Sotirios A. Barber

Doing What Needs to Be Done

If the end of a legal system is the well-being of its people, as Madison claims in Federalist , No. 45, and if it is irrational to sacrifice means to ends, as Madison says in Federalist , No. 40, then Cicero was right to conclude that salus populi suprema lex , that the peoples welfare is supreme law—that the peoples welfare should prevail over conflicting legal arrangements.