Lawful authority

“ But where a constitution asserts a certain right, or lays down a certain principle of law or procedure, it speaks for the entire people as their supreme law, and is full authority for all that is done in pursuance of its provision. ”

“ 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 ”

“ What is government? The reverend gentleman who occupied this platform asserts that governments are divine, when all history teems with their sacrilegious proceedings. Or does he mean simply that this government is divine? If so, where is its sign-manual? The proper function of law as applied to society, is the protection of the rights of the individual. When it fails in this it is no longer binding on the conscience, according to the authority of one of the brightest lights in jurisprudence, whence this nation borrowed its common law. ”

“ All citizens, without distinction, are eligible for public offices. The natural, civil, and religious liberty of men, and their absolute independence of all authority save that of the law, forbid any inquiries into their opinions, speeches, and writings, as long as they do not disturb order, or interfere with the rights of others. ”

“ The terms and conditions, upon which any society is formed and organized, must' essentially depend upon the will of those, who are associated; or at least of those, who constitute a majority, actually controlling the rest. Originally, no man could have any right but to act for himself; and the power to choose a chief magistrate or other officer to exercise dominion or authority over others, as well as himself, could arise only upon a joint consent of the others to such appointment; and their consent might be qualified exactly according to their own interests, or power, or policy. ”

“ A human authority?—All authorities established by Statute for the taking of oaths are human authorities [Pg 44] Any authority outside a Statute is illegal, and any person administering such an oath is indictable. ”

“ The advocates of a national government, besides and beyond the intrusting of a particular jurisdiction to that government, wished to make it certain that its legislative power, in each act of legislation, should rest on the direct authority of the people. ”

“ The principle of all sovereignty rests in the people. 142No body or individual can possess any authority which does not expressly emanate from the nation.
“The sole end of all government is the public good. That good demands that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers should be distinct and defined, and that their organization should secure the free representation of the citizens, the responsibility of their deputies, and the impartiality of the judges. ”

“ For these various reasons there have been occasions in the history of all modern states at which men, or bodies of men, without the conscious assertion of any right not founded upon law, might naturally deem themselves entitled to resist an authority which on its part claimed a right—a legally established power—to enforce obedience, and turned out actually to possess the power of doing so. ”

“ The laws receive their force and authority from an oath of fidelity, either tacit or expressed, which living subjects have sworn to their sovereign, in order to restrain the intestine fermentation of the private interests of individuals. ”

“ It has been wisely and aptly said that this is a government of laws, and not of men; that there is no arbitrary power located in any individual or body of individuals; but that all in authority are guided and limited by those provisions which the people have, through the organic law, declared shall be the measure and scope of all control exercised over them. ”

“ It will be deemed to have been necessary for the common safety, because the person to whom the law has intrusted authority to decide upon and make it has duly exercised that authority.' Id. 100, 109, 110. ”

“ The authority of the laws which govern society is not found in the fact that the laws have been made by the will of the majority, or the will of the minority, or by the will of a king, or by the wills of any [236] or all of the people; but because they are founded in the constitution of human nature. ”

“ At a special session of the court, held in June, 'a declaration of natural and chartered rights' was approved and published. In this document the people affirmed their right 'to choose their own governor, deputy governor, and representatives; to admit freemen on terms to be prescribed at their own pleasure; to set up all sorts of officers, superior and inferior, and point out their power and places; to exercise, by their annually elected magistrates and deputies, all power and authority, legislative, executive, and judicial; to defend themselves by force of arms against every aggression ”

“ Now it is perceived from the reading of this that there is nothing express upon the subject, but that the authority is sought to be implied merely for the general provision of "all rightful subjects of legislation." ”

“ Thus at the very outset we find a professed equal government proscribing one-half the people over whom its authority is exercised; and, be it ever remembered, is fully maintained. While they are made responsible for all infringement of law, they have no voice in determining what that law shall be. ”

“ Also we must realize that the authority that makes the law is itself superior to it, and that if it consents to apply to itself the rules that it applies to others the consent is free and may be withheld. ”

“ Spite of the penalties attached to their violation, and of redoubled measures of control, government after government have been compelled to admit their failure in this direction. Laws of this nature always involve an abridgement of individual “liberty,” and of the natural right of every man to do what he “will” with his own. They involve the assumption, also, that a government, with the exercise of paternal authority can judge better than the citizen what will best subserve his or her welfare, in the use of what they have. ”

“ It may be taken to imply that rights and obligations can exist in a 'state of nature'—a state in which every individual is free to do as he likes—; that legal rights and obligations derive their authority from a voluntary act by which individuals contracted themselves out of this state; and that the individual retains from the state of nature certain rights with which no legal obligations ought to conflict. ”

“ In every society there are political and civil concerns on one side, and on the other social concerns; for the first, civil authority must be established—in political and civil respects every one has to acknowledge the power of its jurisdiction. ”

“ It is sufficient to establish that there are certain definite limits which circumscribe the free action of every governing authority, and that these limitations admit of being formulated into more or less precisely articulated propositions. Such propositions, capable as they are of being handled, interpreted, and enforced, in courts of justice, have all the essential qualities that belong to the general rules framed by the governing authority itself, for the guidance of the conduct of all persons submitted to its dominion. ”

“ Those Subject to Civil Law.—Civil laws oblige all those who are in any way subject to their authority.
(a) Citizens, when in the country, are bound by all the laws that pertain to them; when outside the country, they are bound by some laws, such as those that regulate their personal status and office, but not by others, in particular such as are of a territorial character. ”

“ That which regulates the nature and form of the body politic; which establishes the relation that each individual bears to it, and the rights and duties growing out of that relation, which determines the principles on which it exercises authority over him; and settles a system of jurisprudence by which it operates to protect and enforce right, and to redress and punish wrong.
2. That which determines the relations of individual members of society to each other; which defines the rights growing out of that relation ”

“ 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 defense, seem to comprise all the functions of the executive magistrate. ”

“ Nevertheless all prescriptions of human reason can have force of law only inasmuch as they are the voice and the interpreters of some higher power on which our reason and liberty necessarily de- pend. For, since the force of law consists in the imposing of obligations and the granting of rights, authority is the one and onl}' foundation of all law — the power, that is, of fixing duties and defining rights, as also of assigning the necessary sanctions of reward and chastisement to each and all of its commands. ”

“ There is a feeling of respect for authority, a regard for that which is believed to be law, a peculiar sense of duty towards the State in most men, which prevents them from assuming a position even of firmness in the assertion of their rights. ”

“ If it be such an exercise of power 'as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the classes to which the one in question belongs,' it is due process of law. ”

“ Yet some statutes may be of moral authority when they cannot be actually enforced, and may have been regarded, even at the time at which they were issued, rather as an authoritative declaration of what wise and good men considered to be right, than as laws to which obedience could be compelled. ”

“ Something more than a bare assertion of such an authority seems essential to the jurisdiction of this court. The authority intended by the act is one having a real existence, derived from competent governmental power. ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ The State might require such oath for any period of their past lives, might call upon them to affirm whether they had observed the Ten Commandments, or had discharged any particular civil or moral duty, or had entertained any particular sentiments, or desires, or sympathies, as a condition of their being allowed to engage in one of the ordinary pursuits of life, in a profession, trade, or business. It might impose conditions which individuals and whole classes in the community would be unable to comply with, and thus deprive them of civil and political rights. ”

“ The language of the great charter is, that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned but by the lawful judgment of his equals, or by the law of the land. And many subsequent old statutes expressly direct, that no man shall be taken or imprisoned by suggestion or petition to the king or his council, unless it be by legal indictment, or the process of the common-law. ”

“ Hence practical authority to enforce this rule of right upon him must be lodged in some hands; and since God does not rule statedly by miracle, it must be in human hands. Civil government is God's ordinance, and its obligations are those of original moral right. The advantage and convenience resulting illustrate and confirm, but do not originate, the obligation. ”

“ Now every society has the right of providing for what concerns the general interest, so that in permitting the parties to choose the judges of facts, the State reserves to itself the power to name the judges of right, who are the interpreters of the law. ”

“ It is that of the general will, which can neither be alienated nor represented. Is the prince above the law? The answer is, He is a member of the state, and cannot be so. Can the law be unjust? No one can be unjust to himself: therefore not the whole people to the whole people. How can we be free and yet subject to the laws? The laws are the register of our own will. (Ib.) Laws, in short, are properly those general 'conditions of civil association' which the associates impose on themselves. ”

“ To me, therefore, it is a marvel that in this country, under a Constitution ordained by men who were conversant with the principles of Magna Charta, and claimed them as their birthright, a Constitution which declares in its preamble that it is established 'to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity,'-it could ever be contended that an order of the Executive, issued at his will for the arrest and imprisonment of a citizen, where the courts are open and in the full exercise of their jurisdiction, is due process of law, or could ever be made such by an act of Congress. ”

“ This Government can, by the Constitution of the country, and by the laws enacted in conformity with the Constitution, operate upon individuals, and has the right and the power, not to coerce a State, but to enforce and execute the law upon individuals within the limits of a State. ”

“ All laws, whether emanating from an absolute monarch or from the representatives of the majority of a state, are mere expressions of the will of the sovereign power, which may be exacted by force. The second use of the word LAW is a record of our experience—e.g., we see the tides ebb and flow, and conclude it is done in obedience to the will of a sovereign power ”

“ 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. ”