Legislation

“ This legislation is the result of an exercise by Congress of the legislative power vested in it by the Constitution, and of an exercise by the President of his constitutional power in approving a bill and thereby making it "a law." To sustain it is to respect the actions of the two branches of our Government directly responsive to the will of the people and empowered under the Constitution to determine the wisdom of legislation. ”

“ No one who has given the slightest consideration to the subject will dispute the proposition that, taking America as a whole, we now have twenty acts of legislation annually promulgated, and with which we are at our peril supposed to be familiar, where one would more than suffice. ”

“ Legislation, being merely the expression of the will of the community, was thought to be an operation so simple in its nature, that inexperienced reason could not readily perceive the necessity of committing it to two bodies of men, each having a decisive check upon the action of the other. ”

“ General words indicate and affirm a general intent, and if the fact that different sections are differently affected is enough to make a law local, the field of legislation would be narrowed beyond anything that Congress could have dreamed. ”

“ Visigothic Theory Of Law.
Legislation is almost always imperative; it prescribes or interdicts; each legal provision usually corresponds to some fact which it either ordains or prohibits. Rarely does it happen that a law, or code of laws, are preceded by a theory on the origin and nature of power, the object and philosophic character of law, and the right and duty of the legislator. ”

“ I. In construing any act of legislation, whether a statute enacted by the legislature or a constitution established by the people as the supreme law of the land, regard is to be had not only to all parts of the act itself, and of any former act of the same lawmaking power of which the act in question is an amendment, but also to the condition and to the history [p654] of the law as previously existing, and in the light of which the new act must be read and interpreted. ”

“ Whatever be the term used, the good or expedient is the aim of legislation, and as far as she has an opinion, the state imposes all laws with a view to the greatest expediency; can legislation have any other aim? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But besides the body of legislation emanating from the legislatures there is another important body of law peculiar to modern States which goes by the name of organic or fundamental legislation, and is embodied in the various constitutions of government. ”

“ The legislative power being that, which is predominant in all governments, ought to be, above all, of this character; because there can be no security for the general government, or the state governments, without an adequate representation, and an adequate check of each in the functions of legislation. ”

“ The philosophical habit of the day, the frequency of legislation, and the ease with which the law may be changed to meet the opinions and wishes of the public, all make it natural and unavoidable that judges as well as others should openly discuss the legislative principles upon which their decisions must always rest in the end, and should base their judgments upon broad considerations of policy to which the traditions of the bench would hardly have tolerated a reference fifty years ago. ”

“ In general, indeed, the power of legislation is far too important to be committed to any person or body of persons save the incorporate community itself. The great bulk of enacted law is promulgated by the state in its own person. ”

“ That is easier in some cases than in others. But in every case we must respect the role of the Legislature, and take care not to undo what it has done. A fair reading of legislation demands a fair understanding of the legislative plan. ”

“ It may be laid down as a fundamental principle in the study of history that the frequent repetition of legislation on any one subject shows that the subject is considered very important by the government and that the legislation is not effective. ”

“ It is contrary to the fundamental conception of a legislative body that it be composed of a few. In no country of free institutions is a legislative body so constituted. My colleague has proved, and it cannot be successfully controverted, that in the city, as well as in the state, there is a large field for legislation. ”

“ The agents of legal change, Fictions, Equity, and Legislation, are brought in turn to bear on the primeval institutions, and at every point of the progress, a greater number of personal rights and a larger amount of property are removed from the domestic forum to the cognizance of the public tribunals. ”

“ Another marked feature of the times is the disposition to trust to material agencies or mere acts of legislation for the removal of evils that have their root in men's ideas and in social customs. An amendment to a constitution or a charter is proffered as a plan of political salvation ”

“ The proof that they are so is found in the growing disposition on the part of different Legislatures to extend and protect their rights of property, and in the enlightened and progressive spirit of the age which acts gently, but efficiently upon the legislation of the day. ”

“ The old system vests the law-making power in a legislative body composed of men elected by the people and supposed to be peculiarly fitted by reason of character, education, and training for the performance of that duty. These men come together and give their entire time through a period of some weeks or months to the consideration of proposed legislation, and the laws they enact go into immediate effect, and remain in force until set aside by the courts as unconstitutional or until repealed by the same authority that enacted them. ”

“ Legislation, rightly directed, might have done and might yet do much for the civilization and advancement of society; but, unfortunately, in most nations of the earth, the legislation, having been under the exclusive control of a self-styled higher class, has impeded rather than hastened the movement. ”

“ Legislative bodies especially, need to be brought into closer relations and the law makers made to realize their duty to the public and the convict in the enactment of wise, proper and righteous legislation. ”

“ There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the lawmaking power, and must therefore be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation.' See also Caha v. ”

“ The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist. ”

“ Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body. ”

“ For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation? ”

“ Thus, at length, was realized the sublime conception of a nation in which every citizen lives under two complete and well-rounded systems of laws,—the state law and the federal law,—each with its legislature, its executive, and its judiciary moving one within the other, noiselessly and without friction. ”

“ In 2 Pet., 662, 'A legislative act is to be interpreted according to the intention of the legislature, apparent upon its face. Every technical rule, as to the construction or force of particular terms, must yield to the clear expression of the paramount will of the legislature.' In Paine, 11, 'In doubtful cases, a court should compare all the parts of a statute, and different statutes in pari materia, to ascertain the intention of the legislature.' So in 1 Brock., 162. In the construction of statutes, one part must be construed by another. ”

“ The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?... The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. ”

“ In a government, where the liberties of the people are to be preserved, and the laws well administered, the executive, legislative and judicial, should ever be separate and distinct, and consist of parts, mutually forming a check upon each other. ”

“ The nation, my lords, in the mean time, justly applies for redress to the power of the legislature, and to its wisdom for methods of procuring it by law. The commons have complied with their importunities, and propose to your lordships the bill before you, a bill for making a publick inquiry possible, and for bringing a minister within reach of the law. ”

“ Among the earliest acts of the provincial legislature, which were approved, were an act for the prevention of frauds and perjuries, conform able to that of Charles II.; an act for the observance of the Lord’s day; an act for solemnizing marriages by a minister or a justice of the peace; an act for the support of ministers and schoolmasters; an act for regulating towns and counties; and an act for the settlement and distribution of the estates of persons dying intestate. ”

“ Such an order, being legislative in its nature and made by an instrumentality of the state, is a state law within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress regulating our jurisdiction. ”

“ Some of the bills of rights in America declare, that the people have a right to meet together, and consult for the public safety; that their legislators are responsible to them; that they are servants, &c. Such declarations give people an idea, that as individuals, or in town meetings, they have a power paramount to that of the Legislature. ”

“ Here again the author displays a want of proper definiteness and precision, in the statement of his proposition. The people who make a law, can, upon the principles of all our institutions, either "repeal or abrogate or suspend it;" and if, as he supposes, our constitution was made by "the people of the United States," in the aggregate, then "the people of any State," or of half a State, may repeal, or abrogate, or suspend it, if they happen to be a majority of the whole. ”

“ The people of any State may at any time meet in Convention, without a law of their Legislature, and without any provision, or against any provision, in their Constitution, and may alter or abolish the whole frame of Government as they please. ”

“ It appeared to the legislature for the time being to be of immense importance to make such and such a law. Great good was gained, or great evil avoided, by enacting it. Pause before you alter an institution which has been deemed to be of so much importance. ”

“ Let me single out two excellent institutions, not 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. Each State legislature is a little political academy for the advancement of jural science and art. ”

“ By the same token, the fact that a given law or procedure is efficient, convenient, and useful in facilitating functions of government, standing alone, will not save it if it is contrary to the Constitution. ”

“ Independently of the legislative measures, which internal circumstances require, you will deem it useful perhaps, to occupy yourselves on regulating laws, calculated to render the constitution active. ”

“ In a state government, I consider all power flowing immediately from the people in their individual capacity, and that the people, in their individual capacity, have, and ought to have the right of choosing delegates in a state legislature, the business of which is to make laws, regulating their concerns, as individuals, and operating upon them as such ”

“ 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. ”

“ Your Legislature is not only supreme in the usual sense of the word, but they have literally, all the powers of society. Can you—can you possibly grant anything new? Have you any power which is not already granted to your General Assembly? ”

“ It is our duty to draw from nature, from reason, from examples, the best principles of policy, and to pursue and to apply them in the formation of our government. We should contemplate and compare the systems which, in this examination, come under our view; distinguish, with a careful eye, the defects and excellences of each, and, discarding the former, incorporate the latter, as far as circumstances will admit, into our Constitution. ”