Direct legislation

“ The legislative power being that, which is predominant in all governments, ought to be, above all, of this character; because there can be no security for the general government, or the state governments, without an adequate representation, and an adequate check of each in the functions of legislation. ”

“ General words indicate and affirm a general intent, and if the fact that different sections are differently affected is enough to make a law local, the field of legislation would be narrowed beyond anything that Congress could have dreamed. ”

“ Administrative law-making for the machinery of government there must always be, but for the rest, if we rely on the common law and its natural development alone, our condition will be far less hopeless than most of us might imagine. Indeed, as we shall so often find, it is the very ease and frequency of legislation that has caused our courts and law-makers to forego the well-tried doctrines of the common law. ”

“ The power of Congress to pass laws to enforce rights conferred by the Constitution is not limited to the express powers of legislation enumerated in the Constitution. The powers which are necessary and proper as means to carry into effect rights expressly given and duties expressly enjoined, are always implied. ”

“ In general, indeed, the power of legislation is far too important to be committed to any person or body of persons save the incorporate community itself. The great bulk of enacted law is promulgated by the state in its own person. ”

“ People v. Fonda, 62 Mich. 401, 29 N. W. 26. Although it is equally true that where Congress, having the power, has exercised it but incidentally, and obviously with no intention of covering the subject, the states may supplement its legislation by regulations of their own not inconsistent with it. ”

“ For if jour state judiciaries are not to be trusted with the administration of common justice, and decision of disputes respecting property between man and man, much less ought the state governments to be trusted with power of legislation. ”

“ No one who has given the slightest consideration to the subject will dispute the proposition that, taking America as a whole, we now have twenty acts of legislation annually promulgated, and with which we are at our peril supposed to be familiar, where one would more than suffice. ”

“ Every member who has read the Constitution with attention must observe that there are certain fundamental principles in it, both of a positive and negative nature, which, being intended for the general advantage of the community, ought not to be violated by any future legislation of the particular states. Every member will agree that the positive regulations ought to be carried into execution, and that the negative restrictions ought not to disregarded or violated. ”

“ Legislatures, under our system, determine the necessity for regulatory laws, considering both the evil and the benefits that may result. Unless prohibited by constitutional limitations, their decisions as to policy are final. In weighing conflicting arguments on the wisdom of legislation they are not confined within the narrow boundaries of a particular controversy between litigants. ”

“ The old system vests the law-making power in a legislative body composed of men elected by the people and supposed to be peculiarly fitted by reason of character, education, and training for the performance of that duty. These men come together and give their entire time through a period of some weeks or months to the consideration of proposed legislation, and the laws they enact go into immediate effect, and remain in force until set aside by the courts as unconstitutional or until repealed by the same authority that enacted them. ”

“ The powers which are conferred are organic powers. We look to the act itself for their extent and limitations. It is not one act in a series of legislation, and to be made to fit into the provisions of the prior legislation, but is a single complete act, the outcome of previous experiments, and the final judgment of congress as to the system of government which should obtain. ”

“ It comprehends all the public domain, wherever it may be. The argument is, that the power to make 'ALL needful rules and regulations' 'is a power of legislation,' 'a full legislative power;' 'that it includes all subjects of legislation in the territory,' and is without any limitations, except the positive prohibitions which affect all the powers of Congress. ”

“ The first species of capacity we assign to the people, operates between them and governments; the second, between governments and individuals, and between citizens. It is our policy to subject the whole field of this second capacity to legislation, and to exclude it from the whole field of the first. Law is allowed to regulate right and wrong in the latter cases, but not between the nation and its government. It cannot form a new government. ”

“ Whatever the form in which the Government functions, anyone entering into an arrangement with the Government takes the risk of having accurately ascertained that he who purports to act for the Government stays within the bounds of his authority. The scope of this authority may be explicitly defined by Congress or be limited by delegated legislation, properly exercised through the rule-making power. ”

“ Legislation, being merely the expression of the will of the community, was thought to be an operation so simple in its nature, that inexperienced reason could not readily perceive the necessity of committing it to two bodies of men, each having a decisive check upon the action of the other. ”

“ Yeomans, 301 U.S. 441, 454, 57 S.Ct. 842, 848, 81 L.Ed. 1210.
10. 'States are thus enabled to deal with local exigencies and to exert in the absence of conflict with federal legislation an essential protective power. And when Congress does exercise its paramount authority, it is obvious that Congress may determine how far its regulation shall go. There is no constitutional rule which compels Congress to occupy the whole field. Congress may circumscribe its regulation and occupy only a limited field. ”

“ There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the lawmaking power, and must therefore be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation.' See also Caha v. ”

“ The mechanism of referring to state law is simply one designed to implement that congressional intent and build into the federal statute a self-executing provision to accommodate to changes in state regulation. ”

“ The more the system advanced the more was I impressed with the necessity of not merely attempting to secure a few rights, but of digesting and forming a complete bill of rights, including those of states and of individuals, which should be assented to, and prefixed to the Constitution, to serve as a barrier between the general government and the respective states and their citizens ”

“ By the same token, the fact that a given law or procedure is efficient, convenient, and useful in facilitating functions of government, standing alone, will not save it if it is contrary to the Constitution. ”

“ The right of a State to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to impose all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a 'rational basis' for adopting. ”

“ In a government, where the liberties of the people are to be preserved, and the laws well administered, the executive, legislative and judicial, should ever be separate and distinct, and consist of parts, mutually forming a check upon each other. ”

“ The ready compliance of the commons with the measures proposed in this bill, has been mentioned here with a view, I suppose, of influencing us, but surely by those who had forgotten our independence, or resigned their own. It is not only the right, but the duty of either house, to deliberate without regard to the determinations of the other; for how would the nation receive any benefit from the distinct powers that compose the legislature, unless their determinations are without influence upon each other? ”

“ Independently of the legislative measures, which internal circumstances require, you will deem it useful perhaps, to occupy yourselves on regulating laws, calculated to render the constitution active. ”

“ Such an order, being legislative in its nature and made by an instrumentality of the state, is a state law within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress regulating our jurisdiction. ”

“ That Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property. ”

“ In laws, we are obliged to act without ourselves determining, or promising any thing at all." [41] It is a rule prescribed; that is, it is laid down, promulgated, and established. It is prescribed by the supreme power in a state, that is, among us, by the people, or a majority of them in their original sovereign capacity. Like the ordinary municipal laws, it may be founded upon our consent, or that of our representatives; but it derives its ultimate obligatory force, as a law, and not as a compact. ”

“ There should be the power of determining the constitutionality of any act of a State legislature, and thus enforce upon State legislatures the restrictions laid upon them, such as, for example, the inability to lay impost duties, to pass laws violating the obligation of contracts, etc., or to regulate objects given exclusively to Congress. ”

“ The General Government is bound to discontinue the execution of one of its laws within a particular State, and the General Government is bound to apply to the States, in the form prescribed in the Constitution, for a grant of the power to pass such a law. ”

“ An act of the legislature, for I cannot call it a law, contrary to the first great principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority. The obligation of a law, in governments established on express compact, and on republican principles, must be determined by the nature of the power on which it is founded. ”

“ But, Sir, the people have wisely provided, in the Constitution itself, a proper, suitable mode and tribunal for settling questions of constitutional law. There are in the Constitution grants of powers to Congress, and restrictions on these powers. There are, also, prohibitions on the States. Some authority must, therefore, necessarily exist, having the ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpretation of these grants, restrictions, and prohibitions. The Constitution has itself pointed out, ordained, and established that authority. ”

“ The fundamental principle of American constitutions, it seems to me, is, that to the people of the several States belongs the resolution of all questions, whether of regulation, compact, or punitive justice, arising out of the action of their municipal government upon their citizens, or depending upon their constitutions and laws, and are judges of the validity of all acts done by their municipal authorities in the exercise of their sovereign rights, in either case without responsibility or control from any department of the federal government. ”

“ The essence of the Legislative authority is to enact laws, or, in other words, to prescribe rules for the regulation of the society; while the execution of the laws, and the employment of the common strength, either for this purpose, or for the common defence, seem to comprise all the functions of the Executive magistrate. The power of making treaties is, plainly, neither the one nor the other. ”

“ The general government will be as ready to preserve the rights of the states, as the latter are to preserve the rights of individuals,—all the members of the former having a common interest, as representatives of all the people of the latter, to leave the state governments in possession of what the people wish them to retain. ”

“ We perfectly agree with your Honour in the general principle that, in a free government, the majority must determine and decide upon all existing or projected measures. But it will be recollected, that the decision of that majority, to be binding, must be constitutional and just. Government is formed for the security of the citizen, and the protection of its rights. Whenever his liberty is infringed, his rights violated or unprotected, if not absolved from his allegiance, he may demand redress, and take all lawful measures to obtain it. ”

“ With respect to a bill of rights, had the government been formed upon principles truly federal, as I wished it, legislating over and acting upon the states only in their collective or political capacity, and not on individuals, there would have been no need of a bill of rights, as far as related to the rights of individuals, but only as to the rights of states. ”

“ The authority of the Legislature, says the same author who is quoted by your Excellency, "does not extend so far as the fundamentals of the constitution. They ought to consider the fundamental laws as sacred, if the nation has not in very express terms, given them the power to change them. For the constitution of the state ought to be fixed; and since that was first established by the nation, which afterwards trusted certain persons with the Legislative power, the fundamental laws are excepted from their commission." ”

“ That the people, in the solemn compact, which is declared to be the supreme law of the land, have not constituted the state legislatures the judges of the acts or measures of the Federal Government, but have confided to them, the power of proposing such amendments of the Constitution, as shall appear to them necessary to the interests, or conformable to the wishes, of the people whom they represent. ”

“ If certain means to carry into effect any of the powers expressly given by the Constitution to the government of the Union, be an appropriate measure, not prohibited by the Constitution, the degree of its necessity is a question of legislative discretion, not of judicial cognizance. ”