Public law

“ If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interests, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution in favour of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law in preference to all private and partial considerations. ”

“ Speaking of the origin of civil power and the objects of law, he lays down these principles: "The law, strictly speaking, is directed primarily and principally to the common good; and to decree anything for the common benefit belongs either to the whole body of the people, or to some one acting in their place." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Upon the most casual examination of the law books we instantly discover that cases declaring a rule of public policy in one year of grace are of very little or no value as authority in ascertaining what is the true rule on the particular subject in another and later year. ”

“ That shows, therefore, that the rule which the learned judge, whose opinion is now before the House, thought depended upon some rule of common law, regardless of policy, was founded upon public policy, and has been restrained and limited and qualified up to this very hour, and beneficially so, by that very policy which it is supposed had no bearing at all upon the foundation of the rule. ”

“ Knowledge of the fact that the public is well acquainted with the law will often bring officials up to duty, and also prevent the violation of law. Furthermore, knowledge of the law serves to strengthen public opinion in regard to its enforcement. ”

“ What one man thinks is public policy another, equally clear-headed and well-informed, may not. The safe course for the judiciary is to rely on the legislature to declare it, so far as the common law does not. ”

“ Knowledge of the civil law will, likewise, be necessary for the orator whom we have described, and together with it knowledge of the customs and religion of the commonwealth of which he may take charge, for how shall he be able to give counsel in public and private deliberations if ignorant of the many things which happen together particularly to the establishment of the State? ”

“ Besides, the public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights, as modelled by the municipal law. In this, and similar cases the legislature alone can, and indeed frequently does, interpose, and compel the individual to acquiesce. ”

“ The law books abound with similar instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity. Laws, moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Custom is to society what law is to the state. Each is the expression and realisation, to the measure of men’s insight 145and ability, of the principles of right and justice. The law embodies those principles as they commend themselves to the incorporate community in the exercise of its sovereign power. Custom embodies them as acknowledged and approved not by the power of the state, but by the public opinion of the society at large. ”

“ The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the community acting through the Government by public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social good offices". ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Administrative courts exist for the application of administrative law, and administrative law may be defined in brief as that body of legal principles by which are determined the status and liabilities of public officials, the rights and liabilities of private individuals in their dealings with the official representatives of the state, and the procedure by which these rights and liabilities may be enforced. ”

“ The national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjects within the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyed by the public servant. ”

“ You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the agents of those who having estimated themselves at too high a price, are only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who, scarcely, in the most common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question complicated with law written and unwritten, with the general principles of government, and the particular customs of the house of commons ”

“ But the settlement of private controversies, the administration of law between man and man, the distribution of justice and right to the citizen in his private business and concern, comes to every man's door, and is essential to every man's prosperity and happiness. Hence I consider the judiciary of our country most important among the branches of government, and its purity anti independence of the most interesting consequence to every man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Consider this one phase of jurisprudence for only a moment, young man, just to see what a world of thought it opens to the mind. Institutional law is older, deeper, and even more vital than constitutional law. Our Constitution is one of the concrete manifestations of our institutions; our statutes are another; the decisions of our courts are another; our habits, methods, and customs as a people and a race are still another. ”

“ Now every society has the right of providing for what concerns the general interest, so that in permitting the parties to choose the judges of facts, the State reserves to itself the power to name the judges of right, who are the interpreters of the law. ”

“ What do we seek to achieve through the political organization? What is the ultimate purpose in lawmaking, that is, in the selection and formulation of the standards for the public administration of justice which organized society establishes or recognizes? These are the first questions in legal and in political philosophy. The history of juristic thought and of political thought is chiefly a history of the way in which men have answered them. ”

“ and there are three juridical attributes that inseparably belong to them by Right. ”

“ And if the people have given up to governors, legislatures, the judiciary and to the officers of the law certain powers, rights and privileges, this authority coming of or from the people, it is expected that they shall act for and in the interests of the people ”

“ Broadly speaking, there are in every community two authorities which can make law: the State, i.e., the ruling and directing power, whatever it may be, in which the government of the community resides, and the People, that is, the whole body of the community, regarded not as incorporated in the state, but as being merely so many persons who have commercial and social relations with one another.... ”

“ The fundamental laws, thus established in point of fact, emanate from the government, and have no sanction beyond the oath of those intrusted with the administration of them, the force of public opinion, and the responsibility of the representative to his constituent. Our constitutions emanate not from the government, but the State, the society, the creator of the government ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the business of the legislature to determine what acts shall be deemed public offenses, or crimes, and to make laws for securing justice to the citizens in their dealings and general intercourse with each other ”

“ 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. ”

“ The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. ”

“ When, therefore, in an ordinary trial in an action at law we speak of the common law we refer to the law of the state as it has been adopted by statute or recognized by the courts as the foundation of legal rights. It is in regard to decisions made by the state courts in reference to this law, and defining what is the law of the state as modified by the opinions of its own courts, by the statutes of the state, and the customs and habits of the people, that the trouble arises. ”

“ General laws are meant to regulate our conduct to each other, within certain rules; that the confidence necessary for the social union may be maintained. A principle laid down by the law, is promulgated as a general rule; and in the confidence that this rule will be respected by all; or that if violated, society will punish the violator, it is recognised as a general principle of action. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The liberty of contract and the right of private property which are protected by the limitations of the constitution are held subject to the police power of government to pass and enforce laws for the protection of the public health, public morals, and public safety. ”

“ In the exercise of these natural rights, it has been supposed, men with a view to their general interest established political society. From that establishment is derived both the system of rights and obligations maintained by law as between man and man, and the right of the state to the submission of its subjects. ”

“ Laws may do much to raise and sustain the tone of all the persons engaged in public affairs as officials or as legislators, not only by appealing to their conscience, but by giving them a quick and easy reply to those who seek improper favours from them. A statute may express the best conscience of the whole people and set the standard they approve, even where the practice of most individuals falls short of the standard. ”

“ That which most promptly suggests itself to the mind of the ordinary man, when law is talked of, is not the moral law or the natural law, but municipal law, “a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.” ”

“ For the convenience of analysis, we may treat the obligations correlative to rights, obligations which it is the proper office of law to enforce, apart from moral duties and from the virtues which are tendencies to fulfil those duties. ”

“ What was the common law before the making of the act ? (b) What was the mischief and defect against which the common law did not provide? (c) What remedy the parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the Commonwealth? (d) The true reason of the remedy.” (3) Beneficial or remedial statutes are to be liberally, penal more strictly, construed. (4) Other statutes in pari materia are to be taken into consideration. (5) A statute which treats of persons of inferior rank cannot by general words be extended to those of superior rank. ”

“ They are not for that reason special or private acts.' In this country the disposition has been on the whole to enlarge the limits of this class of public acts, and to bring within it all enactments of a general character, or which in any way affect the community at large. ”