Constitutional republic

“ Is it not possible that a patriotick Congress may also appear, which will, by a similar declaration proclaim the constitutional rights of the States in which they live, and of the people to whom they must return? ”

“ The state governments should be held secure to their reserved rights, and the General Government sustained in its constitutional powers, and that the Union should be revered and watched over as the palladium of our liberties. ”

“ Whenever our national legislature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their constitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergencies, devolves the arduous task—it is their right—it becomes their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government. ”

“ If one believes that a constitutional monarchy, such as ours, might be modified so that it might gradually arrive at the adoption of a government entirely elective, such an inconvenience would be less grievous than that of 265usurpations upon the rights of the national sovereignty, or upon the liberty of citizens. It was after this manner of viewing affairs, that in the midst of popular outrages, the intrigues of factions, and the machinations of foreigners, a constitution was freely discussed and adopted by the nation. ”

“ The courts have the right to refer questions of constitutional compatibility of a law to the Constitutional Court when it is raised in a judicial proceeding and the referring court is uncertain as to the compatibility of the contested law with the Constitution and provided that the referring court’s decision on that case depends on the compatibility of the law at issue. ”

“ The constitutional order of the Republic of Kosovo is based on the principles of freedom, peace, democracy, equality, respect for human rights and freedoms and the rule of law, non-discrimination, the right to property, the protection of environment, social justice, pluralism, separation of state powers, and a market economy. The Republic of Kosovo ensures gender equality as a fundamental value for the democratic development of the society, providing equal opportunities for both female and male participation in the political, economic, social, cultural and other areas of societal life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The President of the Republic of Kosovo may be dismissed by the Assembly if he/she has been convicted of a serious crime or if she/he is unable to exercise the responsibilities of office due to serious illness or if the Constitutional Court has determined that he/she has committed a serious violation of the Constitution. ”

“ In the first place, the theory of States rights must be abandoned, and each State must become a member of the Union by organizing under a common form, to be prescribed by them all, or by the present required constitutional majority of them all, to make an amendment to the Constitution valid. ”

“ It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated government. ”

“ As these and all new forms of Government which recognize principles, never reduced to practice until the period of our illustrious Revolution must be in their nature experiments, the provision of a peaceable and constitutional remedy for such defects as experience may point out, is with great propriety established in our State and National Governments.—The citizens of this Commonwealth, have lately discovered their acquiescence under their Constitution as it now stands. ”

“ But the Constitutional revolution has enlarged the powers of Congress for the purpose of establishing and securing true and general self-government in all of these States, not for the purpose of circumscribing its scope and functions within narrower limits. ”

“ Government by the people directly is the attribute of a pure democracy, and is subversive of the principles upon which the Republic is founded. Direct legislation is therefore repugnant to that form of government with which alone Congress could admit a state to the Union, and which the state is bound to maintain.
1. The guaranty of article 4, section 4, of the Federal Constitution, is to the people of the states, and to each citizen, as well as to the states as political entities. ”

“ The Legislature will control the acts of the Government as far as can possibly be desired. At the same time the constitutional regime as established in the new Constitution will give the King all the power that he ought to retain in a country that is still new, like Servia, without diminishing any of the inviolable liberties of the nation. ”

“ Each citizen owed his allegiance to his own state and each state had its obligations to the confederation. Under our constitutional system in every part of the territory of every state there are two sovereigns, and every citizen owes allegiance to both sovereigns—to his state and to his nation. ”

“ They undertook to form a general government which should stand on a new basis—not a confederacy, not a league, not a compact between states, but a constitution; a popular government, founded in popular election, directly responsible to the people themselves, and divided into branches, with prescribed limits of power, and prescribed duties. ”

“ In like manner we might run through all the forms of government that have ever blessed or cursed our race, without finding one which can he adopted by any State of this Union, except the single form of 'republican,' named in the Constitution. But can a State bereft of the right to frame its own mode of government be said to be possessed of 'sovereign' 'State rights,' or could a more effectual provision against their development have been formed than this? ”

“ In what State has an assembly, calling itself the people, convened without law, without authority, without qualifications, without certain officers, with no oaths, securities, or sanctions of any kind, met and made a constitution, and called it the constitution of the STATE? There must be some authentic mode of ascertaining the will of the people, else all is anarchy. It resolves itself into the law of the strongest, or, what is the same thing, of the most numerous for the moment, and all constitutions and all legislative rights are prostrated and disregarded. ”

“ The rebellion having overthrown constitutional State governments in many States, it is yours to mature and enact legislation which, with the concurrence of the Executive, shall establish them anew on such a basis of enduring justice as will guarantee all necessary safeguards to the people, and afford what our Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, proclaims is the chief object of government—protection to all men in their inalienable rights. ”

“ The long struggle for Independence, was succeeded, as soon as that end was achieved, by other and more bitter struggles for personal or party ascendency. A constitution was adopted in 1823. The government established by it, is a confederated Republic, modelled in most respects, after that of the United States—a government exactly suited to make an intelligent and virtuous people happy, but not adapted to a community composed of restless, unprincipled, ambitious factionists, on the one hand, and an ignorant, bigoted rabble, on the other. ”

“ We, the people of Kosovo, Determined to build a future of Kosovo as a free, democratic and peace-loving country that will be a homeland to all of its citizens; Committed to the creation of a state of free citizens that will guarantee the rights of every citizen, civil freedoms and equality of all citizens before the law ”

“ The Constitution establishes the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary, and through a deliberate allocation of authority, it defines the limits of each upon the others. It particularizes the liberties which, as free men and women, we insist upon, and it constrains both Federal and State powers to ensure that those precious liberties are faithfully protected. It is our blueprint for freedom, our commitment to ourselves and to each other. ”

“ That Congress shall guarantee to each State its SOVEREIGNTY, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the United States. ”

“ Elect the President direct by the people, and for a single term, if you will; take from him his immense official patronage; base senatorship upon population, not upon State sovereignty through legislative gift; limit the power of the judiciary: these steps must come; make of the people in reality what they now are in theory—sovereigns, not first of States, or the Nation, but of themselves, possessing in themselves all rights, all powers, whose exercise is only delegated to the Nation as their servant. ”

“ Generally, when congressional action is challenged, constitutional authority is found in the express and implied powers with which the National Government has been invested or in those inherent powers that are necessary attributes of a sovereign state. The sweep of those powers is surely broad. In appropriate circumstances, they are adequate to take away life itself. The initial question here is whether citizenship is subject to the exercise of these general powers of government. ”

“ The considerations above stated lead to the conclusion, that in republics there are, in reality, stronger reasons for an independent tenure of office by the judges, a tenure during good behaviour, than in a monarchy. Indeed, a republic with a limited constitution, and yet without a judiciary sufficiently independent to check usurpation, to protect public liberty, and to enforce private rights, would be as visionary and absurd, as a society organized without any restraints of law. It would become a democracy with unlimited powers, exercising through its rulers a universal despotic sovereignty. ”

“ With a view, therefore, to preserve the rights and liberties of the people against unjust encroachments, and to secure the equal benefits of a free constitution, it is of vital importance to interpose some check against the undue exercise of the legislative power, which in every government is the predominating, and almost irresistible power. ”

“ The important thing first to be learned is that in this democracy the government is in form a republic, because the laws are enacted and enforced, not by the direct vote of the people, but by the representatives elected by the people.
The power of the people always continues. A law may be passed by one legislature, or one session of Congress, and may be repealed the next. Any law upon the statute books may be changed from time to time, in response to the changing sentiment of the people. ”

“ Whenever a constitution shall be formed in any territory, preparatory to its admission into the Union as a state, justice, the genius of our institutions, the whole theory of our republican system, imperatively demand that the voice of the people shall be fairly expressed, and their will embodied in that fundamental law, without fraud or violence, or intimidation, or any other improper or unlawful influence, and subject to no other restrictions than those imposed by the constitution of the United States. ”

“ To be sure, a democracy may impose rules of action upon itself—as the American democracy did in accepting the Federal Constitution. But in adopting the Federal Constitution the American people did not abandon either its responsibilities or rights as Sovereign. ”

“ It had been an opinion long established, that a republican form of government suited only the affairs of a small state; which opinion is founded in the consideration, that unless the people in every district of the empire be admitted to a share in the national representation, the government is not to them as a republic; that in a democratic constitution, the mechanism is too complicated, the motions too slow, for the operations of a great empire, whose defence and government require execution and dispatch in proportion to the magnitude, extent, and variety of its concerns. ”

“ Even in our mere general form of government, a combination of President, Congress, and the Supreme Court is out of the question. How, then, could the governments of all the states combine to suppress the whole people?—Translator's remark. ”

“ Powers are divided between the Federal and State departments to restrain ambitious men in both. They are accumulated in the hands of ambitious men in one.
A federal republic is the best for maintaining a republican form of government over a country so extensive as the United States. A consolidated republic is better.
Confederation is union. Consolidation is union.
Each State has a right to make its own constitution. Congress has a right to make a constitution for each State. ”

“ That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. ”

“ Our first a priori established rule in considering the constitution was this: That the power of a commonwealth must be transferred, and can not remain in the hands of the people. The question here arises: Shall it be transferred to one or to many; or shall the state, in regard to the persons who constitute its government, be a monocracy or an aristocracy? For a pure democracy is not a legal form of government. ”

“ Whenever, therefore, Congress shall meditate any infringement of the state constitutions, the great body of the people will naturally take part with their domestic representatives. Can the general government withstand such a united opposition? Will the people suffer themselves to be stripped of their privileges? ”