Legislative history

“ I should concur in this result more readily if the Court could reach it by analysis of the statute instead of by psychoanalysis of Congress. When we decide from legislative history, including statements of witnesses at hearings, what Congress probably had in mind, we must put ourselves in the place of a majority of Congressmen and act according to the impression we think this history should have made on them. Never having been a Congressman, I am handicapped in that weird endeavor. That process seems to me not interpretation of a statute but creation of a statute. ”

“ The most prevalent idea in the principal States seems to be a total alteration of the present federal system, and substituting a great national council or parliament, consisting of two branches of the legislature, founded upon the principles of equal proportionate representation, with full legislative powers upon all the subjects of the Union; and an executive: and to make the several State legislatures subordinate to the national, by giving the latter the power of a negative upon all such laws as they shall judge contrary to the interest of the federal Union ... ”

“ A legislative power was to be created by the assembling in one branch of the representatives of the people of all the States, in proportion to their numbers, and in the other branch by assembling an equal number of representatives of each State, without regard to its numbers of people. ”

“ That generation of the American people knew but little—they cared less—about the origin of a method of governing the legislative body, which implies an open or a secret venality on the part of its members, and a willingness on the part of the administration to purchase their consent to its measures. ”

“ But by providing that the legislative power of the national government should be derived from the people inhabiting the several States, and by creating an executive and a judiciary with an authority commensurate with that of the legislature, it sought to make, and did theoretically make, the national government, in its proper sphere, supreme over the governments of the States. ”

“ There were great differences of opinion in the Convention upon the expediency of giving to the judges, as expositors of the Constitution, power to declare a law to be void; [358] and undoubtedly such a [435] power, if introduced into some governments, would be legislative in its nature, whether the persons who were to exercise it should be called judges, or be clothed with the functions of a council of revision. ”

“ The legislative power of the Empire shall be exercised by the federal council and the diet. A majority of the votes of both houses shall be necessary and sufficient for the passage of a law. When a law is proposed in relation to the army or navy, or to the imposts specified in article 35, the vote of the presiding officer shall decide; in case of a difference of opinion in the federal council, if said vote shall be in favor of the retention of the existing arrangements. ”

“ It must introduce through the Senate a real check upon the democratic power that would act through the House, by a different mode of election and a permanent tenure of office; and in order that the States might not be in a situation to resist the measures of a government designed to be national and supreme, that government must possess complete and universal legislative power. ”

“ In the Ordinance, Congress had provided a system of fundamental law, intended to be of perpetual obligation, for new communities, whose legislative power was to be moulded by certain original maxims of assumed justice and right. The opportunity thus afforded for shaping the limits of political sovereignty according to the requirements of a preconceived policy, enabled the framers of the Ordinance to introduce a limitation, which is not only peculiar to American constitutional law, but which, like many features of our institutions, grew out of previous abuses. ”

“ Popular sovereignty attained its highest phase under the Constitution of 1846; and the convention must always be notable as the great dividing line between a government by the people, and a government delegated by the people to cerii. 106tain officials—executive, legislative, and judicial—who were invested with general and more or less permanent powers. Under the Constitution of 1821, the power of appointment was placed in the governor, the Senate, and the Assembly. ”

“ This same expression was employed by the committee when they provided for the mode in which a bill, once rejected by the President, should be again brought before the legislative bodies. They directed it to be returned "to that HOUSE in which it shall have originated,"—that is to say, to a constitutional quorum, a majority of which passed it in the first instance; and they then provided, that, if "two thirds of that HOUSE shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other HOUSE,... and if approved by two thirds of that HOUSE, it shall become a law." ”

“ No previous authorization is necessary for the undertaking of proceedings against public officials, on account of acts in their administration, except that which is enacted concerning ministers. Title III. Of Powers. Article 25. All powers are derived from the nation. They are exercised in the manner prescribed by the Constitution. {3728} Article 26. Legislative power is exercised collectively by the King, the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate. ”

“ The interpretation of laws by authority belongs only to the legislative power. Article 29. The executive power, as regulated by the Constitution, belongs to the King. Article 30. The judicial power is exercised by the courts and tribunals. Decrees and judgments are executed in the name of the King. Article 31. Interests exclusively communal or provincial, are regulated by the communal or provincial councils, according to the principles established by the Constitution. Chapter First.—Of The Chambers. ”

“ But the earliest practice of the government presents the first, the official oath the second, the action of the Assembly in 1649 the third, and to advocates of a republican government the most important phasis, in the history of the general Toleration. ... To the legislators of 1649 was it given ... to take their own rank among the foremost spirits of the age. Near the close of the session, ... by a solemn act [the 'Act Concerning Religion'] , they endorsed that policy which ever since has shed the brightest lustre upon the legislative annals of the province. ... ”

“ The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. ”

“ The authority of the Legislature, says the same author who is quoted by your Excellency, "does not extend so far as the fundamentals of the constitution. They ought to consider the fundamental laws as sacred, if the nation has not in very express terms, given them the power to change them. For the constitution of the state ought to be fixed; and since that was first established by the nation, which afterwards trusted certain persons with the Legislative power, the fundamental laws are excepted from their commission." ”

“ THAT each branch ought to possess the right of originating acts; THAT the National Legislature ought TO be empowered to enjoy the legislative rights vested in Congress by the Confederation and moreover to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation ”

“ It is not open to reasonable doubt that Congress had power to invest, and did invest, the District government with legislative authority, or that the act of the legislative assembly of June 26, 1873, was within that authority. ”

“ If no security was intended to be provided for the rights of the states, and the liberty of the citizens, beyond the mere organization of the federal government, we should have had no written constitution, but Congress would have been authorized to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever, and the acts of our state legislatures, like those of the present legislative councils in the territories, would have been subjected to the revision and control of Congress. ”

“ There is evidence in these new constitutions, however, [Pg 304] that the people placed less reliance in their legislative bodies than did the people of the Revolutionary era. Instead of general grants of legislative power, there are specific prohibitions and positive injunctions. ”

“ It is true that, in construing the Federal Constitution, Congress must be held to have only those powers which are granted expressly or by necessary implication, but the opposite rule is the one to be applied to the construction of a State constitution. The legislature of a State may exercise all powers which are properly legislative, unless they are forbidden by the State or National Constitution. ”

“ The Constitution of the United States does not use the term 'statute,' but it does employ the term 'law,' often regarded as an equivalent, to describe an exertion of legislative power. Thus it is declared that a bill presented in either house of Congress, if receiving prescribed favorable consideration, shall 'become a law,' article 1, § 7; that Congress may 'make all laws' necessary and proper for carrying into execution various enumerated powers, article 1, § 8, cl. ”

“ I am in conscience and conviction opposed to our having the right to impart a legislative power at all. In England it might be done, because the Legislature is omnipotent; but we are limited within the sphere of our constitution; and if the power is not there to be found, it can nowhere exist. Hence I state that in forming this constitution it was declared that all laws to be enforced must have the assent of the three branches representing three distinct interests of the community; and to repeal them the same formality is required. ”

“ By it the people have created a government, defined its powers, prescribed their limits, distributed them among the different departments, and directed, in general, the manner of their exercise. No department of the government has any other powers than those thus delegated to it by the people. All the legislative power granted by the Constitution belongs to Congress ”

“ The popular choice of the executive and law-making branches makes the Government substantially elective, while the independence of the executive as over against the legislative makes the system congressional rather than ministerial in method of action. In distributing the powers of government the framers of the Constitution followed Colonial and English precedent, and confided to separate and distinct organs the exercise of those functions which were legislative in character, those which were executive, and those which were judicial. ”

“ It has been very properly said, on all sides, that this Act, declaring the rights of the citizens, and forming their government, divided it into three great branches, the legislative, executive, and judiciary, assigning to each its proper powers, and directing that each shall be kept separate and distinct, must be considered as a rule obligatory upon every department, not to be departed from on any occasion. ”

“ A federal legislature would have exercised home-grown American control over the American Assemblies; it would have given a wider and fuller scope to American democracy, enlarging the views, making the individual leaders greater and wider in mind; it would have been the body with which England would have dealt; and the dealings would have been those of ‘Partners in the legislation of the Empire’. ”

“ The legislative lion will not be entangled in the meshes of a logical net. The legislature will always make the power which it wishes to exercise, unless it be so organized as to contain within itself the sufficient check. ”

“ If I am correct in this opinion, what necessity exists for these amendments of the Constitution? Let the States be represented in the Senate and House by men who can conscientiously qualify as members; and after that, when we have a full Congress, with the whole country represented, let any amendment that may be required be proposed, and let those most interested have an opportunity to participate in the debates and deliberations of matters of so much moment to every citizen. ”