Circumvention

“ In the formation of the law, regard should be often had to the convenience, to the faculties, to the interests, and to the habits of the citizens, sometimes even to their prejudices, but in the interpretation of it, nothing but justice should be regarded. ”

“ Although it is my will that complete justice be observed in each case, I charge you that, in so far as may be possible, and can be rightly done, you settle the differences and suits which arise, without having recourse to the technicalities of the law or proceeding by the ordinary methods, or condemning to pecuniary fines; but observing throughout the provisions of the decrees that shall be given you. ”

“ When you charge the neglect of any duty as a crime, or account its fulfilment a virtue, you suppose the existence of a power to neglect or fulfil; and it is the exercise of this power, in the one way or the other, which constitutes the merit or demerit. ”

“ Principles of legislation in matters of procedure: uniting in one view the criminal and civil branches, between which no line can be drawn, but a very indistinct one, and that continually liable to variation. ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ With regard to existing laws, some alterations are thought to be necessary. Many respectable men have suggested that our estray laws, the law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some others, are deficient in their present form, and require alterations. ”

“ We hear also that they bring certain persons by name before the tribunal of the people, persons who formerly stood at the head of affairs, that they set forth their incapacity, their indolence, and their evil will, and clearly show how from such causes such effects were bound to follow. ”

“ If we look into history we shall find, that laws, which are, or ought to be, conventions between men in a state of freedom, have been, for the most part the work of the passions of a few, or the consequences of a fortuitous or temporary necessity ”

“ The answer to this question arises out of the above consideration of the means which law employs to obtain the fulfilment of obligations, combined with the view of law as relative to a moral end, i.e. the formation of a society of persons, acting from a certain disposition, from interest in the society as such. ”

“ I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding. That part of its business which consists in punishing, is more particularly the subject of penal law. ”

“ Individual and social duties are quite as imperative now as when they were minutely specified in statute-books and enforced by penalties no longer admissible. It is well that stocks, whipping-post, and ducking- stool are now only matters of tradition ”

“ The chief objection that any naturalistic scheme of religion has to encounter comes from those who, applying the language of jurisprudence to every-day life, urge that the three terms, command, duty, and sanction, are inseparably connected ”

“ All the safeguards which human experience had shown to be necessary in judicial proceedings of the most trivial character were deliberately cast aside in these cases, where life and reputation and property through three generations were involved. ”

“ In the administration of law, both civil and criminal, the rule of practice shall conform, as near as possible, to that of the United States, but the forms and customs of no particular state shall be required or adopted. ”

“ Though duties by the late act are laid on some articles, on which no drawbacks are allowed, yet the duties imposed by the act, are so small, in comparison with the drawbacks that are allowed, that all the duties together will not amount to so much as the drawbacks. ”

“ The legislator should therefore incline rather to mildness than to severity, and depend, for the moral effect of the punishment he denounces, on its being uniform in its operation, definite in its amount, and certain in its infliction. ”

“ The home, the school, the church, the club, business, profession, trade, and union, all insist on strict, correct conformity to standard; all demand authoritatively implicit obedience and submission to rule and regulation. ”

“ This obligation, which descends from the throne to the cottage, and equally binds the highest and lowest of mankind, signifies nothing more, than that it is the interest of all, that conventions, which are useful to the greatest number, should be punctually observed. ”

“ We can see the policeman on his beat, or the judge in court, or the members of the legislature—the men who, respectively, maintain, administer, and make the laws; and we can see the record of the laws in books. But the idea or principle of Law which has caused men to construct all this machinery for the making and enforcing of the laws, exists only in the mind. ”

“ The judge, perhaps on petition from the community to which the criminal or dissolute man belongs, should decide on the necessity of the state's caring for him. Such care would involve life in a state institution, but a minimum use of force or restraint. ”

“ The master rogue has discovered, with immense satisfaction, that the labor of others may be enjoyed, and the results of their labor seized and appropriated to his uses, without thrusting himself within the control of criminal tribunals. ”

“ Benevolent individuals noticed it, and supplies flowed in, until at last it has grown to be an establishment in which several hundreds are seeking reformation. To prevent imposition, a rigid probation is prescribed. ”

“ Again, of positive laws some are human, some divine; and of human positive laws, some are distributive, some penal. Distributive are those that determine the rights of the subjects, declaring to every man what it is, by which he acquireth and 272holdeth a propriety in lands, or goods, and a right or liberty of action: and these speak to all the subjects. Penal are those, which declare, what penalty shall be inflicted on those that violate the law; and speak to the ministers and officers ordained for execution. ”

“ First, As he is a good Man, he should consider, that the principal Duty which every Man owes, is to his Country, for the Safety and Good of which all Laws are established; and therefore his Country requires of him to contribute all that in him lies to the due Execution of those Laws. ”

“ The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. ”

“ Spiritual privileges do not make void or weaken, but confirm and strengthen, their obligations to civil duties: "Remind them therefore to be subject to principalities and powers and to obey magistrates." And, 2. To be ready to every good work. Some refer this to such good works as are required by magistrates and within their sphere: "Whatever tends to good order, and to promote and secure public tranquility and peace, be not backward, but ready, to promote such things." ”

“ The people in both reserved in a manner the office of judgment to themselves, and brought the decision of civil rights, or of criminal questions, to the tribunal of peers, who, in judging of their fellow citizens, prescribed a condition of life for themselves. ”

“ Where-ever, therefore, the laws are honestly intended, and equally executed, so as to comprehend in their penalties and operation the great as well and as much as the small, and hold in awe the magistrates as much as the subject, that government is good, that people are happy. ”

“ For the convenience of analysis, we may treat the obligations correlative to rights, obligations which it is the proper office of law to enforce, apart from moral duties and from the virtues which are tendencies to fulfil those duties. ”

“ And it is, as far as I have been able to learn, the practice of all countries.' The same will, the same positive action, the same purpose, and, it may be added, the same predicament or position of the actors, must exist in each class of cases. There must be intent and act, prompted by, and tending to, a practicable, or at least a probable result, and not mere endurance or submission to uncontrollable necessity in either case. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All persons connected in any way with this organization, and who may be entitled to full protection under it, shall be held as under obligation to labor in some way for the general good, and any persons refusing, or neglecting so to do, shall on conviction receive a suitable and appropriate punishment. ”

“ The state can establish places of restraint and punishment, and support and maintain them, both for the protection of the public, for the safety of the individuals themselves, and for purposes of philanthropy. ”

“ Criminal offences and civil cases were no longer tried according to the vague and varying opinions and feelings of learned men and priests, but were arranged, condensed, and codified into bodies of laws which learned men were called upon to administer. ”

“ From the necessity of the case the law imposes upon the master the duty, and clothes him with the power, to judge and determine, at the time, whether the circumstances of danger in such a case are or are not so great and pressing as to render a sacrifice of a portion of the associated interests indispensable for the common safety of the remainder. ”

“ The essential condition of social [Pg 86] development is enforcement, where necessary, of peace and order by adequate means. The criminal law corresponds to one part of this process. The whole social system includes machinery for prevention, for reformation and for education, as well as for punishment; and it is only when taken in its relation to other parts of the system, that we can give the full justification. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For trifling offenses which in our day would be punished by a small fine or a few days' confinement, men, women, and boys were sent to this other end of the earth to serve terms of seven and fourteen years ”

“ The same considerations which have been urged to show that an act alone, by itself, does not and ought not to impose either civil or criminal liability, apply, at least frequently, to a series of acts, or to conduct, although the series shows a further co-ordination and a further intent. ”

“ The sanction upon which social life reposes is, in our moral theory, the legal punishment enforceable in our Courts, and the basis presupposed for the security and material happiness of our citizens is the possession of goods which shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us an independence of action in the midst of our fellowmen. ”

“ In like manner we annul all and every its privileges, indults, general or particular, the tenor whereof is, and is taken to be, as fully and as amply expressed in the present Brief as if the same were inserted word for word, in whatever clauses, form, or decree, or under whatever sanction their privileges may have been conceived. We declare all, and all kind of authority, the general, the provincials, the visitors, and other superiors of the said society, to be forever annulled and extinguished, of what nature soever the said society may be, as well in things spiritual as temporal. ”

“ But since the days of the Ten Commandments it has been recognised that statute law, carefully considered and simply expressed and written down on tables of stone or otherwise, is a better-class article for ordering the affairs of a modern community. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This reason, in many cases, if not in all, would apply but awkwardly to jurisdiction,-a duty, and oftentimes an onerous, sometimes a dangerous, duty, which, instead of courting, we gladly escape from,-and not, like property, an enjoyment, a benefit, indeed, the greatest of worldly blessings in the opinion of the mass of mankind. ”

“ It throws the arm of the law about the more helpless, weighs and judges legal and social punishments, enforces a standard of humanity in private life, and intervenes actively between man and woman, parent and child, teacher and pupil, master and servant, officer and private, physician and patient, policeman and offender, warden and convict, employer and employé, railway and patron. ”