But, with regard to things in themſelves indifferent, the caſe is entirely altered. Theſe become either right or wrong, juſt or unjuſt, duties or miſdemeſnors, according as the municipal legiſlator ſees proper, for promoting the welfare of the ſociety, and more effectually carrying on the purpoſes of civil life. Thus our own common law has declared, that the goods of the wife do inſtantly upon marriage become the property and right of the huſband; and our ſtatute law has declared all monopolies a public offence: yet that right, and this offence, have no foundation in nature; but are merely created by the law, for the purpoſes of civil ſociety. And ſometimes, where the thing itſelf has it’s riſe from the law of nature, the particular circumſtances and mode of doing it become right or wrong, as the laws of the land ſhall direct. Thus, for inſtance, in civil duties; obedience to ſuperiors is the doctrine of revealed as well as natural religion: but who thoſe ſuperiors ſhall be, and in what circumſtances, or to what degrees they ſhall be obeyed, is the province of human laws to determine. And ſo, as to injuries or crimes, it muſt be left to our own legiſlature to decide, in what caſes the ſeiſing another’s cattle ſhall amount to the crime of robbery; and where it ſhall be a juſtifiable action, as when a landlord takes them by way of diſtreſs for rent.
Thus much for the declaratory part of the municipal law: and the directory ſtands much upon the ſame footing; for this virtually includes the former, the declaration being uſually collected from the direction. The law that ſays, “thou ſhalt not ſteal,” implies a declaration that ſtealing is a crime. And we have ſeen[1] that, in things naturally indifferent, the very eſſence of right and wrong depends upon the direction of the laws to do or to omit them.
The remedial part of a law is ſo neceſſary a conſequence of the former two, that laws muſt be very vague and imperfect
