Sanction

“ Does the political sanction exert an influence over the conduct of mankind? The moral, the religious sanctions do so too. In every inch of his career are the operations of the political magistrate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign powers: who, one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or his allies. ”

“ Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. ”

“ These notions of right and obligation are derived from nothing but the advantage we reap from government, which gives us a repugnance to practise resistance ourselves, and makes us displeased with any instance of it in others. But here it is remarkable, that in this new state of affairs, the original sanction of government, which is interest, is not admitted to determine the persons, whom we are to obey, as the original sanction did at first, when affairs were on the footing of a promise. ”

“ But the mere fact that force is their sanction does not ipso facto dispose of diplomatic and arbitrational methods. We all know that the force at the disposal of the Sovereign is the ultimate sanction of Law. ”

“ According to my old-fashioned notions of morals and of law, there is no human obligation without a sanction, whether such obligations attach to individuals or to States: nor does the existence of the sanction, depend upon the existence of any common superior to enforce it. To me it seems a solecism, to speak of obligations that do not oblige; and that which obliges the observance of an obligation, is its sanction, be that what it may. ”

“ Government is erected for the purpose of carrying this maxim into execution, by passing laws for the benefit of a nation; and shall a violation of the purpose of its institution, by passing laws injurious to a nation, in creating or fostering the aristocracy of paper and patronage, be cleansed of its guiltiness, because individuals have become the accomplices of the government?
A law or a contract, prescribing an immoral action, is void. No sanction can justify murder, perjury or theft. ”

“ If the criterion of sanction or coercion is insufficient to draw a distinction between individual and social laws, we can still less use it to divide the social laws into customs or unwritten laws, and political and juridical laws. Both customs and laws carry with them sanctions, though of a different order, or, to put it in more precise terms, both offer a choice between probable consequences to the free individual will. ”

“ The sanction of a legal enactment is the penalty which is incurred when the law is broken. A man is "bound over" to keep the peace, and it is stipulated that unless he keeps the peace, he will have to pay the penalty. The fear of punishment is thus, from the legal standpoint, the sanction of his good conduct. Various sanctions may be appealed to as reasons why right actions should be done, and wrong ones avoided, but perhaps the most common is the sanction of punishment. If you do this wrong action, it is said, you will be punished; and if you don't do that right action, you will be punished. ”

“ I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. ”

“ The term sanction is improperly applied to a Reward. We cannot say that an action is commanded, or that obedience is constrained or enforced by the offer of a reward. Again, when a reward is offered, a right and not an obligation is created: the imperative function passes to the party receiving the reward. In short, it is only by conditional evil, that duties are sanctioned or enforced. ”

“ One of the most effective sanctions in all conditions of life, but especially in the upper and better educated circles of a civilized society, is what may be called the social sanction, that is to say, a regard for the good opinion and a dread of the evil opinion of those who know us, and especially of those amongst whom we habitually live. ”

“ But, quite distinct from all the sanctions thus far enumerated, there is another sanction which is derived from our own reflexion on our own actions, and the approbation or disapprobation which, after such reflexion, we bestow upon them. There are actions which, on no reasonable estimate of probabilities, can ever come to the knowledge of any other person than ourselves, but which we look back on with pleasure or regret. ”

“ And how will it be possible for 'em to conceive, either that our Laws give a Sanction to an Art which is declar'd infamous, or that some Persons dare to stamp with Infamy an Art which receives a Sanction from the Laws, is rewarded by Kings, cultivated and encourag'd by the greatest Men, and admir'd by whole Nations? ”

“ This law must be administered by human agents, who can employ none other than human means.—In the case of individuals it is the municipal law of their country, which gives the sanction of all their perfect obligations. This law is administered by magistrates only: but its sanctions, although declared by them alone, must be enforced when necessary, by the power of mere men. In the case of States, it is the public law of the civilized world which gives the sanction f the obligations of Nations. ”

“ VYNER spoke as follows:—Sir, whatever may be the necessity of maintaining the Pragmatick sanction, or whatever the obligations of national pacts, of which I hope no man is desirous of countenancing the neglect, yet they cannot oblige us to arm without an enemy, to embarrass ourselves with watching every possibility of danger, to garrison dominions which are not threatened, or assert rights which are not invaded. ”

“ The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to, — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well, — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. ”

“ Therefore the drift of this Essay, is to give a Sanction to one Place above all the rest, by annexing a Priviledge to it, and leaving it to every Man's pleasure whether he will purchase that Priviledge or not. ”

“ A command is the signification of a desire or wish, accompanied with the power and the purpose to inflict evil if that desire is not complied with. The person so desired is bound or obliged, or placed under a duty, to obey. Refusal is disobedience, or violation of duty. The evil to be inflicted is called a sanction, or an enforcement of obedience; the term punishment expresses one class of sanctions. ”

“ But as the legislature is composed of fallible men, their sanction does not prove the truth and validity of Jesus's pretensions; and as the conduct of the legislature in sanctioning this revelation might be directed and influenced by political motives, their sanction is an argument rather against than in favour of its truth. ”

“ That a sanction, commonly respected even among savages, had been found insufficient to protect from massacre the emissaries of peace, was particularly noticed; and the families of those valuable citizens who had thus fallen victims to their zeal for the public service, were recommended to the attention of the legislature. ”

“ Then He allowed fighting, when they, the unbelievers, were the aggressors, and said:—'A sanction is given to those who have fought because they have suffered outrages;' i.e., they are allowed to fight in self-defence. ”

“ Legal sanction is above all a penal sanction. It is composed of the chastisements which the law has established for the guilty. There are, in general, few rewards established by the law, and they may be classed among what is called the esteem of men. ”

“ 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". ”

“ The right of action that the majority sanctions here, on the other hands, is a creature of state law and may be expected to vary in content and effect according to the locality in which it is asserted. ”

“ The sanction upon which social life reposes is, in our moral theory, the legal punishment enforceable in our Courts, and the basis presupposed for the security and material happiness of our citizens is the possession of goods which shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us an independence of action in the midst of our fellowmen. ”

“ If it were necessary to the technical existence of a war that it should have a legislative sanction, we find it in almost every act passed at the extraordinary session of the Legislature of 1861, which was wholly employed in enacting laws to enable the Government to prosecute the war with vigor and efficiency. ”

“ It is, however, generally believed and held that to sanction anything of the sort would be to loosen the bonds of society, to sap the foundations of morality and to produce certain disastrous consequences not clearly defined but probably all the more dreaded on that account. ”

“ All law, says the utilitarian, implies 'sanctions'—motives equally operative upon all members of society; and, as the last resort, so far as criminal law is concerned, the sanction of physical suffering. ”

“ We start with a statutory provision that contains only one express sanction, viz., prosecution for making a false statement. No other sections of the Act expressly supplement that one sanction.
The aim of § 9 (h) is clear. ”

“ In every instance in which a commandment of God is transgressed, under the cover and plea of a human law, purporting to permit what that commandment forbids, there is, in proportion to the authority and influence of the transgressor, a fresh sanction imparted to that law; and consequently, in the same proportion the public habit of setting up a false standard of right and wrong is promoted. ”

“ In case that by any public disturbance a government contrary to the principles which it sanctions shall be established, as soon as the people recover their liberty its observance shall be reestablished, and in accordance with it and the laws which shall have been issued in virtue of it, shall be judged not only those who shall have figured in the government emanating from the rebellion, but also those who shall have cooperated with it. ”

“ In view of the fact that the imposition of sanctions against states which are found to be out of conformity are mandatory, we exert every effort at our command to bring a state into conformity without the necessity of a formal hearing. ”

“ The 'physical' sanctions are such pleasures and pains as follow a given course of conduct independently of the interference of any other human or supernatural being; the 'political' those which are annexed by the action of the legislator; the 'moral or popular' those which are annexed by other individuals not acting in a corporate capacity ”

“ If ultimately a division has to be made, human reason will have to decide in what shape the legal sanction, 'or, in other words, disciplined and systematic physical force,' shall be used. We shall then come to the ultima ratio, after all compromises have been tried. ”

“ If these humane princes have suffered the old laws to subsist, it is doubtless because they are deterred by the numberless obstacles which oppose the subversion of errors established by the sanction of many ages; and therefore every wise citizen will wish for the increase of their authority. ”

“ V. If at the hands of such chance persons in the community, as the party in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with, according to each man's spontaneous disposition, and not according to any settled or concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the moral or popular sanction. ”

“ From this statement of facts, and indeed from all that has taken place regarding crimes where capital punishment has been remitted, there can be little doubt that it is inexpedient; there can be none that it is unnecessary. But if any still persist that the Divine sanction is given by{210} “He who sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed,” then the tyrant who engages in a war of aggression, the general who sanctions one effective shot being fired, should alike bear the penalty with the midnight assassin. ”

“ These freedoms are delicate and vulnerable, as well as supremely precious in our society. The threat of sanctions may deter their exercise almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions. Cf. ”

“ And if, with the very highest sanctions which can be conceived, that law has but too often failed to secure our obedience against the temptations of selfishness and passion, does anybody expect that, when it is divested of all those sanctions, it will prevail even so far as it has done hitherto? ”

“ To give men the protection of laws, which they do not acknowledge, and the sanctions of which it is impossible to enforce, is a one-sided arrangement, which is likely to press heavily on the other subjects of the empire brought in contact with them. ”

“ Alas! man, whether in his individual or social capacity, is a frail and rebellious creature, and the sternest sanctions of the law have, in all ages, been required for the maintenance of peace and order. ”