Landtag

“ Bills may be introduced from the floor of the Landtag, by the Land government or by a popular petition to initiate legislation.
Article 76 (Popular initiative) (1) All residents shall have the right to submit certain items of political decision-making to the Landtag within the framework of its competence. This popular initiative may also table bills and motions to dissolve the Landtag. The initiative must be signed by at least twenty thousand residents and motions to dissolve the Landtag by at least one hundred and fifty thousand persons entitled to vote. ”

“ Parliamentary groups shall consist of members of the Landtag. As autonomous and independent structures with their own rights and duties, they shall participate in the work of the Landtag and support the development of informed parliamentary opinion. ”

“ Every person shall have the right, jointly or individually, to approach the Landtag, the municipal self-governing bodies and any other state or municipal authority with ideas, criticism and complaints. ”

“ At no time may a member be subjected to court proceedings or disciplinary action or otherwise called to account outside the Landtag for a vote cast or for any speech or debate in the Landtag, in any of its committees or in a parliamentary group. ”

“ Elections and referenda shall be general, direct, equal, free and secret. Parties, political associations, list associations and individual citizens shall be entitled to participate in elections. Members of the Landtag shall be elected in accordance with a procedure which combines direct election of a candidate with the principles of proportional representation. Parliaments shall be entitled to scrutiny of elections and voting for their respective electoral areas. ”

“ A referendum must take place if one-tenth of the qualified voters files an initiative petition requesting the passage of a law. (2) The initiative petition must be accompanied by a complete draft of a bill with explanations. (3) The Minister-President in the name of the Cabinet and with a statement of the Cabinet's position must submit the initiative petition to the Landtag. (4) If the Landtag rejects the initiative petition, it may simultaneously submit its own bill to the people for decision. ”

“ In the Legislative Assembly there are the Government party, consisting of the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General, who prove their loyalty and devotion by adhering to His Excellency the Governor on every division, and (according to general belief) would rather vote against their own measures than against the representative of their Queen. Then there is the popular party, consisting of the popular member, who speaks at random on either side of the debate, but invariably votes against the Government, in order to maintain inviolate the integrity of his principles. ”

“ The governing Landamman now turned to the assembly, and read them their oath, that they likewise should further the honor and prosperity of the land, preserve its freedom and its equal rights, obey the laws, protect the Council and the judges, take no gift or favor from any prince or potentate, and that each one should accept and perform, to the best of his ability, any service to which he might be chosen. ”

“ But a body of councillors, are never without some other authority, either of judicature, or of immediate administration: as in a monarchy, they represent the monarch, in delivering his commands to the public ministers: in a democracy, the council, or senate propounds the result of their deliberations to the people, as a council; but when 232they appoint judges, or hear causes, or give audience to ambassadors, it is in the quality of a minister of the people: and in an aristocracy, the council of state is the sovereign assembly itself; and gives counsel to none but themselves. ”

“ From the date of our charter to the time of the Stamp Act, and indeed since that time, (notwithstanding the misrepresentations of our charter constitution, as too popular and republican,) the council of this province have been generally on the side of the governor and the prerogative. For the truth of this, I appeal to our whole history and experience. The art and power of governors, and especially the negative, have been a stronger motive on the one hand, than the annual election of the two houses on the other. ”

“ In reality the lieutenant-governor is a. figure-head, and power is in the hands of the legislature, which consists of two houses, a Legislative Council, appointed nominally by the lieutenant-governor, really by the premier, and an Assembly, chosen by what is practically manhood suffrage. ”

“ The second is what is also essential to the nature of a subordinate legislature, and what the Colonists never call in question. That therefore the point here meant to be stated as in debate, is, Whether a subordinate legislature can be instructed, restricted, and controuled, in the very act of legislation? whether the King's instructions or letters from secretaries of state, and such like significations of his Majesty's will and pleasure, is a due and constitutional application of the governors, or of the royal negative? ”

“ With us, when we elect popular representatives, we send them to a council in which each man individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign; all the members are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With us the representative, separated from the other parts, can have no action and no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several members and districts of our representation. ”

“ Alike in the whole Confederation and in the single Canton, re-election is the rule; the rejection of the outgoing magistrate is the rare exception. The Landammann of Uri, whom his countrymen have raised to the seat of honour, and who has done nothing to lose their confidence, need not fear that when he has gone to the place of meeting in the pomp of office, his place in the march homeward will be transferred to another against his will. ”

“ He says that, according to his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the other chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this other question. Why? The question of who shall be governor of a Territory for a year or two, and pass away, without his track being left upon the soil, or an act which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a question of vast national magnitude ”

“ Virtuous emulation was roused, the force of public opinion increased, and the importance of the individual in the general scale visibly exalted. The Landsgemeinde is self-government in its noblest reach and simplest form, where every man is legislator, judge, and executive. ”

“ If such should become the fate of your Constitution, ask yourselves what must be the motive of your government? It is easier to govern a province by a faction than to govern a coordinate country by coordinate means. ”

“ We meet some fine men among the Boers, President John Brand being as fine a specimen of a pioneer statesman as any one would wish to find. The government of the republic consists of the President and the Legislature, called the Volksraad, elected every four years. ”

“ When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide.'... More than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon various propositions offered by individual commissioners. ”

“ Your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as well as you, had an interest in these common principles. They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high degree: some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty ”

“ If we—the people in this Territory, or in other Territories or in the States, confer certain powers on the General Government, we no longer retain them, they are ceded away by us to others. If we give to our legislators certain authority, they hold that authority, and it is for us to submit to the laws which may be enacted by them. ”

“ Dependence of the Governor on the official party.A body of holders of office thus constituted, without reference to the people or their representatives, must in fact, from the very nature of colonial government, acquire the entire direction of the affairs of the Province. A Governor, arriving in a colony in which he almost invariably has had no previous acquaintance with the state of parties, or the character of individuals, is compelled to throw himself almost entirely upon those whom he finds placed in the position of his official advisers. ”

“ All powers, authorities, and functions which at the establishment of the Union are in any of the Colonies vested in the Governor or in the Governor in Council, or in any authority of the Colony, shall, as far as the same continue in existence and are capable of being exercised after the establishment of the Union, be vested in the Governor-General or in the Governor-General in Council, or in the authority exercising similar powers under the Union, as the case may be, except such powers and functions as are by this Act or may by a law of Parliament be vested in some other authority. ”

“ Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from France to England, Norway and so forth; the actual work of the State is done behind the scenes and is carried out by the departments, the chancellories and the staffs. Parliament itself is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the "common people." ”

“ The most prevalent idea in the principal States seems to be a total alteration of the present federal system, and substituting a great national council or parliament, consisting of two branches of the legislature, founded upon the principles of equal proportionate representation, with full legislative powers upon all the subjects of the Union; and an executive: and to make the several State legislatures subordinate to the national, by giving the latter the power of a negative upon all such laws as they shall judge contrary to the interest of the federal Union ... ”

“ Posterity will be indebted to your Grace for not contenting yourself with a temporary expedient, but entailing upon them the immediate blessings of your administration. Boroughs were already too much at the mercy of government. Counties could neither be purchased nor intimidated. But their solemn determined election may be rejected, and the man they detest may be appointed, by another choice, to represent them in parliament. ”

“ On the whole the best chance for the Church interest as regards the question, in my judgment, is that you should carry your empowering bill through the Imperial Parliament this session, and that we should get through our session and the general election, which is about to follow, with as little excitement as possible. The province is prosperous and the people contented; and at such a time, if no disturbing cause arise, moderate and reasonable men are likely to be returned. ”

“ Everything flows directly or indirectly from the power immanent in the Sovereign. Governors and nominated members of Legislative Councils owe their commissions directly, and officials below them indirectly, to his delegation of power. ”

“ As governors within the limits of a State, they obviously assume the extinction of the old State governments for which they are substituted, and the President, in appointing them, assumes a power over these States kindred to his acknowledged power over Territories of the Union; but, in appointing governors for Territories, he acts in pursuance of the Constitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. ”

“ If the Governor of each Presidency were to have in his Council some of the officials of his Government, some of the non- official Europeans resident in the Presidency, and two or three at least of the intelligent Natives of the Presidency in whom the people would have some confidence, you would have begun that which will be of inestimable value hereafter—you would have begun to unite the government with the governed ”

“ The citizens of the Territory who formed the majority in the organization of the territorial government, and in the elections for its Legislature and inferior officers, form one party. The persons who organized a State government, and attempted to put it in operation against the authority of that established by Congress, form another. ”

“ In some we find the monarchy elective, as in Hungary, Bohemia, and Styria; in all we find diets of representatives or delegates, chosen by certain classes of the people, without whose concurrence taxes could not be imposed, troops levied, or legislative measures enacted; and we find municipal institutions founded on a broad basis of representation. ”

“ Things had gone on from bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game! I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and without consultation with, or the knowledge of the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and, after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject. ”