Majority (law)

“ There could be but one of two rules adopted in all governments, either, that the majority should govern, or the minority should govern. The president might be chosen by a bare majority of electoral votes, and this majority might be by the combination of a few large states, and by a minority of the whole people. Under such circumstances, if a vote of three fourths were required to pass a law, the voice of two thirds of the states and two thirds of the people might be permanently disregarded during a whole administration. ”

“ A written constitution was resorted to in this country, as a great experiment, for the purpose of ascertaining how far the rights of a minority could be secured against the encroachments of majorities—often acting under party excitement, and not unfrequently under the influence of strong interests. The moment that Constitution was formed, the will of the majority ceased to be the law, except in cases that should be acknowledged by the parties to be within the Constitution, and to have been thereby submitted to their will. ”

“ That is to say, a party which casts forty-five per cent. of the total vote for representatives must have forty per cent. of the legislature, and the party which casts five per cent. of the total vote must have five per cent. of the legislature. Then only will statute law be framed in accordance with the will of a majority of the people.
The other part of our republican form of government, as understood and intended by American statesmen of the eighteenth century, was that a majority of the people should directly control the organic law. ”

“ When the two above-named Assemblies, or one of them, after the discussion of a law, or of certain articles of a law, shall decide against that law by a majority less than that above-named, the views of the minority shall be submitted to our consideration. ”

“ The minority of the court dissent from the opinion of the majority, and set forth at length the reasons for such dissent. The fact that five judges concur in the majority opinion and four dissent makes the decision of one man the supreme law of the land. It annuls acts of congress and state legislatures, and makes the opinions and decisions of four members of the court concurring with a majority of congress of no avail. One man's opinion is the law for the whole people. This we have shown in the action of the supreme court in the legal tender cases. ”

“ It would be easy to provide by law that an extraordinary number of Peers—say more than ten annually—should not be created except on a vote of some large majority, suppose three-fourths of the Lower House. ”

“ According to the rule which has been in vogue a hundred years, the minority has the safeguard which is expressly secured in the constitutions of a majority of the States; according to the old rule the minority, by refusing to vote, can compel the concurrence of a majority before a law is passed. ”

“ Is a real & fair majority, the natural hot-bed of aristocracy? It is a part of the definition of this species of Govt or rather of tyranny, that the smaller number governs the greater. It is true that a majority of States in the 2d branch cannot carry a law agst a majority of the people in the 1st. ”

“ This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain. If it were a question whether I agreed with that theory, I should desire to study it further and long before making up my mind. But I do not conceive that to be my duty, because I strongly believe that my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law. ”

“ Having now explained the reasons why it is so difficult to form and preserve popular constitutional government, so long as the distinction beeen the two majorities is overlooked, and the opinion prevails that a written constitution, with suitable restrictions and a proper division of its powers, is sufficient to counteract the tendency of the numerical majority to the abuse of its power — I shall next proceed to explain, more fully, why the concurrent majority is an indispensable element in forming constitutional governments ”

“ True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true, that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority. ”

“ If there is one ancient parliamentary principle to which the Constitution does not subscribe, it is the principle of majority rule. In every major question touched upon in the Constitution—for the impeachment of officers, the overriding of a veto, the ratification of a treaty, the proposing and adopting of amendments to the Constitution—in all of these, mere majorities are not enough. ”

“ However compounded, they are a social being, and no social duty can accrue to any majority, but to one established by social compact, because no other majority exists possessed of any political rights. Admitting then the right of the majority to instruct, the right accrues to the social majority, and wherever that exists in the form of sections or districts, the mode by which it can exercise its power, must be through the form in which it exists. ”

“ that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society; ”

“ It would then be absurd, to transfer the duty from the party of the majority, which has the power, to that of the minority, which has it not — and this, too, when, with such a majority, the question of power could be settled in its favor, more easily and promptly, through the federal government itself. ”

“ These results, resting on calculations, which exclude doubt, incontestably prove — not only that the authority which formed, ratified, and even amended the constitution, regulates entirely the numerical majority, as one of its elements — but furnish additional and conclusive proof, if additional were needed, that ours is a federal government — a government made by the several States; and that States, and not individuals, are its constituents. The States, throughout, in forming, ratifying and amending the constitution, act as equals, without reference to population. ”

“ Speak in honest language, and say, the minority will be in danger from the majority. And is there an assembly on earth where this danger may not be equally pretended? The truth is, that our proceedings will then be consentaneous with the interests of the majority, and so they ought to be. ”

“ Its capacity to transact business is then established, created by the mere presence of a majority, and does not depend upon the disposition or assent or action of any single member or fraction of the majority present. All that the constitution requires is the presence of a majority, and when that majority are present the power of the house arises. ”

“ Looking at democracy in the way in which it is commonly conceived, as the rule of the numerical majority, it is surely possible that the ruling power may be under the dominion of sectional or class interests, pointing to conduct different from that which would be dictated by impartial regard for the interest of all. Suppose the majority to be whites, the minority negroes, or vice versâ: is it likely that the majority would allow equal justice to the minority? ”

“ The aggregate majority would hold a right without the remedy, and the district the remedy without a right. But it is overlooked that majorities and their rights are creatures of social compact, and not endowed by nature with political power. They are compounded of men, excluding women ”

“ Still if any Council is admitted in matters of doctrine, those who have appealed to it must abide by the determination of the majority, however they might prefer the opinion of the minority, just as in acts of Parliament. ”

“ But even in this democracy, absolute power, if they chose to exercise it, would rest with the numerical majority, and these would be composed exclusively of a single class, alike in biases, prepossessions, and general modes of thinking, and a class, to say no more, not the most highly cultivated. The constitution would therefore still be liable to the characteristic evils of class government ”

“ Electoral precautions, the debates in the deliberative assemblies, the publication of these debates, the liberty of the press, the responsibility of ministers, all these arrangements have for their object to insure that a majority shall be declared only after it has well authenticated itself, to compel it ever to legitimatize itself, in order to its own preservation, and to place the minority in such a position as that it may contest the power and right of the majority. ”

“ It has been shown, under the second head of our inquiries, that all provisions which require more than the majority of any body to its resolutions, have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government, and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority. ”

“ The same remark applies here. The right of a majority to rule, is a fundamental principle in all Representative Governments, supposing always, that they exercise that right consistently with the rights of the minority. ”

“ It leads to the conclusion that, in their formation and establishment nothing more is necessary than the right of suffrage — and the allotment to each division of the community a representation in the government, in proportion to numbers. If the numerical majority were really the people; and if, to take its sense truly, were to take the sense of the people truly, a government so constituted would be a true and perfect model of a popular constitutional government ”

“ But, as there can be no constitution without the negative power, and no negative power without the concurrent majority — it follows, necessarily, that where the numerical majority has the sole control of the government, there can be no constitution ”

“ Where the majority is that portion, it matters not how its powers may be exercised — whether directly by themselves, or indirectly, through representatives or agents. Be it which it may, the minority, for the time, will be as much the governed or subject portion, as are the people in an aristocracy, or the subjects in a monarchy. The only difference in this respect is, that in the government of a majority, the minority may become the majority, and the majority the minority, through the right of suffrage ”

“ Many of those who form a majority on one question, may become the minority on a second, and an association dissimilar to either may constitute the majority on a third. Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging all the particulars which are to compose the whole, in such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the compact; and hence, also, an immense multiplication of difficulties and casualties in obtaining the collective assent to a final act. ”

“ If a member could in no case vote on a question affecting himself, it would be impossible for a society to vote to hold a banquet, or for a legislature to vote salaries to members, or for the majority to prevent a small minority from preferring charges against them and suspending or expelling them. ”

“ What gives to the majority the right to govern the minority who dissent from its action?
On the supposition that society has rights not derived from individuals, and which are intrusted to the government, there is a good reason why the majority should prevail within the legitimate sphere of government, because the majority is the best representative practicable of society itself ”

“ PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. By means of preferential voting it is possible to make representative bodies a mirror not of the majority party, but of the real divisions of opinion in a community. One of the great evils in our present system of majority rule is the suppression of the wishes of the minority-which may amount to nearly half the community. ”