" Law obviously existed because of a desire to lessen the quantum of suffering in a society. And yet law could only be said to exist where its enforcers had the power and will to inflict harm. Law, then, was not the setting of good against evil; it merely authorized the use of some kinds of evil to combat others. Moreover, Austin’s theory located the law’s authority in the "

― John Matteson , A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation