The Laws

“ But the judgment of what is reasonable, and of what is to be abolished, belongeth to him that maketh the law, which is the sovereign assembly, or monarch.
The law of nature, and the civil law contain each other. 4. The law of nature, and the civil law, contain each other, and are of equal extent. For the laws of nature, which consist in equity, justice, gratitude, and other moral virtues on these depending, in the condition of mere nature, as I have said before in the end of the fifteenth chapter, are not properly laws, but qualities that dispose men to peace and obedience. ”

“ And sometimes, where the thing itself has it’s rise from the law of nature, the particular circumstances and mode of doing it become right or wrong, as the laws of the land shall direct. Thus, for instance, in civil duties; obedience to superiors is the doctrine of revealed as well as natural religion: but who those superiors shall be, and in what circumstances, or to what degrees they shall be obeyed, is the province of human laws to determine. ”

“ The authority of the laws which govern society is not found in the fact that the laws have been made by the will of the majority, or the will of the minority, or by the will of a king, or by the wills of any [236] or all of the people; but because they are founded in the constitution of human nature. ”

“ The laws which hold society together, operate with the force of instincts, and after the manner of vague traditions, long before they are digested into written tables. The written code does not create the law; it merely gives a distinct promulgation, and a higher degree of authority, to certain floating principles which had operated on people's practice antecedently. ”

“ But, good or bad, as laws in this country are merely the expression of the people’s will, they should be respected as long as they remain laws. For law is just as necessary to the human race as is the air we breathe or the food we eat. ”

“ The laws incorporated in the book of Leviticus, etc., consisting in the regulation or government of the nation, appointing communities or families, dealing with food, dress, sacrifice, crime and its punishment, trade, commerce, domestic affairs, marriage, and above all church affairs, were mostly adoptions from other nations with certain modifications, written up in the manner we find them. ”

“ So that the exact and irrefutable definition of legislation, intelligible to all, is that: Laws are rules made by people who govern by means of organized violence, for compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered. ”

“ It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; ”

“ But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour. ”

“ The nervous language of the Common Law, the impressive forms of our courts and the precision and substantial truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where these laws govern. ”

“ Who does not see that there is no empire, kingdom, dukedom, republic, state, or household, that is not established by laws, which constitute the order and so the form of its. government? In each of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third. ”

“ The laws of each country, its criminal and civil codes, its system of education, its sumptuary regulations, its treatment of the relation of the sexes, are intimately connected with the form of government, or rather with the principle which animates that form. ”

“ Your statesman of a mental stature somewhat overtopping that of the machine-person puts his faith in law. Providence has designed to permit him to be persuaded of the efficacy of statutes—good, stringent, carefully drawn statutes definitively repealing all the laws of nature in conflict with any of their provisions. ”

“ At issue are the laws and the "spirit of laws," unwritten or written, by which diverse human societies live, of whatever form, extent and kind,—the State, commune, Church, school, army, agricultural or industrial workshop, tribe or family. ”

“ The rules of a society, in a majority of cases, may be conveniently divided into these four classes, though in some societies all the rules are found under one of these heads, being called either the constitution, or the by-laws, or the standing rules. ”

“ O.—I mean that the general tendency is right in the laws of civilised nations; and that, in due course of time, natural sense and instinct point out the matters they should be brought to bear upon. And each question of legislation must be made a separate subject of inquiry as it presents itself: you cannot fix any general principles about what should be dealt with legally, and what should not. ”

“ But beyond certain limits the “laws” stated are certainly incorrect, and are to be regarded as mere practical rules, of extensive application certainly, but without any pretension to be looked at as really general laws. ”

“ Ordinary law-givers offer us laws to regulate society--laws, subject to change like the minds of those who make them, and of the people who obey them: those talk only of general, immutable, and eternal laws, which, without exception, are obeyed with order, regularity, and absolute exactness in the immensity of space. ”

“ The laws receive their force and authority from an oath of fidelity, either tacit or expressed, which living subjects have sworn to their sovereign, in order to restrain the intestine fermentation of the private interests of individuals. ”

“ We are old ourselves, and therefore we must leave our work of legislation to be improved and perfected by the next generation; not only making laws for our guardians, but making them lawgivers. 'We must at least do our best.' Let us address them as follows. Beloved saviours of the laws, we give you an outline of legislation which you must fill up, according to a rule which we will prescribe for you. ”

“ The vast majority of us are probably unaware of the fact that any such law is in force. We suppose that we determine for ourselves what kind of laws shall rule in our states and cities; that what we say—what the majority of us say—goes. ”

“ In proceeding to the establishment of laws, you wish to adopt them from ours, and such only for the present as suit your present condition; chiefly, indeed, those for the punishment of crimes, and the protection of property. But who is to determine which of our laws suit your condition, and shall be in force with you? All of you being equally free, no one has a right to say what shall be law for the others. ”

“ In the spirit of the statesman who said, 'Let me make the ballads of a country, and I care not who make their laws,' Plato would say, 'Let the amusements of children be unchanged, and they will not want to change the laws. ”

“ If such an one ever arises among us, blessed will he be, and blessed they who listen to his words. For where power and wisdom and temperance meet in one, there are the best laws and constitutions. I am endeavouring to show you how easy under the conditions supposed, and how difficult under any other, is the task of giving a city good laws. 'How do you mean?' Let us old men attempt to mould in words a constitution for your new state, as children make figures out of wax. ”

“ As therefore every subject is interested in the preservation of the laws, it is incumbent upon every man to be acquainted with those at least, with which he is immediately concerned; lest he incur the censure, as well as inconvenience, of living in society without knowing the obligations which it lays him under. ”

“ But here a very natural, and very material, question arises: how are these customs or maxims to be known, and by whom is their validity to be determined? The answer is, by the judges in the several courts of justice. They are the depositary of the laws; the living oracles, who must decide in all cases of doubt, and who are bound by an oath to decide according to the law of the land. Their knowlege of that law is derived from experience and study ”

“ The Laws distinctly acknowledge what the Republic partly admits, that the ideal is inimitable by us, but that we should 'lift up our eyes to the heavens' and try to regulate our lives according to the divine image. ”

“ The consistent law or the laws on which societies are framed, and reared up to developed bodies, are of various kinds, devised principally by our philanthropists and philosophers and legislators, for the best of the parties concerned. ”

“ It 'binds heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne,' upon men's consciences, but puts not forth 'the tip of a finger' to enable men to bear them. And this is true about law in all forms, whether it be the Mosaic Law, or whether it be the law of our own country, or whether it be the laws written upon men's consciences. ”

“ An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. ”

“ The infirmities of the best among us, the vices and ungovernable passions of others, the instability of all human affairs, and the numberless unforeseen events, which the compass of a day may bring forth, will teach us (upon a moment's reflection) that to know with precision what the laws of our country have forbidden, and the deplorable consequences to which a wilful disobedience may expose us, is a matter of universal concern. ”

“ We should consider whether the laws of states ought not to have the character of loving and wise parents, rather than of tyrants and masters, who command and threaten, and, after writing their decrees on walls, go their ways; and whether, in discoursing of laws, we should not take the gentler view of them which may or may not be attainable—at any rate, we will show our readiness to entertain such a view, and be prepared to undergo whatever may be the result. ”

“ In the mean time it has been the peculiar lot of our admirable system of laws, to be neglected, and even unknown, by all but one practical profession; though built upon the soundest foundations, and approved by the experience of ages. ”

“ Again, I find that there are rules of social life, which take the form of what are called "laws," and these are imposed by the will of some governing authority; they are always the product of some one human will, or of the collective will of a greater number of persons. ”

“ Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. ”

“ The noblest life has the greatest pleasures and the fewest pains...Having finished the preamble, and touched on some other preliminary considerations, we proceed to the Laws, beginning with the constitution of the state. This is not the best or ideal state, having all things common, but only the second-best, in which the land and houses are to be distributed among 5040 citizens divided into four classes. ”

“ Law, in it’s most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey. ”

“ Our Legislature has never passed a law that infringed upon me, because I live above the law through honouring every particle of it. In this course the law is beneath my feet and is my servant, not my master. Thousands live in this way. ”

“ As long as we can get redress in the courts, as long as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced and the law will be respected. ”

“ The code of laws drafted by the Convention, from which extracts have been given above, is based on this principle, the fundamental idea of which is that it is not, as is generally maintained, the family, but the individual human being who is the main pillar of society, and that this individual is sovereign. ”

“ General laws are meant to regulate our conduct to each other, within certain rules; that the confidence necessary for the social union may be maintained. A principle laid down by the law, is promulgated as a general rule; and in the confidence that this rule will be respected by all; or that if violated, society will punish the violator, it is recognised as a general principle of action. ”

“ A law, if I understand the term, is an act of the whole State, operating upon the whole State, either by command or prohibition: It is thus distinguished from a resolve which more properly respects an individual or a part of the State. [32] The object of a law is to prevent positiv evil or produce positiv good to the whole State; not merely to a particular part. The principle therefore on which all laws should be founded, is, a regard to the greatest good which can be produced to the greatest number of individuals in the State. ”

“ Read into the simple precepts what modern interpretations you will, and one finds the elements necessary for training the citizens of a state to be justly governed by the consent of the governed.
Less significant laws reached out to regulate the personal life of the people: a talebearer was liable to penalty; a liar, a drunkard, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane man might be whipped, branded, imprisoned, or put in the stocks. ”