Assent

“ There is as clear an assent in one instance as in the other. Indeed, it is more reasonable and more sensible to imply a general assent to all the laws of society, present and to come, from the fact of living in it, than it is to imply a particular assent to a particular existing enactment. The true view of the matter is, that every man is presumed to submit to all power which may be lawfully exercised over him or his right, and no one should be presumed to submit to illegal acts of power, whether actual or contingent. ”

“ Thus it must mean an uncontrolled power to examine the validity of every proposition offered to our assent; without which power, and the due exercise of it, our assent cannot be the assent of rational beings. ”

“ When we say that the assent of the crown to a bill makes it law, we mean that the assent, being never given until all the other conditions are fulfilled, makes up the sum of the conditions, though no one now regards it as the principal one. When the decision of a legislative assembly has been determined by the casting vote of the chairman, we sometimes say that this one person was the cause of all the effects which resulted from the enactment. ”

“ Such a tangible defence of what we hold, inadequate as it necessarily is, considered as an analysis of our ratiocination in its length and breadth, nevertheless is in such sense associated with our holdings, and so fortifies and illustrates them, that it acts as a vivid apprehension acts, giving them luminousness and force. Thus inference becomes a sort of symbol of assent, and even bears upon action. ”

“ Dear Sir,—You may have heard of my book, “The Foundations of Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested to learn that I am contemplating a complete revision of its text in the light of your “Love-Letters.” They are plainly illuminating. From being a man of no assured opinions, I have become converted, through their medium, to a firm belief in the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me the honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-scribe the author of that incomparable series. ”

“ And we are unwilling to give our assent by silence to expressions of opinion which seem to us calculated, though not intended, to cripple the constitutional powers of the government, and to augment the public dangers in times of invasion and rebellion. ”

“ Those not manifested by them to be such; then, before we can censure any Council for its Anathema's, or its requiring of assent, we must know, whether the point, to which assent is required, is, or is not, evident divine Revelation. And then, by whom, or how, shall this thing touching the evidence of the Divine Revelation be judged or decided? for those that judge this, whoever they be, do sit now upon the trial of the rightness, or mistake of the judgment of a General Council: Or when, think we, will those who judge this (i.e. every person for himself) agree in their sentence? ”

“ For he who apprehends or perceives any thing, assents immediately. Again, assent not only precedes the practice of vice; but of virtue, the steady performance whereof, and adherence to which, depend on what a man has assented to and approv’d. ”

“ When a man requires you to sign an assent to Scripture, he requires you to assent to a doctrine as contrary to your natural understanding, and to your rights of free inquiry, as those who require your conformity to any one article whatsoever. ”

“ The royal assent may be given two ways: 1. In person; when the king comes to the house of peers, in his crown and royal robes, and sending for the commons to the bar, the titles of all the bills that have passed both houses are read; and the king’s answer is declared by the clerk of the parliament in Norman-French: a badge, it must be owned, (now the only one remaining) of conquest; and which one could wish to see fall into total oblivion; unless it be reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force. ”

“ It seems then that on the whole there are three conditions of certitude: that it follows on investigation and proof, that it is accompanied by a specific sense of intellectual satisfaction and repose, and that it is irreversible. If the assent is made without rational grounds, it is a rash judgment, a fancy, or a prejudice; if without the sense of finality, it is scarcely more than an inference; if without permanence, it is a mere conviction. ”

“ The empire or government of laws, according to that phrase, is that in which the laws are made with the free-will of the people; hence, then, if laws be made by the assent of the people, the government may be deemed free. ”

“ There must be a supreme and sovereign authority in the church which is infallible, and which can guide, direct, restrain, and correct all inferior and fallible exercise of authority. This sovereign authority is only exercised in the declaration and definition of doctrine in an irreversible and irreformable manner, and with an obligation annexed of that assent which excludes even a hypothetical doubt, or a right of ever withdrawing or modifying assent. It is this authority which we say must be infallible. ”

“ By nature every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed, and be subject to such limitations as they may impose. ”

“ But, sir, there is one principle upon which all the counsel for the accused have relied, upon which they have all dwelt with great force, and to the maintenance of which they have directed all their powers, that we cannot assent to; we mean to contend against it, because we believe it to be totally untenable, and because it is of the first importance in the decision of the question now under discussion. ”

“ I shall consider Assent made to propositions which express abstractions or notions under five heads; which I shall call Profession, Credence, Opinion, Presumption, and Speculation.
1. Profession.
There are assents so feeble and superficial, as to be little more than assertions. I class them all together under the head of Profession. Such are the assents made upon habit and without reflection; as when a man calls himself a Tory or a Liberal, as having been brought up as such ”

“ Thus, in some cases we can prevent or suspend our assent : but can a man versed in modern or ancient history doubt whether there is such a place as Rome, or whether there was such a man as Julius Caesar ? ”

“ That the influence of a sense of subordination and accountableness to the Supreme Being, will be direct and strong in checking these tendencies of human nature, is so plain as to command assent without argument. ”

“ Our first assents, right or wrong, are often little more than prejudices. The reasonings, which precede and accompany them, though sufficient for their purpose, do not rise up to the importance and energy of the assents themselves. As time goes on, by degrees and without set purpose, by reflection and experience, we begin to confirm or to correct the notions and the images to which those assents are given. ”

“ If it be penned, that the King enacts with the Assent of the Lords, or with the Assent of the Commons, it is not an Act of Parliament, for the Record of the Act expressing which of them gave their Assent, excludeth all Intendments that any other gave their Assent. ”

“ Whatever might be the answer of a moralist to this question, a jurist must search for its legal solution, in those principles of action which are sanctioned by the usages, the national acts, and the general assent, of that portion of the world of which he considers himself as a part, and to whose law the appeal is made. ”

“ I am unable to give my assent to the judgment which has just been announced, and while concurring in much of what is said in the opinion of the majority of my brethren, am compelled to differ upon a single point, which, as I think, controls the decision of the case. ”

“ The principle here is that the sovereign may assent to being sued by its own citizens,—an assent declared by the State constitution, but available by the citizen only according to acts of the Legislature. ”

“ For when once it is made clear that there are two unbegotten natures, then others of your averments may also gain our assent, even although something in them may not seem to fit in very readily with what is credible. ”

“ By Reason being here understood that Faculty in us which discovers, by the intervention of intermediate Ideas, what Connection Those in the Proposition have one with another: Whether certain; probable; or none at all; according whereunto, we ought to regulate our Assent. If we do not so, we degrade our selves from being Rational Creatures; and deprive our selves of the only Guide God has given us for our Conduct in our Actions and Opinions. ”

“ No Authority on Earth can oblige to internal assent in matters of Faith, or to any farther Obedience than that of Silence.
Prot. Yes, you stand obliged to yield a conditional assent, at least to the Definitions of these highest Courts, i. e. unless you can bring evident Scripture, or Demonstration against them.
Soc. I do not think Protestant Divines agree in this. I find indeed the Archbishop [49] requiring Evidence and Demonstration, for Inferiors contradicting, or publishing their dissent from the Councils Decrees, but not requiring thus much for their denial of assent. ”

“ The circumstance that this statement of the learned justice, himself one of the brightest ornaments of the tribunal of which he spoke, has been received with general assent, affords the strongest proof that the successors of the Great Chief Justice and his associates have in no way fallen short of the measure of their trust ”

“ They are, or may be, the attempts and the failures of an intellect insufficiently trained, or off its guard. Assent is an act of the mind, congenial to its nature; and it, as other acts, may be made both when it ought to be made, and when it ought not. It is a free act, a personal act for which the doer is responsible, and the actual mistakes in making it, be they ever so numerous or serious, have no force whatever to prohibit the act itself. We are accustomed in such cases, to appeal to the maxim, “Usum non tollit abusus;” ”

“ And again, we assent to the praise bestowed on a friend’s good qualities with an energy which we do not feel, when we are speaking of virtue in the abstract: and if we are political partisans, our assent is very cold, when we cannot refuse it, to representations made in favour of the wisdom or patriotism of statesmen whom we dislike. ”

“ When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before: but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. ”

“ But the proposition maintained in the opinion, that the third section, known as the 'Reciprocity Provision,' is valid and constitutional legislation, does not command our assent, and we desire to state very briefly the ground of our dissent from it. ”

“ Nothing is accomplished by mere assent. The American people must first be thoroughly satisfied that it is a necessity. The French may shout over a red cap, and overturn existing systems for a vague idea ”

“ In the first, we find three men, three poor men, so fixed in principle and determined in right, that the most 344tempting offers—offers when an assent would have given them wealth, ease, and luxury—were refused. ”

“ The perversions of legislation, originating in the highest authorities, supported by the greatest names, defended by a powerful faction and assented to by almost every body, are detected and swept away. ”

“ For he governs his assent right, and places it as he should, who, in any case or matter whatsoever, believes or disbelieves according as reason directs him. He that doth otherwise, transgresses against his own light, and misuses those faculties which were given him to no other end, but to search and follow the clearer evidence and greater probability. But since reason and faith are by some men opposed, we will so consider them in the following chapter. ”

“ Life multiplied by feeling into a limitless dream of past and future was mirrored in their clear depths; the questful gaze seemed reading the significance of the one through the symbols of the other, and pondering the lesson with sweetness of assent and ever-earnest longing for fuller revelation. ”

“ As, for example, that if any man shall bring into England or into any of the dominions thereunto belonging, from the Pope of Rome or from any man that hath authority from him, any Bull, writing, instrument, or authority to absolve or reconcile any person, or to promise any such absolution or reconciliation by speech, preaching, teaching, writing, or any other open deed, that then all and every such act or acts, offence or offences, shall be deemed and adjudged by the authority of this Act to be high treason. ”

“ MAYOR. Take him away, take him away, turn him into the Bale-dock.
PEN. These are but so many vain Exclamations; is this Justice or true Judgment? Must I therefore be taken away because I plead for the Fundamental Laws of England? However, this I leave upon your Consciences, who are of the Jury (and my sole Judges) that if these Ancient Fundamental Laws, which relate to Liberty and Property, and (are not limited to particular Persuasions in Matters of Religion) must not be indispensibly maintained and observed. Who can say he hath Right to the Coat upon his Back? ”

“ Remember, force will excite resistance. Such is the nature of the human heart. Free citizens revolt with disdain at the exercise of force. But judgment commands their prompt, their willing obedience. When the law is known, when it is declared by the proper tribunals, all will bow to its authority. You, then, may expect a full, and quiet, and general submission. But while it is litigated and uncertain what the law is, differences will exist, and discord will prevail.
It is under these impressions, sir, that your committee have presumed to offer the resolutions on your table ”