...Blackstone did add that "no human legislature has the power to abridge or destroy [natural rights]" and that "acts of parliament that are impossible to be performed are of no validity." These restrictions echoed Coke's opinion in Bonham 's Case. Yet they had less bite because Blackstone...

...Blackstone offers a narrower formulation. He says that "if there arise out of [acts of Parliament] collaterally any absurd consequences, manifestly contradictory...are, with regard to those collateral consequences, void."18 The justification for this very limited sort of voidness is that laws are written in general...