Partition (law)

“ Indeed, if there were no prior convention, where, unless the election were unanimous, would be the obligation on the minority to submit to the choice of the majority? How have a hundred men who wish for a master the right to vote on behalf of ten who do not? The law of majority voting is itself something established by convention, and presupposes unanimity, on one occasion at least. ”

“ In case of expulsion, when the requisite two-thirds can be had, the motive for the exercise of arbitrary power no longer exists, as a two-thirds partisan majority is sufficient for every purpose. * * * The power of exclusion is a matter of law, to be exercised by a majority vote, in accordance with legal principles, and exists only where a member-elect lacks some of the qualifications required by the Constitution.' Id., at 76-77. ”

“ The acquiescence of the State, in the existence of the law, gives validity, and even the sanction of a majority, to the acts of that minority; but the majority may at any time resume their natural right, and make the assent of more than half of the members, necessary to give validity to their determinations.
The danger therefore arising from a power in the Assembly to determine their own quorum, is merely ideal, for no law can be perpetual; the authority of a majority of the people, or of their Representativs, is always competent to repeal any act that is found unjust or inconvenient. ”

“ An electoral system which would annul beforehand,—with regard to the final result of the elections, that is to say, with regard to the formation of the deliberative assembly,—the influence and participation of the minority, would destroy representative government, and would be as fatal to the majority itself as any law which, in the deliberative assembly, should condemn the minority to silence. ”

“ The General government may concede or withhold permission to the disorganized State to reorganize, as it judges advisable, but it cannot itself reorganize it. If it concedes the permission, it must leave the whole electoral people under the preexisting electoral law free to take part in the work of reorganization, and to vote according to their own judgment. ”

“ An abandoned faction have seized on the reins of government, and frequently refused to have any representation in Congress. If Congress had the power of making the law of elections operate throughout the United States, no state could withdraw itself from the national councils, without the consent of a majority of the members of Congress. ”

“ Congress, in truth, is now little more than a place for formally ratifying and recording the decisions at which the party having the majority has arrived in caucus, where the only real deliberation takes place. As the minority in caucus is bound by party law to vote with the majority in the legislative hall, it often happens that a small minority of the whole Legislature passes a law or carries an election. Take away party, and we see that the whole of the present system of parliamentary government would crumble. ”

“ To the ordinance of the parliament concerning the militia, the king opposed his commissions of array. The counties obeyed the one or the other, according as they stood affected. And in many counties, where the people were divided, mobbish combats and skirmishes ensued. [*] The parliament on this occasion went so far as to vote, “That when the lords and commons in parliament, which is the supreme court of judicature, shall declare what the law of the land is, to have this not only questioned, but contradicted, is a high breach of their privileges.” ”

“ If there were nothing in things to divide about, I think the people not likely to maintain systematic controversies about men. They have no interest in so doing. Associations formed to support principles [305] may be called parties; but if they have no bond of union but adherence to particular men, they become factions." [273]
In obedience to this law, political parties in France and England, the only countries besides our own where experience is of service to us on this occasion, have undergone mutations with time. ”

“ Can a member, who by the bye-laws of his lodge is disqualified from the exercise of his other franchises as a member, in consequence of being in arrears beyond a certain amount, be prevented from depositing his ballot on the application of a candidate? That by such a bye-law he may be disfranchised of his vote in electing officers, or of the right to hold office, will be freely admitted. But the words of the old regulation seem expressly, and without equivocation, to require that every member present shall vote. ”

“ Indeed, I am not aware of any case, either in equity or admiralty, or at law, under particular statutes, in which a third person who intervenes, is not considered and called a party. The ground upon which a decree in rem is held to bind all persons, is, that every one having an interest has a right to make himself a party to the cause, and that the seizure or arrest of the thing gives notice to all concerned, of the pendency of the proceedings, and thus enables them to become parties. ”

“ IT is not enough for the assembled people to have once fixed the constitution of the State by giving its sanction to a body of law; it is not enough for it to have set up a perpetual government, or provided once for all for the election of magistrates. Besides the extraordinary assemblies unforeseen circumstances may demand, there must be fixed periodical assemblies which cannot be abrogated or prorogued, so that on the proper day the people is legitimately called together by law, without need of any formal summoning. ”

“ Ordering the sale of property for partition is part of their everyday work. Long experience has enabled states to develop simple legislative and judicial partition procedures with which local judges and counsel are familiar. Federal courts have rarely been called on to try such disputes and have established no settled rules for partition. ”

“ But, admitting a general amalgamation and repartition of the States to be practicable, and the danger apprehended by the smaller States from a proportional representation to be real, would not their special and voluntary coalition with their neighbors be less inconvenient to the whole community and equally effectual for their own safety? ”

“ Naturally, the interests of this revolution stand higher than the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly, even if those formal rights were not undermined by the absence in the law on the Constituent Assembly of a provision recognising the right of the people to recall their deputies and hold new elections at any moment. ”

“ By simply including the names of all the members, except those of their own faction, in a resolution preferring charges against them, the minority could get all the power in their own hands, were it not for the fact that in such a case all the members are entitled to vote regardless of their personal interest. ”

“ Law-making was carried on frequently in a partisan spirit, and it was a favorite manœuvre with the minority in the Legislature, Republican or Democrat, whenever it was hopelessly outnumbered on an important question, to resign in a body, so as to prevent a quorum and thus block legislation. ”

“ It is therefore necessary that any deliberative assembly, to command respect, and proceed with as little discord as possible, should adopt certain rules, and conduct its business with a regard for certain forms and rules of procedure in order that the will of the majority may be carried out with due regard to the rights of the minority, and that the will of the assembly be ascertained with fair dealing. ”

“ If, by fraud or violence, a majority should not be permitted to vote, there is a remedy, it is hoped, in the wisdom and justice of the convention itself, acting under the obligations of an oath, and a proper responsibility to the tribunal of public opinion. There is a remedy, also, if such facts can be demonstrated, in the refusal of congress to admit a state into the union under a constitution imposed by a minority upon a majority by fraud or violence. ”

“ Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often in expulsion.
That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of punishment. ”

“ I had hoped that it was possible to secure a nonpartisan inquiry by means of a commission into evils the existence of which is known to all, and that out of this might grow legislation from which all thought of partisan advantage should be eliminated and only the higher thought appear of maintaining the freedom and purity of the ballot and the equality of the elector, without the guaranty of which the Government could never have been formed and without the continuance of which it can not continue to exist in peace and prosperity. ”

“ The state, as its highest tribunal holds, though it has guaranteed the liberty to organize political parties, may legislate for their governance when formed, and for the method whereby they may nominate candidates, but must do so with full recognition of the right of the party to exist, to define its membership, and to adopt such policies as to it shall seem wise. ”

“ He entered elaborately into the defence of a proportional representation, stating, for his first position, that, as all authority was derived from the people, equal numbers of people ought to have an equal number of representatives, and different numbers of people, different numbers of representatives. ”

“ The Right of an Assembly to Eject any one from its place of meeting. Every deliberative assembly has the right to decide who may be present during its session, and when the assembly, either by a rule or by a vote, decides that a certain person shall not remain in the room, it is the duty of the chairman to enforce the rule or order, using whatever force is necessary to eject the party. ”

“ The fifth section of the first article of the Constitution authorizes 'each house to determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.' This power is evidently given to enable each house to exercise its constitutional function of legislation unobstructed. It cannot vest in Congress a jurisdiction to try a member for an offense committed before his election ”

“ A statute that would require that all Electors be members of the two major parties is subject to the same constitutional challenge regardless of whether it is the legislature, the people, or some other body that is empowered to make the ultimate decision under the laws of the State. ”

“ But proportional representation, in rendering more difficult the passing of legislation conceived in a partisan spirit, will save the time and energy of Parliament for legislation which is more in accordance with the nation's will. The history of the numerous Education and Licensing Bills which have been presented to Parliament during the two decades 1890-1910 furnish an excellent example of the way in which a rigid party system results in the waste of parliamentary time. ”

“ Would it not be a most unprecedented thing that, when this [former slave] population are not permitted where they reside to enter into the basis of representation in their own State, we should receive it as an element of representation here; that, when they will not count them in apportioning their own legislative districts, we are to count them as five-fifths (no longer as three-fifths, for that is out of the question) as soon as you make a new apportionment? ”

“ To this it must be added, that the sovereign body, in the natural course of things, is divided into opposite parties; and in fact, if not by the theory of the constitution, the stronger or ascendant party rules the minority of the active citizens, as well as the great mass of the merely subject community. ”

“ If such an act of parliament should be made, would it upon any principles of English laws and government, have any validity, without the consent, petition, or supplication of the colonies? 3. Can such an union and incorporation, ever be made, upon any principles of English laws and government, without admitting representatives for the colonies in the house of commons, and American lords into the house of peers? 4. Would not representatives in the house of commons, unless they were numerous in proportion to the numbers of people in America, be a snare rather than a blessing? ”

“ Of the three distinct and independent branches of that government, one only owes its existence to the free suffrages of the people, and this, from the inequality of representation, the long intervals between the periods of election, and the liability of members, from this circumstance, to be corrupted, is not so important and useful a branch as might otherwise be expected. ”

“ The sixth General Regulation requires unanimity in the ballot. Its language is: "but no man can be entered a Brother in any particular lodge, or admitted to be a member thereof, without the unanimous consent of all the members of that lodge then present when the candidate is proposed." ”

“ But when factions arise, and partial associations are formed at the expense of the great association, the will of each of these associations becomes general in relation to its members, while it remains particular in relation to the State: it may then be said that there are no longer as many votes as there are men, but only as many as there are associations. ”