[Formed after LEGISLATOR by substitution of suffix: cf. -URE. Cf. F. législature, cited by Hatz.-Darm. from 1789.]
1. ‘The power that makes laws’ (J.); a body of persons invested with the power of making the laws of a country or state; spec. (U.S.) the legislative body of a State or Territory, as distinguished from Congress.
a. 1676. Hale, Hist. Common Law (1713), 2. Without the concurrent Consent of all Three Parts of the Legislature, no such Law is, or can be made.
1708. Swift, Sentim. Ch. Eng. Man, Miscell. (1711), 131. By the Supreme Magistrate is properly understood the Legislative Power…. But the Word Magistrate seeming to denote a single Person, and to express the Executive Power, it came to pass, that the Obedience due to the Legislature was, for want of knowing or considering this easy Distinction, misapplyed to the Administration.
1716. Addison, Freeholder, No. 16, ¶ 6. In the very Notion of a Legislature is implied a Power to change, repeal, and suspend what Laws are in being, as well as to make … new Laws.
1781. Cowper, Fable, 9. ’Twas April, as the bumpkins say, The legislature called it May.
1783. Gentl. Mag., LIII. I. 166. The Congress shall earnestly recommend it to the Legislatures of the respective States.
1821. J. Q. Adams, in C. Davies, Metric Syst., III. (1871), 85. The Statute books are filled with ineffectual attempts of the legislature to establish uniformity.
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., II. 57. The legislature gave to the King’s proclamations the force of statutes of parliament.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., III. v. 656. Bills of the colonial legislatures relating to trade.
attrib. and Comb. 1829. Bentham, Justice & Cod. Petit., 124. Here and there a patch of real law—of legislature-made law—stuck in.
1843. Marryat, M. Violet, xx. He once said to them in the legislature room of Matagorda [etc.].
† 2. The exercise of the function or power of legislation. Obs.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1724), I. 319. It was very inconvenient to have both the legislature and the execution in the same hands.
1724. Swift, Drapiers’ Lett., Wks. 1755, V. II. 30. Mr. Wood takes upon him the entire legislature, and an absolute dominion over the properties of the whole nation.
a. 1734. North, Lives, II. 395. I think them very considerable in the science of legislature.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 46. For legislature … is the greatest act of superiority that can be exercised by one being over another.
