Emolument

“ In a private receptacle emolument is the first object, and however wisely they may have formed their regulations, they soon feel themselves subordinate to the caprice and authority of those by whom they are paid. ”

“ Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; ”

“ They can impose no burdens but what they participate in common with their fellow-citizens. The senators and representatives, during the time for which they shall be elected, are incapable of holding any office which shall be created, or the emoluments thereof be increased, during such time. This is taking from candidates every lure to office, and from the administrators of the government every temptation to create or increase emoluments to such degree as shall be burdensome to their constituents. ”

“ The committee will therefore indulge me in remarking that, if the operations of the general government will subvert those of the individual states, the interest of the state officers may be affected in some measure, otherwise their emoluments will remain undiminished—their consequence not so much impaired as not to compensate men of interested pursuits by the prospect of sharing the offices of the general government. ”

“ Exclusive emoluments, etc.
Sec. 7. No man or set of men are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community but in consideration of public services.
The legislative, executive and judicial powers distinct.
Sec. 8. The legislative, executive and supreme judicial powers of the government ought to be forever separate and distinct from each other. ”

“ As the law then stood, such official persons were entitled to bargain with their successors, either for a sum of money, which was usually a considerable one, or for an interest in the emoluments of the office during their life. My predecessor, whose services had been unusually meritorious, stipulated for the emoluments of his office during his life, while I should enjoy the survivorship, on the condition that I discharged the duties of the office in the meantime. ”

“ All men have a natural inherent right of receiving emoluments from any one, unless they be restrained by the regulations of the community. An accident which actually happened operated in producing the restriction. ”

“ To hold, exercise, and enjoy, the said appointment, with all powers, authorities, and emoluments, to the same incident and belonging, or in any wise appertaining—you conforming, in every instance, to the act of our said Assembly, under which you are appointed. ”

“ The reasons for excluding persons from offices, who have been concerned in creating them, or increasing their emoluments, are to take away, as far as possible, any improper bias in the vote of the representative, and to secure to the constituents some solemn pledge of his disinterestedness. ”

“ The besom of reform has swept him out of office; and a worthier successor wears his dignity, and pockets his emoluments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our Constitution, like every other constitution which puts the authority to make laws and the duty of controlling the public expenditure into the hands of a popular assembly, practically sets that assembly to rule the affairs of the nation as supreme overlord. ”

“ The elections were for seven years in most of the states before the late revolution.
I now consider their weight and power, and whether these will be sufficient to give them, as the representatives of the people, their due weight in the government. By the Constitution, they are one entire branch of the legislature, without whose consent no law can be passed;—all money bills are to originate in their house;—they are to have the sole power of impeachment;—their consent is necessary to all acts or resolutions for the appropriation of the public money ”

“ In his extract of an act of parliament made since the union, it appears to be high treason for any person by writing or printing to maintain and affirm, that the kings or queens of this realm, with and by the authority of parliament, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the crown, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and the government thereof. ”

“ Changes in the relative powers of the ruler and the consultative body are determined by obvious causes. If the king retains or acquires the repute of supernatural origin or authority, and the law of hereditary succession is so settled as to exclude election, those who might else have formed a consultative body having coördinate power become simply appointed advisers. But, if the king has not the prestige of supposed sacred origin or commission, and continues to be elective, then the consultative body retains power, and is liable to become an oligarchy. ”

“ The Convention of which we have so often spoken, that great Assembly, irregular in the eyes of lawyers, but in truth all the more lawful because no King’s writ had summoned it, cast all fantasies and subtleties to the winds by declaring that the throne was vacant. A true Assembly of the nation once more put forth its greatest power, and chose154 William of Orange, as, six hundred years before, another Assembly of the nation had chosen Harold the son of Godwine. ”

“ Anyone in the realm may take oath that, for the accomplishment of all the aforesaid matters, he will obey the orders of the said twenty-five barons and distress us to the utmost of his power; and we give public and free leave to everyone wishing to take oath to do so, and to none will we deny the same. Moreover, all such of our subjects who do not of their own free will and accord agree to swear to the said twenty-five barons, to distrain and distress us together with them, we will compel to do so by our command in the aforesaid manner. ”

“ This royal court or Parliament was, however, not a Legislature in our modern sense of that word. It was rather a convention, in which, by a voluntary compact between the king as supreme suzerain and the greater seigneurs as his feudatories, an ordonnance or an impost was established, either throughout the entire kingdom, or in some seigneuries apart from the rest. From any such compact any seigneur might dissent on behalf of himself and his immediate vassals or, by simply absenting himself, might render the extension of it to his own fief impossible. ... ”

“ Congress must possess the choice of means, and must be empowered to use any means which are in fact conducive to the exercise of a power granted by the constitution. The government is to pay the debt of the Union, and must be authorized to use the means which appear to itself the most eligible to effect that object.' 2 Cranch, 396. ”

“ This book consisted of a registration of all the lands in the kingdom, made by commissioners, after inquiry upon oath of the chief men and lesser freeholders of each district. By it not only were the limits of property settled, but the king knew what resources he could rely upon both in men and money. The king’s power was nominally limited by the “counsel and consent” of the National Council, which was at once the old English Witan and a feudal assembly, but its power was really nominal. ”

“ Ninth resolution, relative to the national executive, resumed — Motion to provide that the number of electors of the executive to be chosen by the state legislatures shall be regulated by their respective numbers of representatives in the first branch, and that at present it shall be in a prescribed ratio — Agreed to — Motion to amend by striking out the provision for impeaching the executive — Disagreed to — Motion to provide that the electors of the executive shall not be members of the national legislature, nor national officers, nor eligible to the supreme magistracy — Agreed to. ”

“ The second is what is also essential to the nature of a subordinate legislature, and what the Colonists never call in question. That therefore the point here meant to be stated as in debate, is, Whether a subordinate legislature can be instructed, restricted, and controuled, in the very act of legislation? whether the King's instructions or letters from secretaries of state, and such like significations of his Majesty's will and pleasure, is a due and constitutional application of the governors, or of the royal negative? ”

“ It might be argued, with as much plausibility, as other incidental powers have been assailed, that the convention was not unmindful of this subject. The oath, which might be exacted—that of fidelity to the constitution—is prescribed, and no other can be required. Yet, he would be charged with insanity, who should contend, that the legislature might not superadd, to the oath directed by the constitution, such other oath of office, as its wisdom might suggest. ”

“ Hence matters determined there, were subject to a review in parliament; writs of error from the King’s Bench returned there; and when the Equity courts grew up, appeals from the Chancery and Exchequer in matters of equity. This power of judicature is peculiar to the lords (for the parliament consisted at first only of them, and when the commons were introduced, they sat in a distinct house) and the parliament hears at present only matters that come from other courts by appeal, or by writ of error, which is in the nature of an appeal, and no causes originally. ”

“ An assembly in which at first every freeman had a right to appear has, by the force of circumstances, step by step, without any one moment of sudden change, shrunk up into an Assembly wholly hereditary and official, an Assembly to which the Crown may summon any man, but to which, it is now strangely held, the Crown cannot refuse to summon the representatives of any man whom it has once summoned. ”

“ The reason why the lords have not this power, is founded on a principle in the English constitution, that the commons alone represent the whole property of the nation; and as a money bill is a grant to the king, none can make the grant but those who represent the property of the nation; and the negative of the lords is introduced to check the profusion of the commons, and to guard their own property. ”

“ All officers, alike executive and legislative, were to be chosen annually and by ballot; the freemen of every town and all one year's residents were electors. Every member of the house of representatives must declare his 'belief in one God ...; in the divine inspiration of the scriptures; and in the Protestant religion.' The legislative power was vested in one general assembly, subject to no veto. ”

“ And the House might have been equally culpable, if they had refusd to chuse a Speaker and Clerk, or to elect Councellors, whereby to compleat the General Court; for in Case of Omission in either part, a Question might arise, Whether the people would have a Legislature. When the General Assembly is thus formd, they are impowerd by the Charter, to make, ordain and establish all Manner of wholesome and reasonable Orders, Laws, Statutes & Ordinances, Directions and Instructions, either with penaltys or without. ”

“ Assemblies of Estates have been wrongly designated as the legislative power, so far as they form only one branch of that power,—a branch in which the special government-officials have an ex officio share, while the sovereign power has the privilege of final decision. ”

“ And for assemblies or bodies of men, who shall deny the authority of Parliament, may not all their subsequent proceedings be declared to be ipso facto null and void, and every member who shall continue to act in such assembly be subject to penalties an incapacities? ”

“ Now that the follies of Courts had obliged Government to saddle us with new taxes, and the opposition of our magistrates did present itself as an obstacle to the ministers, they have thought proper to call an Assembly of Notables, chosen by the king, but taken among the first people in each order, and to begin with granting them what is more wished for by the nation, an Assembly in each Province. ”

“ Suppose that one man possessed the legislative power, and that what we call executive power was divided by representation, equally with legislative at present; would not usurpation invariably proceed from legislative, as it now does from executive power? If a division of legislative power, prevents it from becoming an usurper and a tyrant, will not division have the same effect on executive? ”

“ The house of lords might interpose;—the king might dissolve the parliament;—or if every other resource failed, there still lay a grand constitutional writ of error, in behalf of the people, from the decision of one court to the wisdom of the whole legislature. ”

“ As therefore the elective franchise, instead of remaining in the hands of the many, had become the property of a few, and as such a discrepancy between the condition of the people, and the constitution of the government had unhappily come into existence, calamities would one day or other ensue, unless the state of the representation were amended, from which neither the constitution nor the country would ever recover. ”