Individual mandate

“ The imperative mandate is therefore a very clumsy instrument for work of a very delicate character. The democracy, instinctively, knows this very well, and sets no great store by the imperative mandate. ”

“ From all the public servants responsibility is secured, by their being representatives, mediate or immediate, for short terms, and their powers defined. It is, on the whole complexion of it, a government of laws, not of men. ”

“ Who, or what, gives them the right to say to the people, "We, who are your agents and servants for one purpose, will undertake to decide that your other agents and servants, appointed by you for another purpose, have transcended the authority you gave them?" The reply would be, I think, not impertinent—"Who made you a judge over another's servants? To their own masters they stand or fall." ”

“ As with us, the great leading rule must be, that when an officer does an act purporting to bind his Government, the first step in proof of its validity is to show his authority to bind the Government. ”

“ As a general rule, every executive function, whether superior or subordinate, should be the appointed duty of some given individual. It should be apparent to all the world who did every thing, and through whose default any thing was left undone. ”

“ It is, further, the duty of all who are entrusted with the administration of law, in any department whatever, to act in good faith, in all purity and integrity, and in good conscience for the wellbeing and happiness of their fellow-creatures in the administration of justice, truth and judgment; and it should be the aim of all law-makers to consult the best interests of the people from whom they derive authority, or in whose behalf they are called to act. It is the duty of Latter-day Saints, and of all good people to honor all laws and regulations that are ordered for the freedom of all flesh. ”

“ It is as essential to the successful working of this government that the great organisms of its executive and legislative branches should be the free choice of the people, as that the original form of it should be so. ”

“ The principle is universally admitted, that, wherever an authority is delegated to any public officer, to be exercised at his discretion, under his own judgment, and upon his own responsibility, the acts done in the appropriate exercise of that authority, are binding as to the subject-matter. ”

“ The sacred rights of this society we are to hold fast—such as, her right to elect her own officers, to call her own meetings, appoint her own fasts, and exercise her own discipline, independently of the state. ”

“ Now, if the whole official corps, subordinate to the president of the United States, are made to know and to feel that they hold their respective offices by the tenure of conformity and obedience to his will, it is manifest, that they must look to that will, and not to the constitution and laws, as the guide of their official conduct. The weakness of human nature, the love and emoluments of office, perhaps the bread necessary to the support of their families, would make this result absolutely certain. ”

“ Thus it will be seen that all departments of the government, legislative, judicial, and executive, are placed entirely beyond any responsibility to the people, whose agents they profess to be, and whose rights they assume to dispose of at pleasure. ”

“ To ask why I am to submit to the power of the state, is to ask why I am to allow my life to be regulated by that complex of institutions without which I literally should not have a life to call my own, nor should be able to ask for a justification of what I am called on to do. ”

“ There can be no responsibility without authority. The authority and responsibility residing ultimately in the people must be delegated; and it must not be emasculated in the process of delegation. If it is abused, the people should at all events be able to fix the offense and to punish the offender. At present our administration is organized chiefly upon the principle that the executive shall not be permitted to do much good for fear that he will do harm. ”

“ And if the people have given up to governors, legislatures, the judiciary and to the officers of the law certain powers, rights and privileges, this authority coming of or from the people, it is expected that they shall act for and in the interests of the people ”

“ We will hold them subject to our will until they accept our authority and recognize our right to rule over them, and beyond that we will hold them until, in our opinion, they are qualified to govern themselves. ”

“ But a public executive officer has one plain duty: it is to enforce the law with kindness and forbearance, but with promptness and inexorable decision. He may not choose what laws he will enforce any more than the citizen may choose what laws he will obey. ”

“ It is a command which the state must respect, the benefits of which every person may demand. Not the least merit of our constitutional system is that its safeguards extend to all-the least deserving as well as the most virtuous. ”

“ As I dare say some of my young readers will one of these days become governors of provinces, or hold other offices in our possessions abroad, I wish to impress strongly on their minds that the only just or lawful way of governing a people—the only sure way, indeed, of maintaining authority over them—is to improve, to the utmost of our power, their religious, their moral and physical condition. ”

“ A great advantage to the public may be obtained by my instrumentality, but can I, a servant of the government, take upon myself the responsibility, wholly unauthorised, of using my influence as belonging to the government, in a direction altogether beyond my office and functions? ”

“ The people are, therefore, evidently entitled to the best service they can get, and no interest, neither that of a political party nor that of any citizen, has a right to stand in the way. Those entrusted with the power of appointing officers are, consequently, in duty bound to regard office solely as a public trust, and to appoint only persons found fittest to give the people the best possible service. ”

“ In every society there is a casual subordination, independent of its formal establishment, and frequently adverse to its constitution. While the administration and the people speak the language of a particular form, and seem to admit no pretensions to power, without a legal nomination in one instance, or without the advantage of hereditary honours in another, this casual subordination, possibly arising from the distribution of property, or from some other circumstance that bestows unequal degrees of influence, gives the state its tone, and fixes its character. ”

“ In all things not provided for by general rules, those officers should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid down by the legislature ”

“ We have assumed so great a responsibility in necessary regulation that we unconsciously have assumed the responsibility for maintained service; therefore the lawful power for the enforcement. of decisions is necessary to sustain the majesty of government and to administer to the public welfare. ”

“ Such a body, charged, in every State, with almost all the legislative power of the people, is entitled to the most entire and real respect; is entitled, as among all rationally permissible opinions as to what the constitution allows, to its own choice. ”

“ The Charter also recognizes individual responsibility on the part of those who commit acts defined as crimes, or who incite others to do so, or who join a common plan with other persons, groups or organizations to bring about their commission. ”

“ When an officer has authority over us only to enforce certain specific laws at particular times and places, and has no authority regarding anything else, we pay deference to the law which he represents, but the personal relation is one of equality. ”

“ Each administration has its own duties—the lowest coming into contact with individuals, the higher supervising the subordinate boards. Government is absolute, notwithstanding the adoption of the watchword “Liberté.” ”

“ Each and every officer has his duties to perform, and is bound to their performance with independence and good faith; and no matter whose acts may be brought before him, whether those of his immediate superior or one much higher in power, he is bound to bring them all to the test of the law, and to pronounce upon all, from the greatest to the least, by one inflexible rule, the rule of duty ”

“ But, thank God, we have no such disputes; we have no monarchs to contend with, or demand admissions from. The proposed government is to be the government of the people: all its officers are to be their officers, and to exercise no rights but such as the people commit to them. ”

“ And if it be his duty to obey, still more is obedience the bounden duty of his subordinates. The power of making laws is in its very nature and essence the power of directing, and that power is given to Congress. The principle is without drawback, and is inseparably of a piece with all Anglo-Saxon usage; the difficulty, if there be any, must lie in the choice of means whereby to energize the principle. ”

“ All that is necessary is, to see that these departments do not encroach upon the rights and duties of each other. There is, at least, no other power, claiming the obedience of the same people, whose just authority it is necessary to regard, and on whose proper domain no intrusion is to be permitted. ”

“ Nor do I mention the weight of authority on one side as sufficient to influence the private determination of any in this great assembly. It is the privilege and the duty of every man, who possesses a seat in the highest council of his country, to make use of his own eyes and his own understanding, to reject those arguments of which he cannot find the force, whatever effect they may have upon others, and to discharge the great trust conferred upon him by consulting no conscience but his own. ”

“ We have also a right to assemble, as we did a short time ago, in the capacity of a mass meeting, and we have a right to say that we will have laws, rules and regulations for the public good, and officers and adjudicators of the laws. It is our right to frame our own laws, and to elect our own officers to administer them. ”

“ We hold the obligation to obey instructions or resign to be a moral duty of the man, incident to the acceptance of the office, rather than the official duty of the Senator. The latter duties are prescribed by the constitution, the former are established by general principles of political ethics. ”

“ But the fundamental principles that lie behind the personal power in a state are too vast in their scope to apply immediately to the needs of human life. They require interpretation by means of legislative and executive authorities ”

“ But is it consistent with any principle of prudence or good policy to grant unlimited, unbounded authority, which is so totally unnecessary that gentlemen say it will never be exercised? But gentlemen say that we must make experiments. ”

“ It is therefore necessary to remember, and to emphasise, that the true order is the other way about, the People being the master of the Law-making body, and the Law-making body the master of the Executive. ”

“ They plainly show that his leading and controlling purpose was to organize a body of men, each one of whom should be brought into implicit and unquestioning obedience to the authority of their general, and hold themselves in readiness so long as the society existed, to do, without the least inquiry into results, whatsoever he should command to be done, so that they should have no wills or opinions of their own upon any subject over which he should assert jurisdiction. ”

“ While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard. ”

“ The approbation you are so good as to express of the measures which have been recommended and pursued during the course of my administration of the national concerns, is highly acceptable. The approving voice of our fellow citizens, for endeavors to be useful, is the greatest of all earthly rewards.
No provision in our constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority. ”

“ The allurments of power are among the strongest temptations for the human soul, and there are but few men who, in the exercise of delegated authority, will never lose sight of the original rights of those that delegated it. ”

“ Thus, instead of a council with restricted powers and divided authority, we have a few men assuming positions of genuine responsibility, as regards both the originating and enforcing of laws. My colleagues will show that such a concentration of powers in one small body is necessary and desirable, both from the legislative and administrative point of view. ”

“ Those officers owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people. Before a state can assert the right, it must show, that the constitution has delegated and recognised it. No state can say, that it has reserved, what it never possessed. ”

“ The people are ultimately the source of all political power, and the powers delegated are in trust, alterable or terminable only in a legitimate and prescribed manner. Changes cannot be made to conform to a supposed moral sense, or to new environments, neither by the "fierce democracy," nor by the action of a department, nor by a combination of all departments. ”