributing influence to the writing of the Declaration of Independence, and survived in the Bill of Rights, which was a belated addition to the Constitution, the convention itself was dominated by Episcopalians, that is, for all intents and purposes, by a branch of the Anglican Church, and by a strong Jesuit presence. However, the guiding principles of the convention were laid down by Freemasons, many of whom were also members of the other dominant groups. Bradford notes that Daniel Carroll represented the State of Maryland at the convention. He was the brother of the Archbishop of Baltimore, and was a Mason, as well as a Catholic.

The convention purported to draft the Constitution as the final protector of the rights of independent citizens against any oppressive force of government. However, as we have previously noted, the Bill of Rights was added, not as an afterthought, but as a device to ensure the adoption of the Constitution. Much of the work of the convention was mere window dressing to conceal its real purpose, which was to establish a strong central government with legal authority to provide repayment of loans made to the Americans by British financiers, principally those who were also stockholders of the Bank of England. The new government was also commissioned to insist upon the repayment of mortgages to British lenders, which the post-Revolution courts, notably led by George Wythe, a drafter of the Constitution, and called the father of our legal system, duly demanded from the debtors.

On July 9, 1778, meeting in Philadelphia, Congress had approved the Articles of Confederation, which then became the ruling body of law for the young nation. These articles established the principles of states' rights, and effectively ruled out the possibility of a strong central government, a federal power. When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia on May 27, 1787, its secret agenda was to emasculate the Articles of Confederation, and to authorize the establishment of a strong federal government. The delegate who was entrusted with the task of carrying out this secret mission was Edmund Randolph. During the previous year, Randolph had been elected Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges of Virginia. His father, a leading Tory, and King's Attorney, had returned to England at the outbreak of the American Revolution. He never returned to America.

Edmund Randolph opened his plan with an unexpectedly strong attack on the Articles of Confederation. He claimed that "the confederation fulfilled none of the objectives for which it was framed." He then listed a number of objections to the Articles, among them, "It is not superior to state constitutions. Thus we see that the confederation is incompetent to any one object for which it was instituted. Our chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitution."

Although one might have expected cries of outrage from the defenders of liberty who were present, none were made. In fact, most of those assembled were of like mind; the few who might have objected preferred to remain silent and go along with the crowd. Randolph's proposals received strong and concerted support from his fellow Masons at the convention. He then worked out a Constitution which largely scrapped the Articles of Confederation, and replaced it with a Constitution which authorized a strong centralized federal government. A cloak of concealment was thrown over this creation by the hasty addition of a "Bill of Rights," intended as a sop to those who otherwise would never have voted for ratification. Well-hidden within the basic framework of the Constitution were Masonic plans and authorizations for a national judiciary power, which would exercise final authority in disagreements between the branches of government, while the national executive power was given little opportunity to enforce the Bill of Rights.

During the first few years of the Republic, the national judiciary was discreetly quiet. The Supreme Court met in a basement room, and appeared to be little more than an ornamental power within the government. However, it asserted itself sharply when John Marshall became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He had recently succeeded Edmund Randolph as Grand Master of the Virginia Lodges, which have played a major political and judicial role ever since. Marshall made his first bold bid in 1803, in the well known case of Marbury v. Madison. Marshall's court ruled that the judiciary has the power to strike down any law. The legal background of Marbury v. Madison was that it was a brazen exercise in partisan politics. The case became a cause celebre after James Madison, the Secretary of State, worked far into the night, hastily signing commissions for members of the Federalist Party on his last day in office. On the following morning, Thomas Jefferson came in as the new Secretary of State. Because Madison was a stalwart of the opposing Federalist Party, Jefferson threw Marbury's commission into the wastebasket, even though Madison had signed it. Marbury then brought suit to claim his due appointment as a justice of the peace. Chief Justice Marshall, who was also a leading member of the Federalist Party, ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and awarded Marbury his commission, a decision delivered along strict party lines. Marshall's decision created the precedent for the supremacy of the federal power.

On September 3, 1807, Marshall delivered another famous ruling, in U.S. v. Burr, as reported by Mr. Ritchie. He declared that "the laws of the several states could not be regarded as rules of decision in trials for offences against the United States, because no man could be condemned or imprisoned in the federal courts under a state law." This legal decision came about because of Marshall's role as "one of the usual suspects." For many years, Aaron Burr had been one of the most active Masonic conspirators in the New Republic. He had plotted to set up a separate and independent republic in the states bordering the Mississippi River. When Burr was charged with treason for this plot, he was defended by his attorney, Edmund Randolph, a former Grand Master of the Lodges of Virginia. Sitting as judge in this important case was Justice Marshall, who was then Grand Master of the Lodges of Virginia. The decision was a foregone conclusion, because Masonic law decrees that a Mason must always rule in favor of a fellow Mason, due to his "obligations."

Despite the success of Edmund Randolph and his fellow Masons in writing a Constitution which gave the federal government supremacy over the states, many legal authorities continued to cast doubt on the validity of that power, until the Civil War silenced forever the Americans who still opposed a strong federal power. In Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 S Wheaton 193, the Chief Justice of the United States observed that "the powers of the states remained, after the adoption of the Constitution, what they were before, except so far as they had been abridged by that instrument."

Kent's Commentaries

During the nineteenth century, the available legal textbook for American lawyers was Kent's Commentaries. In Book I, p. 490, Kent commented on the Marbury v. Madison decision.

"The question, said the Chief Justice, was whether an act repugnant to the constitution can become a law of the land. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited by a written constitution. But to what purpose is that limitation if those limits may at any time be passed? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited, and acts allowed, are of equal obligation. If the constitution does not control any legislative act repugnant to it, then the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act. The theory of every government with a written constitution must be, that an act of government repugnant to the constitution is void."

What Kent does not deal with here is the power of the judiciary to reverse itself on national issues, as has repeatedly occurred. The Supreme Court today declares that an act is not repugnant to the constitution. Tomorrow it rules that the act is repugnant to the constitution, and is void. No safeguard exists that the court cannot be subjected to varying influences which bring about these stunning reversals on decisions.

Kent further observed, in Lecture xviii, "The limitation of state power or sovereignty would exist in only three cases: where the terms granted an exclusive authority to the union; where it granted in one instance an authority to the union, and in another prohibited the states from exercising a like authority; and where it granted an authority to the union, to which a similar authority in the states would be absolutely and totally contradictory and repugnant."

The American Republic had the benefit of a written constitution, plus the well-established precedents of the English common law. The legal basis of the common law was firmly established in England, one source being "The Laws of England," sec. VI, chapter 31, which stated, "Be it therefore enacted etc. that the common law is, and shall be, in force in this government, except such part (pertaining to the provinces) laws of England are the laws of this government." At that time, America was a province of the British Empire. Kent notes in Book I of the Commentaries, p. 514,

"The common law includes those principles, usages and rules of action applicable to the government and security of persons and property, which do not rest for their authority on any express and positive declaration of the will of the legislature."

The Laws of North Carolina, chapter 5, which were enacted in 1785 by this free state, declare, "An act to enforce such parts of the statutes and common laws as has been heretofore in force and use here, and the acts of assembly made and passed when the territory was under this government of the late proprietors and the crown of Great Britain." C. J. Pearson says that "The laws of our state rest for a foundation upon the common law of England." However, the Supreme Court, in 8 Peters 658, stated, "It is clear there can be no common law of the United States (only constitutional law)."

The authority of Constitutional law has been steadily eroded in the United States by the growing dependence upon the law merchant, and the consequent violation of individual rights of American citizens. This development flies in the face of James Madison, who wrote the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Madison stated that power must come from the people; "the government has only such powers as the people delegate to it through a social covenant, the Constitution which is derived from God's Covenant with man. This derivation limits the power of the process of law and the powers of government. This covenant cannot be contravened as it is 'the law of nature and of nature's God.'"

The natural laws written by Madison and the other Founding Fathers laid down the separation of powers of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the government and the nexus imperium, the law of checks and balances, safeguards which are now largely being ignored and contravened by the judiciary through the adept usage of admiralty law and jurisdiction of the law merchant. In modem times, the law of checks and balances has been redefined by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Wright (who has since resigned), "We (the Congress) will write the checks and the people will have to provide the balances."