Large state

“ Of this the members from the small states, with some from the large states, who wished a high-mounted government, endeavoured to avail themselves, by making that privilege the price of arrangements in the Constitution favorable to the small states, and to the elevation of the government. ”

“ It is a large, local, internal government that each State has over its territory, and the property and the acts of its citizens in that territory. The General Government in our extensive domain, having in addition to the powers it now has those of the States, would from the overwhelming mass of its duties be a failure. ”

“ It appears to me that the state governments are not sufficiently secured, and that they may be swallowed up by the great mass of powers given to Congress. If that be the case, such power should not be given; for, from all the notions which we have concerning our happiness and well-being, the state governments are the basis of our happiness, security, and prosperity. A large extent of country ought to be divided into such a number of states as that the people may conveniently carry on their own government. ”

“ Suppose a con- federation of states had never been adopted, but every stale had remained absolutely in its independent situation,—no person could, with propriety, say that the citizen of the large state was not as important as the citizen of the smaller. ”

“ There are three simple species of government—monarchy, where the supreme power is in a single person; aristocracy, where the supreme power is in a select assembly, the members of which either fill up, by election, the vacancies in their own body, or succeed to their places in it by inheritance, property, or in respect of some personal right or qualification; a republic or democracy, where the people at large retain the supreme power, and act either collectively or by representation. ”

“ The State and Its Sovereignty.—The various economic and social functions that are exercised by the people as a nation can be performed in an orderly and effective way only when the people are organized politically, and the nation has full powers of sovereignty. When the nation functions politically it is a state. States may be large like Russia, or small like Montenegro; they may have full sovereignty like Great Britain, or limited sovereignty like New York; the fact that they exercise political authority makes them states. ”

“ It has been observed, that, as the people must, of necessity, delegate essential powers either to the individual or general sovereignties, it is perfectly immaterial where they are lodged; but, as the state governments will always possess a better representation of the feelings and interests of the people at large, it is obvious that those powers can be deposited with much greater safety with the state than the general government. ”

“ By the very act of civil and political association, each citizen subjects himself to the authority of the whole; and the authority of all over each member essentially belongs to the body politic. [24] A state, which possesses this absolute power, without any dependency upon any foreign power or state, is in the largest sense a sovereign state. [25] And it is wholly immaterial, what is the form of the government, or by whose hands this absolute authority is exercised. It may be exercised by the people at large, as in a pure democracy ”

“ Recurring to these principles, which constitute the organic basis of union, we perceive that vast as are the functions and the duties of the Federal Government, vested in or intrusted to its three great departments--the legislative, executive, and judicial--yet the substantive power, the popular force, and the large capacities for social and material development exist in the respective States, which, all being of themselves well-constituted republics, as they preceded so they alone are capable of maintaining and perpetuating the American Union. ”

“ Small States, or States of less natural strength, under vigorous Governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large States, or States of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride, nor the safety, of the more important States, or confederacies, would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. ”

“ Numerous states yet unformed, myriads of the human race, who will inhabit regions hitherto uncultivated, were to be affected by the result of their proceedings. It was necessary, therefore, to form their calculations on a scale commensurate to a large portion of the globe. ”

“ Almost contemporaneously with the first proposition for a confederation, jealousies began to be entertained in respect to the nature and extent of the authority, which should be exercised by the national government. The large states would naturally feel, that in proportion as congress should exercise sovereign powers, their own local importance and sovereignty would be diminished injuriously to their general influence on other states from their strength, population, and character. ”

“ Each of the states has grown in power, in vigour of operation, in commanding influence, in wealth, revenue, population, commerce, agriculture, and general efficiency. No man will venture to affirm, that their power, relative to that of the Union, has been diminished, although our population has, in the intermediate period, passed from three to more than twelve millions. No man will pretend to say, that the affection for the state governments has been sensibly diminished by the operations of the general government. ”

“ Mr. A. expressed his surprise that the small States appeared to be opposed to a large ratio; for, if it would be an advantage on any side, it would be decidedly in favor of the small States. He thought, indeed, that the Representatives of the large States, in voting for a large ratio, had shown great magnanimity and liberality. ”

“ I view the states as made for the people, as well as by them, and not the people as made for the states; the people, therefore, have a right, whilst enjoying the undeniable powers of society, to form either a general government, or state governments, in what manner they please, or to accommodate them to one another, and by this means preserve them all. ”

“ For instance, your State has now scarcely the privileges of a simple territory; your interests differ entirely from those of the central States of the Republic. Every day your laws are becoming more centralised. ”

“ To the general government arc assigned all those powers, which relate to the common interests of all the states, as comprising one confederated nation. While to each state is reserved all those powers, which may affect, or promote its own domestic interests, its peace, its prosperity, its policy, and its local institutions. ”

“ The Federal and state governments are parts of one system, alike necessary for the common prosperity, peace and security, and ought to be regarded alike with a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment. ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ As an abstract question, it is difficult to understand on what ground a State court can claim jurisdiction of civil suits against foreign consuls. By the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; and the judiciary act of 1789 gives to the district courts of the United States, exclusively of the courts of the several States, jurisdiction of all suits against consuls and vice consuls, except for certain offences enumerated in this act. ”

“ The states that unite to make the federation, while they keep certain powers in their own hands, give up certain other powers to a central body, a body which speaks and acts in the name, not of this or that state, but of the whole body of states. And the powers that they give up to this central body are those powers which are strictly national, those in the exercise of which the nation, as such, comes across the other nations and powers of the world.52 This nation, any other nation, cannot have any dealings with the State of New York; all its dealings must be with the United States of America. ”

“ To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundred years, I should say that the important facts are not its industrial energy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federal power, and the integrity of the individual States. ”

“ The contact of the central government with the mass of the men of the state was broken off by the intervening series of lords who were political rulers each of the territory or group of lands immediately subject to himself, and exercised within those limits the functions which the general government should normally exercise for the whole state. ”

“ A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents. ”

“ Independent states stretched over an immense territory, and known only by common difficulty, clinging to their Union as the rock of their safety, deciding by frank comparison of their relative condition, to rear on that rock, under the guidance of reason, a common government through whose commanding protection, liberty and order, with their long train of blessings, should be safe to themselves and the sure inheritance of their posterity. ”

“ And any Act of Congress, or any provision of any such Act, that by its terms is in force only during the existence of a state of war, or during such state of war and a limited period of time thereafter, shall be construed and administered as if such war between the Governments and people aforesaid terminated on the date when this resolution becomes effective, any provision of such law to the contrary notwithstanding ”

“ On the greatest issue of our history we fought our greatest war, and the States which represented union and federalism put an end once for all to the unlimited sovereignty of any individual State. Our Civil War established the supremacy of the federal power over the States. ”

“ In America, and in almost every country in Europe except Great Britain and Ireland, the state successfully undertakes the instruction of the deaf and dumb. All the institutions are munificently supported by large annual appropriations from the local legislatures, the state regarding it as a primary duty that the deaf and dumb, the blind, &c., shall not be excluded from those educational privileges accorded to every member of the community. ”

“ The clause in the Constitution relating to fugitives from labour, manifestly contemplates the existence of positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. ”

“ When the construction of the statute of the State relates to real property, and has been settled by any judicial decision of the State where the land lies, the Supreme Court, upon the principles uniformly adopted by it, would recognize the decision as part of the local law. ”

“ Exalt the citizen. As the State is the unit of government, he is the unit of the State. Teach him that his home is his castle, and his sovereignty rests beneath his hat. Make him self-respecting, self-reliant and responsible. ”

“ Under the Second of these Divisions may be ranged all the Art of the Legislator and Politician, all the power of Laws and Government. These do constitute the Civil Power; and a State may then be said to be in good Order, when all the other Powers are subservient to this; when they own its superior Excellence and Energy, pay it a ready Obedience, and all unite in Support of its Rule. ”

“ A great Republic, composed of different States, whose interest in all respects could not be perfectly compatible, then came deliberately forward, discarded one system of government and adopted another, without the loss of one man's blood. ”

“ No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. ”

“ The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. ”

“ That the central government was created chiefly for matters of a general character, which concerned all the States and their people, and not for matters of interior regulation, is shown as much by the history of its formation as by the express language of the Constitution. ”

“ In short, the real federal aspect of the nation, if we penetrate beneath constitutional forms to the deeper currents of social, economic and political life, will be found to lie in the relation of sections and nation, rather than in the relation of States and nation. ”

“ Nor does it seem impossible that, from the structure of their government, they may continue united for a few great national purposes, while each State may make the laws that are suited to its peculiar habits, character, and circumstances. ”

“ No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines, which separate the states, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the state governments. ”