Laws

“ Ordinary law-givers offer us laws to regulate society--laws, subject to change like the minds of those who make them, and of the people who obey them: those talk only of general, immutable, and eternal laws, which, without exception, are obeyed with order, regularity, and absolute exactness in the immensity of space. ”

“ But laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action or conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour. ”

“ Dear, the laws of society are not all written in a book; manners and customs create laws, the more important of which are often the least known. Believe me, there are neither teachers, nor schools, nor text-books for the laws that are now to regulate your actions, your language, your visible life, the manner of your presentation to the world, and your quest of fortune. ”

“ Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate. ”

“ The true jurists, the true legislators, will learn from comparative jurisprudence the lex legum of which I have spoken; will know the veneration due to those institutions and laws which are the surest exponents of national genius, while they obey implicitly the spirit of progress. ”

“ We can see the policeman on his beat, or the judge in court, or the members of the legislature—the men who, respectively, maintain, administer, and make the laws; and we can see the record of the laws in books. But the idea or principle of Law which has caused men to construct all this machinery for the making and enforcing of the laws, exists only in the mind. ”

“ The nervous language of the Common Law, the impressive forms of our courts and the precision and substantial truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution of all the sharp-sighted, strong-minded men who have lived in the countries where these laws govern. ”

“ The vast majority of us are probably unaware of the fact that any such law is in force. We suppose that we determine for ourselves what kind of laws shall rule in our states and cities; that what we say—what the majority of us say—goes. ”

“ Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ”

“ In the mean time it has been the peculiar lot of our admirable system of laws, to be neglected, and even unknown, by all but one practical profession; though built upon the soundest foundations, and approved by the experience of ages. ”

“ The rules of a society, in a majority of cases, may be conveniently divided into these four classes, though in some societies all the rules are found under one of these heads, being called either the constitution, or the by-laws, or the standing rules. ”

“ If such an one ever arises among us, blessed will he be, and blessed they who listen to his words. For where power and wisdom and temperance meet in one, there are the best laws and constitutions. I am endeavouring to show you how easy under the conditions supposed, and how difficult under any other, is the task of giving a city good laws. 'How do you mean?' Let us old men attempt to mould in words a constitution for your new state, as children make figures out of wax. ”

“ But the judgment of what is reasonable, and of what is to be abolished, belongeth to him that maketh the law, which is the sovereign assembly, or monarch.
The law of nature, and the civil law contain each other. 4. The law of nature, and the civil law, contain each other, and are of equal extent. For the laws of nature, which consist in equity, justice, gratitude, and other moral virtues on these depending, in the condition of mere nature, as I have said before in the end of the fifteenth chapter, are not properly laws, but qualities that dispose men to peace and obedience. ”

“ Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. ”

“ Who does not see that there is no empire, kingdom, dukedom, republic, state, or household, that is not established by laws, which constitute the order and so the form of its. government? In each of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third. ”

“ The millions of laws which exist for the regulation of humanity, appear upon investigation to be divided into three principal categories—protection of property, protection of persons, protection of government. And by analysing each of these three categories, we arrive at the same logical and necessary conclusion: the uselessness and hurtfulness of law. ”

“ These rules for regulating the social actions of men, are called laws. Law, in a general sense, is a rule of action, and is applied to all kinds of action. But in its limited and proper sense, it denotes the rules of human action prescribing what men are to do, and forbidding what they are not to do. ”

“ The laws of each country, its criminal and civil codes, its system of education, its sumptuary regulations, its treatment of the relation of the sexes, are intimately connected with the form of government, or rather with the principle which animates that form. ”

“ It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let me single out two excellent institutions, not [Pg 322] wholly American,—The contrivance for making laws, and that for executing them. To make laws, the people choose the best men they can find and confide in, and set them to this work. They aim to take all the good of past times, of the present times, and add to it their private contribution of justice. ”

“ In every country, and at all times, an order of things may be conceived—civil, political, penal and administrative laws—which would best conform to the general interest, and be the most favourable to the well-being and progress of the nation. ”

“ Again, I find that there are rules of social life, which take the form of what are called "laws," and these are imposed by the will of some governing authority; they are always the product of some one human will, or of the collective will of a greater number of persons. ”

“ "Why, when it comes to Law, I have nothing to, say" answered that personage. "for laws were never meant to be understood, and it is foolish to make the attempt." ”

“ The laws which hold society together, operate with the force of instincts, and after the manner of vague traditions, long before they are digested into written tables. The written code does not create the law; it merely gives a distinct promulgation, and a higher degree of authority, to certain floating principles which had operated on people's practice antecedently. ”

“ and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. ”

“ At issue are the laws and the "spirit of laws," unwritten or written, by which diverse human societies live, of whatever form, extent and kind,—the State, commune, Church, school, army, agricultural or industrial workshop, tribe or family. ”

“ O.—I mean that the general tendency is right in the laws of civilised nations; and that, in due course of time, natural sense and instinct point out the matters they should be brought to bear upon. And each question of legislation must be made a separate subject of inquiry as it presents itself: you cannot fix any general principles about what should be dealt with legally, and what should not. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are the guardians of the English constitution; the makers, repealers, and interpreters of the English laws; delegated to watch, to check, and to avert every dangerous innovation, to propose, to adopt, and to cherish any solid and well-weighed improvement; bound by every tie of nature, of honour, and of religion, to transmit that constitution and those laws to their posterity, amended if possible, at least without any derogation. And how unbecoming must it appear in a member of the legislature to vote for a new law, who is utterly ignorant of the old! ”

“ That within the provisions prescribed by the Constitution, and by the laws enacted in accordance with the Constitution, the acts and powers of the Government are to be interpreted and applied so as to create and maintain a system, general, equal, and beneficial as a whole. ”

“ In the first place, the "fundamental law" of the states and nation found in their constitutions, which determine what the form and powers of government shall be, has been adopted by more direct action of the people than most other laws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. ”

“ Each society is governed by a code of laws of its own making, which have at least the honour of resembling those of legislature, for words without sense are found in both, and we sometimes stumble upon contradiction. ”

“ Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation. ”

“ The consistent law or the laws on which societies are framed, and reared up to developed bodies, are of various kinds, devised principally by our philanthropists and philosophers and legislators, for the best of the parties concerned. ”

“ Laws are to govern all alike—those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. ”

“ This is the truest word that can be spoken in praise of a citizen; and the true legislator ought not only to write his laws, but also to interweave with them all such things as seem to him honourable and dishonourable. And the perfect citizen ought to seek to strengthen these no less than the principles of law which are sanctioned by punishments. ”

“ If we look wider, things are all alike; laws, and letters, and creeds, and modes of living, seem a travestie of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the Romans built over hill and dale, and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. ”

“ They have, therefore, given us a code of laws, protecting various interests rather according to the degree of importance which they possessed eighteen hundred years ago, than that which they have acquired in modern times. ”

“ We are old ourselves, and therefore we must leave our work of legislation to be improved and perfected by the next generation; not only making laws for our guardians, but making them lawgivers. 'We must at least do our best.' Let us address them as follows. Beloved saviours of the laws, we give you an outline of legislation which you must fill up, according to a rule which we will prescribe for you. ”

“ Legislation is the work of men invested with power, and who, in fact, govern the nation; therefore it follows that, practical^, the quality of the laws depends more upon the quality of these men than upon the form of power. ”

“ The state produces as many laws as there are relationships between people, which must be determined. As the number of these relations are endless, legislation must operate incessantly. Laws, decrees, edicts, decrees, regulations must pour in hail upon the unfortunate people. ”

“ By what principle is he to know when her is obeying the laws of his own nature, and when he is violating them? By what principle is he to know when he is obeying the laws of society, and when he is violating them? ”