Supreme Council

“ All the states have been in this sentiment when they formed their state constitutions, and therefore have guarded against the danger; and every schoolboy in politics must be convinced of the propriety of the observation; and yet, by the proposed plan, the legislative and executive powers are closely united; the Senate, who compose one part of the legislature, are also, as council to the President, the supreme head, and are concerned in passing laws which they themselves are to execute.
The wisdom, sir, of many nations has induced them to enlarge the powers of their rulers ”

“ Others laboured to have the supreme authority to consist of an Assembly chosen by the People, and a Council of State to be chosen by that Assembly, to be vested with executive power, and accountable to that which should next succeed, at which time the power of the said Council should determine. ”

“ We have been constantly guided by this great truth: that the sovereignty dwells with the French people, and that it is for their interest, happiness, and glory that the Supreme Magistracy, the Senate, the Council of State, the Legislative Body, the Electoral Colleges, and the different branches of the Government, are and must be instituted. ”

“ On the 28th of September, the Convention completed its labors by adopting the first State Constitution, which went into immediate effect, without a vote of the people. ... The legislative power of the frame of government was vested in a General Assembly of one House, elected annually. The supreme executive power was vested in a President, chosen annually by the Assembly and Council, by joint ballot—the Council consisting of twelve persons, elected in classes, for a term of three years. ”

“ Grand National Assembly powers that devolve to the Council of State between assembly sessions, or in the event of exceptional circumstances that prevent the assembly from acting, include the authority to appoint and recall members of the Council of Ministers, members of the Supreme Court, and the prosecutor general. ”

“ The statutory obligation, now existing, that three of the members of the Supreme Executive Council shall be selected from the public services in India and similar provisions with regard to Provincial Councils should be removed. The elected representatives of the people should have a voice in the selection of the Indian members of the Executive Councils and for that purpose a principle of election should be adopted. ”

“ It provided for a president-general appointed by the crown, who should have supreme executive authority over all the colonies, and for a grand council, elected triennially by the several provincial assemblies, and to have such “rights, liberties and privileges as are held and exercised by and in the House of Commons of Great Britain”; the president-general and grand council were to be “an inferior distinct branch of the British legislature, united and incorporated with it.” The assent of the 422 grand council and of the British parliament was to be “requisite to the validity of all ... ”

“ Constitutionally, the Grand National Assembly, as the highest voice of the people, is asserted to be the supreme organ of state power, and all other government bodies are theoretically subordinate to it. ”

“ He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage, but it had no right of initiative, all laws being proposed by the executive power. ”

“ In the assembling of a convention for this purpose, which grew out of the free action of the people of each State, uninfluenced by law or precedent, we see congregated a body of men combining more talent, more wisdom, and more individuality of character than perhaps was ever aggregated in any other public body ever assembled. From this convention of sages emanated the Constitution of the United States; and most of those constituting this body reassembled in the first Congress, which sat as the supreme power in the United States. ”

“ But what is the sovereignty, and who is Congress? One branch, the people at large; and the other branch, the states by their representatives. Do people fear the delegation of power to themselves—to their own representatives? But he objects that the laws of the Union are to be the supreme laws of the land. Is it not proper that their laws should be the laws of the land, and paramount to those of any particular state?—or is it proper that the laws of any particular state should control the laws of the United States? Shall a part control the whole? ”

“ 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 ... ”

“ The Supreme Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, shall, being a representative body of the autonomous republic, exercise the rights of ownership as to land and natural resources within the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, except such land and such natural resources as shall be owned by the State, the bodies of local self-government, individuals and legal entities. ”

“ A Constitutional Council shall be created to interpret the constitution, to observe the constitutionality of the laws, and to settle disputes and contests emanating from presidential and parliamentary elections. ”

“ Part 4 - The People's Assembly and Shoura Councils Article 32 The People's Assembly Council will be composed of a number of members determined by law to be at least 350, half of whom at least will be Workers and Peasants. The members of the People's Assembly Council will be elected by a direct, public and secret election. The law stipulates the definition of a Worker and Peasant, as well as the electoral districts that the state will be divided into. It is possible for the president of the republic to appoint in the People's Assembly a number of the members, not to exceed 10. ”

“ It must introduce through the Senate a real check upon the democratic power that would act through the House, by a different mode of election and a permanent tenure of office; and in order that the States might not be in a situation to resist the measures of a government designed to be national and supreme, that government must possess complete and universal legislative power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With all the subtlety and all the sagacity and address which is characteristic of this order of men, in every age and nation, they prevailed on the people to relinquish for the future the right of electing counsellors in the general assembly; and the people, with their characteristic simplicity and unbounded confidence in their rulers when they love them, became the dupes, and passed a law, that the two councils should for the future elect, or at least approve and affirm, each other. ”

“ Nevertheless, the higher a man is placed the more independent he is, and the greater confidence the people have placed in him the more he has need of enlightened and conscientious councils. Thence the creation of a council of state, henceforward a veritable council of the government, first wheel in our organization, a collection of practical men, elaborating bills in special commissions, discussing them with closed doors, without oratorical ostentation in general assembly, and presenting them afterwards for acceptance to the legislative body. ”

“ Thus was formed and established the first representative legislature, that ever sat in America. And this example of a domestic parliament to regulate all the internal concerns of the country was never lost sight of, but was ever afterwards cherished throughout America, as the dearest birth-right of freemen. So acceptable was it to the people, and so indispensable to the real prosperity of the colony, that the council in England were compelled, in 1621, to issue an ordinance, which gave it a complete and permanent sanction. ”

“ To the States-General fell the task, after a terrific struggle with king and nobles, to create the Constituent Assembly, a great national congress, whose function it was to moderate the despotism of the throne by conferring upon [Pg 410] a nation of twenty-five millions of people, after ages of oppression, constitutional liberty. The Constituent Assembly, which succeeded the States-General, abolished those old institutions of feudal servitude which had become utterly unendurable, and established a constitutional monarchy, taking as a model, in the main, the British Constitution. ”

“ No department of the government has any other powers than those delegated to it by the people. All the legislative power granted by the constitution belongs to congress; but it has no legislative power which is not thus granted. * * Not every act of congress, then, is to be regarded as the supreme law of the land, nor is it by every act of congress the judges are bound. ”

“ The Council of Ten was created by the votes, the discussions, and conclusions of a numerous and intelligent Assembly; strong in its united strength; full of political instincts, which did not ignore the truth that the power which by a vote it was about {119} to establish was created to prevent the dangers which men of great ambitions on the exterior, or revolutionists in the interior, might bring to the Republic. ”

“ Those, who might wish to retain a very large portion of state sovereignty, in its representative character, in the councils of the Union, would naturally desire to have the house of representatives elected by the state in its political character, as under the old confederation. Those, on the other hand, who wished to impart to the government a national character, would as naturally desire an independent election by the people themselves in their primary meetings. ”

“ The power of the legislature is limited, not only by the general rules of natural justice, and the welfare of the community, but by the forms and principles of our particular constitution. If this doctrine be not true, we must admit, that king, lords, and commons have no rule to direct their resolutions, but merely their own will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and executive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution by an act of parliament. ”

“ The balances of the Constitution are for the most part only ideal. For all practical purposes the national government is supreme over the state governments, and Congress predominant over its so-called coördinate branches. Whereas Congress at first overshadowed neither President nor federal judiciary, it now on occasion rules both with easy mastery and with a high hand ”

“ I must own, that I was originally of opinion it would be better if every member of Congress, or our national council, were to consider himself rather as a representative of the whole than as an agent for the interests of a particular state; in which case, the proportion of members for each state would be of less consequence, and it would not be very material whether they voted by states or individually. ”

“ However important it is to give form and efficiency to your interior constitutions and police ; it is infinitely more important to have a wise general council ; otherwise a failure of the measures of the Union will overturn all your labors for the advancement of your particular good, and ruin the common cause. You should not beggar the councils of the United States to enrich the administration of the several members. Realize to yourself the consequences of having a Congress despised at home and abroad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the executive government were not admitted, through any of its members, to explain and vindicate its measures, to advocate new grants of authority, or to defend the prerogatives of the crown, the popular branch of the legislature would either become the predominant power in the state, or sink into insignificance. ”