“Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.”
Second Treatise of Government, Sec. 202
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 September 1780)
1780s
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Edmund Burke 270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797Related quotes
Ends and Means (1937)
“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law.”
Montesquieu
(1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker
As quoted in With Prejudice : The Perspective of an Acquitted Defendent (2010) by Vicky Gallas; no earlier occurence of this phrasing has been located (Relevant quote: "Il n’y a point de plus cruelle tyrannie que celle que l’on exerce à l’ombre des lois et avec les couleurs de la justice" i.e. "There is no tyranny more cruel than that which is exercised within the shade of the law and with the colours of justice." See Chap. XIV of Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence).
Disputed
Robert LeFevre
(1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, “Unlimited Government” (Dec. 29, 1961).
John Adams
(1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Ch. 1 Marchamont Nedham : The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/v1ch16s15.html <!-- The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States vol. VI (1851) p. 9 -->
1780s, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)
Context: The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
“All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain.”
John Donne
book
Holy Sonnets
No. 7, line 6
Holy Sonnets (1633)
William Penn
(1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania
Frame of Government (1682)
Context: I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few, and many, and are the three common ideas of government, when men discourse on the subject. But I chuse to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three: Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the law rules, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.
Alexis De Tocqueville
(1805–1859) French political thinker and historian
De la supériorité des mœurs sur les lois (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, p. 286 https://books.google.de/books?id=yrMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA286&dq=meilleures.
Original text:
Les meilleures lois ne peuvent faire marcher une constitution en dépit des mœurs ; les mœurs tirent parti des pires lois. C'est là une vérité commune, mais à laquelle mes études me ramènent sans cesse. Elle est placée dans mon esprit comme un point central. Je l'aperçois au bout de toutes mes idées.
1830s
Context: The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.