Constitutional interpretation

“ The Federalist remains the classic contemporaneous interpretation of the Constitution.
The issue involved is, fundamentally, one of functions, and is viewed at different times with different understandings. As a practical question, it is one of jurisdiction as legally understood, but as a question of service as politically understood. Here enter many and diverse factors as morals, industry, communal interest, public safety, social needs, and the like. Questions growing out of these are not and cannot be decided finally by any generation. Each generation interprets these factors. ”

“ The clear-sighted provision in the national constitution, as in the constitutions of the different states, by which the frame of government can be moulded at will by the public voice, and so made to keep pace in progress with the public mind, is the master-stroke in constitutional law. ”

“ The interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints. ”

“ As far as they are concerned, the State, as a party to the constitutional compact, has the right to decide, in the last resort — and, acting in the same character in which it ratified the constitution, to determine to what limits its powers extend, and how far they are bound to respect and obey it, and the acts made under its authority. ”

“ It is inappropriate to acknowledge such exercise of the people's sovereignty by way of constitutional interpretation, which is not by way of a method expressly and objectively institutionalized by the Constitution. Should the exercise of the people's sovereignty in a way not institutionalized in the Constitution be permitted, neither procedural justification nor democratic justification would be guaranteed ”

“ Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. The sages, whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. ”

“ I will quote to you from the Constitution—if I had the Constitution here I would read it to you—it is to the effect 'that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' No matter, therefore, whether the people live in the states or territories, they possess constitutional privileges alike. ”

“ An inordinate desire to interpret the fundamental law, to give it a new meaning, or, as it is commonly expressed, for amending the constitution by judicial legislation, seems to have seized the courts, and has been followed to such length as to make it almost impossible for even the courts themselves to decide when an act is constitutional and when it is not. ”

“ I have stated that the discontented states of this Union have demanded nothing by clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged constitutional rights—rights affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country; rights older than the Constitution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all countries, and of all centuries. ”

“ For it misses the whole point of our constitutional history to assume that 'government,' or any branch of government, somehow has rights and powers of its own apart from those necessarily attending the proper performance of its constitutional functions. ”

“ Therefore it is that the question, in reference to any measure, Is it constitutional? far from exciting ridicule, as sometimes with superficial thinkers it has done, is to be recognized as proof of our magnificent control over the wayward factions of the hour, and of our abiding trust in the hardly less than inspired wisdom of our fathers, to which we thus make our ultimate appeal. For the Constitution is the organic law of the nation, and stands for the firm foundation of our national life. ”

“ The constitution, which enumerates the powers committed to the nation for objects of interest to the people of all the states, should not, therefore, be subjected to an interpretation so rigid, technical, and narrow that those objects cannot be accomplished. ”

“ They all exercise it from necessity, and as a consequence of the exercise of other powers. The State governments themselves possess it, except in that class of questions which may arise between them and the general government, and in regard to which they have surrendered it, as well by the nature of the case as by clear constitutional provisions. In other and ordinary cases, whether a particular law be in conformity to the constitution of the State is a question which the State legislature or the State judiciary must determine. ”

“ Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional. ”

“ But a constitution of government, founded by the people for themselves and their posterity, and for objects of the most momentous nature, for perpetual union, for the establishment of justice, for the general welfare, and for a perpetuation of the blessings of liberty, necessarily requires, that every interpretation of its powers should have a constant reference to these objects. No interpretation of the words, in which those powers are granted, can be a sound one, which narrows down their ordinary import, so as to defeat those objects. ”

“ The judiciary has thus claimed not only the power to act as the final interpreter of the Constitution, but also the right, independently of the Constitution, to interpret the political system under which we live, and make all legislative acts conform to its interpretation of that system. ”

“ In imperfectly balanced governments, where some attempt is made to set constitutional limits to the impulses of the strongest power, but where that power is strong enough to overstep them with at least temporary impunity, it is only by doctrines of constitutional morality, recognized and sustained by opinion, that any regard at all is preserved for the checks and limitations of the constitution. ”

“ But where a constitution asserts a certain right, or lays down a certain principle of law or procedure, it speaks for the entire people as their supreme law, and is full authority for all that is done in pursuance of its provision. ”

“ This transfer then of constitutional powers, from the whole to a part, of from the part to which they are given by the constitution, to a part to which they are not given; is as dangerous to liberty, as an assumption by the whole of the government, of more power than is given to it by the constitution: because the division of the power which is given, is as effectual as its limitation, to the preservation of liberty. ”

“ The government of the United States, as also that of each State, is a government of limited powers. In our day we speak of either government as one of limitations; in the eighteenth century the equivalent expression was “checks and balances.”352 Fundamentally, American constitutional law is the law of constitutional limitations. ”

“ A state constitution is then in a just and appropriate sense, not only a law, but a supreme law, for the government of the whole people, within the range of the powers actually contemplated, and the rights secured by it. ”

“ The question for us is whether, if the state Constitution undertakes to authorize such a law, it encounters the Constitution of the United States. It is a question of the power of the state as a whole. ”

“ Such codification of the constitution is to realize, with firm stability that is objectively unchallengeable, the control of state power and the maximum guarantee of human rights intended by the constitution. ”

“ Each State established a constitution for itself, and, in that constitution, provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated. The people of the United States framed such a government for the United States as they supposed best adapted to their situation, and best calculated to promote their interests. ”

“ The reasoning by which it is attempted to support it is too artificial to be applied to such an instrument as the constitution,-the organic law of a great nation,-which deals only in generals, and cannot, from its nature, be expected to descend into details. ”

“ The constitution has always been the same thing from the time of its adoption. It could not have been some other thing than the constitution, because it had not been interpreted to this court, and subsequently have become the constitution merely because its interpretation was then generally declared. ”

“ But law, whether derived from acts of Congress or the Constitution, is not an abstraction. The Constitution cannot be applied in disregard of the external circumstances in whch men live and move and have their being. ”

“ Our Constitution governs us and we must never forget that our Constitution limits the Government to those powers specifically granted or those that are necessary and proper to carry out the specifically granted ones. ”

“ We should, therefore, encourage the fullest discussion of judicial decisions in constitutional cases in order that constitutional principles may be adequately explained and the necessity for the observance of constitutional morality brought home to the people. ”

“ There is no mode in which the question of constitutional power to enact a law can be determined, without the influence of considerations of policy or expediency, so effectually, as by confining the final determination to the special operation of the law upon the facts of an individual case. ”

“ While the limitations thus far cited are specific and expressed, they go less to the fundamentals of government and civil rights than do other limitations expressed in the Constitution, and notably in the Amendments.375
It is not unusual that a State constitution declares that to guard against transgressions of the high powers of government delegated by the people through them, everything in the article, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, is excepted out of the general powers of government, and shall forever remain inviolate. ”

“ The people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation ”

“ The Constitution—bear that word well in mind—the Constitution which suffers no State to usurp a single power belonging to the General Government, and which was expressly framed for the purpose of making all its freemen the citizens of one great nation. ”

“ At the present time the doctrine of the Supreme Court, and therefore of the Government, is that all acts of the American Government in the annexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions, are acts of absolute power, when directed toward communities, though tempered by "fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution" or by "the applicable provisions of the Constitution," when directed toward individuals. ”

“ The question which arises on the construction of the constitution, in every point of view in which it can be contemplated, is of infinite moment to the people of this country and to their government, and requires the most temperate and the most deliberate consideration. ”

“ The limited and well-defined powers under which we acted, and which could not, on any possible construction, embrace an idea of such magnitude as to assent to a general Constitution, in subversion of that, of the state. ”

“ It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others. ”

“ Whenever, in pursuance of an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another there is presented a question involving the validity of any act of any Legislature, State or federal, and the decision necessarily rests on the competency of the Legislature to so enact, the court must, in the exercise of its solemn duties, determine whether the act is constitutional or not; but such an exercise of power is the ultimate and supreme function of courts. ”

“ If it be understood that the powers implied in the specified powers have an immediate and appropriate relation to them, as means necessary and proper for carrying them into execution, questions on constitutionality of laws passed for this purpose will be of a nature sufficiently precise and determinate for judicial cognizance and control. ”

“ The language of the Constitution is so peculiar, that the distinction between power to be conferred upon the Government about to be created, and covenants entered into between the parties, as States is obvious at a glance. ”

“ Opposed, as the new theory is, by such a body of evidence, covering the whole period of our constitutional history, all tending to the opposite conclusion, and unsupported as the theory is by a single historical fact, entitled to any weight, it would seem that the advocates of the theory ought to be able to give it a fixed domicile in the constitution, or else be willing to abandon it as a theory without any solid constitutional foundation. ”

“ Strange, that nevertheless all states which have a free constitution,—all in which it is a recognized principle that the nation, and not any privileged class—not even that of its official servants—is the main object,—follow a totally opposite system. ”