“ The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
United States of America.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal ”

“ In a primitive state of society the army as such does not exist, and the fighting force is co-equal with the group, the tribe or the nation. Military service is not only a duty but a privilege, and the right of carrying arms is one of the great distinctions between the freeman and the slave. ”

“ In an aristocracy, however, though the power of government was wielded by a few, theoretically the administration of government was carried on for the welfare of the many. Whenever the interests of the commonwealth were made subservient to the interests of the rulers, aristocracy degenerated into oligarchy. To the Greek mind aristocracy appealed as the most acceptable form of government, in that it was free alike from the dangers of despotism and mob rule. ”

“ It is commonly assumed that the power is extinct. The only safe statement that could be made, however, would be that the right has not been exercised for nearly two hundred years, and that only a grave emergency would justify the sovereign in employing it; and if this should occur, there is no lawful process by which the act, however repugnant to current ideas of government in England, could be declared unconstitutional or deprived of its legal effect. Under such a system the Constitution would sanction any governmental act which could be performed without precipitating a revolution. ”

“ Organization, in a military sense, comprises, in general, all the measures taken to insure to the army a regular and normal working of all its parts, to provide it with all the necessary machinery, to obtain for it regularly all that it requires, to insure its proper instruction, to protect the rights and prescribe the duties of each individual by suitable regulations, to supply the personnel and material which it needs, and, finally, to provide all the means whereby nothing may be wanting to enable it to fight under the most favorable conditions. ”

“ In the century of national life which has just closed, the balance of governmental power has insensibly shifted from the Executive to the Congress, and in Congress from the Senate to the House of Representatives. The free exercise by the Senate of its power of refusing assent to the President's nominations to office, and the extreme development of the party system in national politics, have operated in a great measure to deprive the executive of the actual power of making appointments to office ”

“ Under the more perfect mode of federation, where every citizen of each particular State owes obedience to two governments—that of his own State and that of the federation—it is evidently necessary not only that the constitutional limits of the authority of each should be precisely and clearly defined, but that the power to decide between them in any case of dispute should not reside in either of the governments, or in any functionary subject to it, but in an umpire independent of both. ”

“ In a legal sense, therefore, the real distinction between constitutions does not turn upon the ease or difficulty with which they can be altered, nor yet upon the fact that the established process for amending a constitutional provision differs from the ordinary processes of legislation, but in the fact that a constitution of the one type is a part of the ordinary law of the land, and that a constitution of the other type is superior to the ordinary law; that in the one case legislation is irresponsible and uncontrollable, while in the other it is controlled by the fundamental law. ”

“ France is the only important instance of the adoption of Cabinet government by a republic. In the free States, in which the popular will finds expression in the choice of the head of the State, it has not usually been deemed necessary to deprive that head of his executive authority, nor to set up a competing executive, deriving its authority less directly from the people. Hence in Switzerland and the republic of the Western World, the American model—a Cabinet responsible not to the legislature, but to the President or Governor—has been adopted. ”

“ The British army alone, of all the great armies of the world, has been tested in a war conducted on a large scale and under absolutely modern conditions, with the result that the rank and file proved themselves fully equal to all demands, as well as to their best traditions. The nation was not as fortunate in its commissioned ranks, but this was due to the system rather than to the material. No service in the world offers many opportunities for the accumulation of knowledge and practical experience of all that concerns the science of war ”

“ It is to the more enlightened political consciousness of modern times, and especially to the institution of representative popular governments, that the more durable type of federal government—the federated State—owes its existence. The formation of the United States of America under the present Constitution was the first attempt to realize this form of federation on a scale large enough to command the attention of the world, and the great success of the experiment of combining local independence with national power has impressed itself upon the political consciousness of Christendom. ”

“ The Federal Government and the governments of the States are, therefore, not sovereign, but legally limited corporations, strictly analogous to private and minor municipal corporations, which derive a limited authority from the State which created them. There is nothing singular in the power exercised by the courts in declaring a corporate act invalid because of its transcending the legal authority of the body performing it, even in the political sphere. ”

“ No acts of the legislature declaring the rights of the citizen, no treaty with a foreign government, no abdication of power by any arm of the State, enters into it. In the American system the only authoritative exposition of a constitution is that afforded by the courts. This extraordinary jurisdiction is not confined to the Supreme Court, but is exercised as well by the inferior Federal courts and by the regular tribunals of the several States. As constitutional law, the judgments of these courts vary according to the Constitution whose provisions are under examination. ”

“ Armed forces, organized under a regular system, for purposes of defense. The term ‘army’ may describe the military strength of the nation of which the force is a part, or by which it is employed; but it may also be used to describe an army which is only a part of the military forces of the country to which it belongs; as, for instance, the United States Army in Cuba or the Philippine Islands. The fundamental principle of combat is the same, whether between two individuals or two nations, and out of that principle has developed the art and science of war. ”

“ Courts, in the legal sense—i.e. authorities empowered to try and punish persons charged with offenses against the public or State, and to settle disputes regarding the rights and duties of individuals—have existed among all peoples that have emerged from savagery. There is no single root from which early judicial authority springs; nor is there, even among the Aryan peoples, any single typical form of primitive court. The right of the community to punish offenses against the community—a right which expresses itself originally in lynch law—may beget a popular jurisdiction in criminal cases ”

“ Great as were Locke's services to his country, and to the cause of civil and religious liberty, his fame rests on the Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, which marks an epoch in the history of philosophy. His purpose was to inquire into the powers of the human understanding, with a view to find out what things it was fitted to grapple with, and where it must fail, so as to make the mind of man "more cautious in meddling with things exceeding its comprehension, and disposed to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether." ”

“ The presence of a large volume of demand obligations embarrasses the workings of the treasury and impairs the credit of a government. When it is not convenient to pay them out of revenue, it is customary to change them into funded debt.
Theory of Public Debts. In the eighteenth century it was held by many writers on finance that a public debt increased a nation's wealth. Public bonds were regarded as a net addition to capital. The claim was also advanced that a public debt was a matter of indifference to the State, since it merely represented money owed by one set of citizens to another. ”

“ It is not denied that a strong and popular executive may stay the rising tide of Congressional supremacy for a time, but it is claimed that the appeal to the people, by which he accomplishes this, is itself a confession of the real weakness of his position. ”

“ That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. ”

“ Whenever the United States sets apart an Indian reservation, whether within the territorial limits of a State or not, it has full authority to protect the Indians in their persons and property and to provide for the punishment of all offenses committed within the reservation. An Indian reservation lying within the limits of a State is, however, subject to its jurisdiction also except so far as concerns the government and protection of the Indians themselves, unless otherwise provided by treaty with the Indians. ”

“ Under the Constitution the two Houses of Congress have in most respects an equal voice in legislation, the only important exception being the requirement that all revenue bills shall originate in the popular branch of the legislature. Each House is made the sole judge of its the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, though the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives are left to the legislatures of the several States. ”

“ This responsibility and subordination are the great factors in the control of an army, and tactical organization may be defined as the arrangement of an army in such wise as to enable it, in whole or part, to respond at all times to the will of the commander, promptly and efficiently. One of the first elements of strength in an army is the skillful organization of its command, and in this all nations are agreed as to the necessity for unity—that is, for a commander-in-chief of the forces. ”

“ The first type of constitution, in which the fundamental law is the creation of the powers wielding the sovereign authority of the State, is to be found in all of the monarchical States of Europe which have adopted, in whole or in part, a constitutional form of government. The free Constitution of England, so popular in character and so largely the product of custom, in a strict legal sense, belongs in this category as clearly as does the government of the Czar, the autocratic character of which has been modified by imperial concessions. ”

“ In strengthening the principle of arbitration as a means of settling grave international differences, in furnishing a high example of justice and disinterestedness in judging between nations, and in defining and elevating the conception of national responsibility, the Geneva tribunal rendered an incalculable service to humanity. ”