Judicial Authority over the Legislature

1. "If the parliament [legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done which is unreasonable, I know of no power in the ordinary forms of the constitution that is vested with authority to control it: and the examples usually alleged ... do none of them prove, that where the main object of a statute is unreasonable, the judges are at liberty to reject it; for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature which would be subersive of all government." - United States Founding Influences, Sir William Blackstone, "Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England", (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771) Vol. I, p. 91

Law

1. "To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the Divine. ... If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law. ... But, with regard to matters that are ... not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws such, for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries; here the ... legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose." - United States Founding Influences, Sir William Blackstone, "Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England", (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771) Vol. I, pp. 42-43