Acts of Union

“ And so, sir, when we declare our tenacious adherence to the Union, it is the Union of the Constitution. If the compact between the States is to be trampled into the dust; if anarchy is to be substituted for the usurpation which threatened the Government at an earlier period; if the Union is to become powerless for the purposes for which it was established, and we are vainly to appeal to it for protection--then, sir, conscious of the rectitude of our course, and self-reliant within ourselves, we look beyond the confines of the Union for the maintenance of our rights. ”

“ I may add at this point that while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. ”

“ ARTICLE E The European Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the Court of Justice shall exercise their powers under the conditions and for the purposes provided for, on the one hand, by the provisions of the Treaties establishing the European Communities and of the subsequent Treaties and Acts modifying and supplementing them and, on the other hand, by the other provisions of this Treaty.
ARTICLE F 1. The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States, whose systems of government are founded on the principles of democracy. ”

“ Congress embraced the opportunity, thus afforded, to address the states on the subject of ceding the territory, reminding them, "how indispensably necessary it is to establish the federal union on a fixed and permanent basis, and on principles, acceptable to all its respective members; how essential to public credit and confidence, to the support of our army, to the vigor of our councils, and the success of our measures; to our tranquillity at home, our reputation abroad; to our very existence, as a free, sovereign, and independent people." ”

“ Recurring to these principles, which constitute the organic basis of union, we perceive that vast as are the functions and the duties of the Federal Government, vested in or intrusted to its three great departments--the legislative, executive, and judicial--yet the substantive power, the popular force, and the large capacities for social and material development exist in the respective States, which, all being of themselves well-constituted republics, as they preceded so they alone are capable of maintaining and perpetuating the American Union. ”

“ We know that the resolution of Congress of 1780 contemplated that the new States to be formed under their recommendation were to have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the old. That every resolution, cession, compact, and ordinance of the States observed the same liberal principle. That the Union of the Constitution is a union formed of equal States, and that new States, when admitted, were to enter "this Union." ”

“ These were the circumstances which made it apparent to Americans that the Federal Constitution had come not a day too soon, which welded the nation together like an armor-plate of steel against foes on every hand, and taught the need of union as it never could have been taught amid surroundings of prosperity and peace. ”

“ We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.... ”

“ A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents. ”

“ Whatever belongs to the power of Congress and the jurisdiction of the courts of the Union, they may confidently be relied upon to provide and perform; and to the legislatures, the courts, and the executive authorities of the several States I earnestly appeal to secure, by adequate, appropriate, and seasonable means, Within their borders, these common and uniform rights of a united people which loves liberty, abhors oppression, and reveres justice. ”

“ The sixth resolution reads: “That the National Legislature ought to be empowered ... to negative all laws passed by the several states, contravening in the opinion of the National Legislature the articles of Union”, and at this point some of the texts add “or any treaty subsisting under the authority of the Union”. ”

“ Everyone who has been the victim of arrest or detention in contravention of the provisions of this Article shall have an enforceable right to compensation.’
The rights enshrined in Article 6 must be respected particularly when the European Parliament and the Council adopt legislative acts in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, on the basis of Articles 82, 83 and 85 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, notably to define common minimum provisions as regards the categorisation of offences and punishments and certain aspects of procedural law. ”

“ Resolved, That a union of the states, merely federal, will not accomplish the objects proposed by the articles of the confederation, namely, common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare.
2. Resolved, That no treaty or treaties among any of the states as sovereign, will accomplish or secure their common defence, liberty or welfare.
3. Resolved, That a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme judicial, legislative and executive. ”

“ It is evident that a confederation so vast and so varied, both in numbers and in territorial extent, in habits and in interests, could only be kept in national cohesion by the strictest fidelity to the principles of the Constitution as understood by those who have adhered to the most restricted construction of the powers granted by the people and the States. ”

“ Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. ”

“ In Congress are vested all legislative powers, and upon them devolves the responsibility as well for framing unwise and excessive laws as for neglecting to devise and adopt measures absolutely demanded by the wants of the country. Let us earnestly hope that before the expiration of our respective terms of service, now rapidly drawing to a close, an all-wise Providence will so guide our counsels as to strengthen and preserve the Federal Unions, inspire reverence for the Constitution, restore prosperity and happiness to our whole people, and promote "on earth peace, good will toward men." ”

“ They tell us, in the letter submitting the constitution to the consideration of the country, that "In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. ”

“ The state governments should be held secure to their reserved rights, and the General Government sustained in its constitutional powers, and that the Union should be revered and watched over as the palladium of our liberties. ”

“ But it will be said, that the proposed change in the principles and form of the Union will vary the tendency; that the general government will have real and greater powers, and will be derived, in one branch at least, from the people, not from the governments of the states. ”

“ On the propriety of attempting to make the freedmen electors by the proclamation of the Executive I took for my counsel the Constitution itself, the interpretations of that instrument by its authors and their contemporaries, and recent legislation by Congress. When, at the first movement toward independence, the Congress of the United States instructed the several States to institute governments of their own, they left each State to decide for itself the conditions for the enjoyment of the elective franchise. ”

“ ARTICLE 138b In so far as provided in this Treaty, the European Parliament shall participate in the process leading up to the adoption of Community acts by exercising its powers under the procedures laid down in Articles 189b and 189c and by giving its assent or delivering advisory opinions. The European Parliament may, acting by a majority of its members, request the Commission to submit any appropriate proposal on matters on which it considers that a Community act is required for the purpose of implementing this Treaty. ”

“ Such a connection proving to be so slight as to be little more than a fiction, they formed, under the Constitution of 1787, the only other kind of a union which appears to be practicable, namely, a union under a common government which was a Chief Legislature for all the connected and United States by their express grant, and whose powers were expressly limited, by limitation in the grant, to the common purposes of the whole connection and union of free states. ”

“ No constitution was ever born of a more interesting contest for national dignity and independence.
634. Nature of the Union.—The union of the two states was of a purely personal character; that is to say, it was a union solely through the crown. Each of the kingdoms maintained its own constitution, its own ministry, its own legislature, its own laws, its own financial system, its own courts, its own army and navy. ”

“ Each State expressly stipulated, as well for itself as for each and all of its citizens, and every citizen of each State became solemnly bound by his allegiance to the Constitution that any person held to service or labor in one State, escaping into another, should not, in consequence of any law or regulation thereof, be discharged from such service or labor, but should be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor might be due by the laws of his State. ”

“ The general objects of the union are, 1st, to protect us against foreign invasion; 2d, to defend us against internal commotions and insurrections; 3d, to promote the commerce, agriculture, and manufactures, of America. ”

“ Just connections tend to become unions, it being found in practice necessary, for the preservation of the connection in due order, that the power of limited legislation for the common purposes and the power of adjudicating and applying the law for the common purposes should extend not only to the states, but to all individuals throughout the states. ”

“ The Union which they established can exist only where all the States are represented in both Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regulate its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction, apply with equal force to all the people of every section. ”

“ They all discover an ardent attachment to the Union of these States, as the true source of security and happiness to all, and a reverence for the national constitution, as calculated in its spirit and principles to insure that Union, and establish that happiness: but they are all stamped with the melancholy conviction that the basis of that Union has been destroyed by a practical neglect of its principles ”

“ But the Union is formed by the surrender by each of the States of its individual sovereignty, and each State by its admission into the Union surrenders its individual sovereignty, or binds itself by a constitutional compact to merge its individual sovereignty in that of the whole. ”

“ The scheme, therefore, under all the circumstances, of making numbers the basis of the representation of the Union, seems to have obtained more general favour, than any other in the convention, because it had a natural and universal connection with the rights and liberties of the whole people. ”

“ It leaves them not in death, but follows them into that higher realm, where, with Washington and Franklin, and their noble compatriots, they look down with undying affection upon their country, and offer up prayers that the Union and the constitution may be perpetual. For, recollect, my fellow-citizens, that it is the constitution that makes the Union, and unless that immortal instrument, bearing the name of the Father of his Country, shall be maintained entire in all its wise provisions and sacred guarantees, our free institutions must perish. ”

“ In the option between two evils, that which appeared to be the least was preferred, and the power of the union provided for. At present the influence of the general government has so thoroughly pervaded every State, that all the little wheels are obliged to turn according to the great one. ”

“ I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all National Governments. It is safe to assert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever—it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. ”

“ In the first place, the theory of States rights must be abandoned, and each State must become a member of the Union by organizing under a common form, to be prescribed by them all, or by the present required constitutional majority of them all, to make an amendment to the Constitution valid. ”