State authority

“ A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents. ”

“ As far as they are concerned, the State, as a party to the constitutional compact, has the right to decide, in the last resort — and, acting in the same character in which it ratified the constitution, to determine to what limits its powers extend, and how far they are bound to respect and obey it, and the acts made under its authority. ”

“ Political authority is exercised in national affairs by the National Government in accordance with the Constitution of the Commonwealth, and in State affairs by the State Governments in accordance with the State constitutions. ”

“ Let a single man be invested with executive and judicial authority." Master and owner of the state, he will, for his own sake, protect it against foreign foes, and provide for an impartial administration of justice; that his subjects, secured and enriched, may multiply and thus increase his wealth and power. ”

“ Resolved, That for any state legislature to assume that authority would be—
1st. Blending together legislative and judicial powers; 2d. Hazarding an interruption of the peace of the states by civil discord, in case of a diversity of opinions among the state legislatures; each state having, in that case, no resort, for vindicating its own opinions, but the strength of its own arm; 3d. Submitting most important questions of law to less competent tribunals ”

“ These constitutions prescribe the powers and authority of the various officers in the government, and how and in what manner the several officers of the government shall be selected, elected and qualified. In our government, whether in a National, State, or Territorial form, all officers, of every grade, are requested to take a solemn oath to sustain and maintain the constitution of the United States, and of the State, or if a Territory, the organic act of the Territory as the case may be. ”

“ National politics have from the start aimed primarily at efficiency—that is, at the successful use of the force resident in the state to accomplish the purposes desired by the Sovereign authority. ”

“ That it is the duty of the Federal Government in all its departments, to protect, when necessary, the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends. ”

“ The people of the United States, and not the people of the States, made the Federal government; and therefore the Federal government has a right to exercise the powers reserved by the people to the State governments. ”

“ Under the very peculiar Constitution of this Government, although the citizens owe supreme allegiance to the Federal Government, they owe also a qualified allegiance to the State in which they are domiciled. ”

“ Having constituted the government, and declared its powers, the people have further said, that, since somebody must decide on the extent of these powers, the government shall itself decide; subject, always, like other popular governments, to its responsibility to the people. And now, Sir, I repeat, how is it that a State legislature acquires any power to interfere? ”

“ If we—the people in this Territory, or in other Territories or in the States, confer certain powers on the General Government, we no longer retain them, they are ceded away by us to others. If we give to our legislators certain authority, they hold that authority, and it is for us to submit to the laws which may be enacted by them. ”

“ The law of agency which a State chooses to follow functions, for the most part, free of constitutional restraint; in our federal system, each State may regulate the relations between principal, agent, and third parties according to its own standards of fairness and sound policy. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The advocates of a national government, besides and beyond the intrusting of a particular jurisdiction to that government, wished to make it certain that its legislative power, in each act of legislation, should rest on the direct authority of the people. ”

“ It is to be hoped that those virtues in government will be exercised and displayed, when we consider that the powers of the federal government and those of the state governments are drawn from sources equally pure. ”

“ From all the public servants responsibility is secured, by their being representatives, mediate or immediate, for short terms, and their powers defined. It is, on the whole complexion of it, a government of laws, not of men. ”

“ Owing its ratification to the law of a State, it has been contended that the same authority might repeal the law by which it was ratified. However gross a heresy it may be to maintain that a PARTY to a COMPACT has a right to revoke that COMPACT, the doctrine itself has had respectable advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature proves the necessity of laying the foundations of our national government deeper than in the mere sanction of delegated authority. The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. ”

“ In that part of our policy called the state constitutions, principles, the reverse of these, prevail. Executive power is made dependent on legislative in some way, and vast care is taken to keep legislative and judicial power beyond the influence of executive. ”

“ The second class of limitations upon official power provided in our constitution prescribe and maintain the distribution of power to the different departments of government and the limitations upon the officers invested with authority in each department. This distribution follows the natural and logical lines of the distinction between the different kinds of power—legislative, executive, and judicial. ”

“ Those officers owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people. Before a state can assert the right, it must show, that the constitution has delegated and recognised it. No state can say, that it has reserved, what it never possessed. ”

“ The members which compose the superintending Government are to be considered merely as parts of a great whole, and only suffered to retain the powers necessary to the administration of their State Systems. ”

“ They have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the instrument, and to such construction as the government itself, in doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, under their oaths of office, and subject to their responsibility to them, just as the people of a state trusts their own state governments with a similar power. ”

“ The legislative power being that, which is predominant in all governments, ought to be, above all, of this character; because there can be no security for the general government, or the state governments, without an adequate representation, and an adequate check of each in the functions of legislation. ”

“ But, thank God, we have no such disputes; we have no monarchs to contend with, or demand admissions from. The proposed government is to be the government of the people: all its officers are to be their officers, and to exercise no rights but such as the people commit to them. ”

“ Under the Second of these Divisions may be ranged all the Art of the Legislator and Politician, all the power of Laws and Government. These do constitute the Civil Power; and a State may then be said to be in good Order, when all the other Powers are subservient to this; when they own its superior Excellence and Energy, pay it a ready Obedience, and all unite in Support of its Rule. ”

“ The Federal and state governments are parts of one system, alike necessary for the common prosperity, peace and security, and ought to be regarded alike with a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment. ”

“ What I now hold to be true for all time—and you will all agree with me some day—is that that branch of the Government that under our constitutional system is designated as the one having the authority is the only branch of the Government that can benefit capital, conserve or advance the rights of the people, or do justice in any way whatever. ”

“ We all admit that the power and authority of the federal government, within its constitutional sphere, are superior to those of the States, in some instances, and co-ordinate in others, and that every citizen is under an absolute obligation to render them respect and obedience ”

“ The state officers will ever be important, because they are necessary and useful. Their powers are such as are extremely interesting among the people; such as affect their property, their liberty, and life. What is more important than the administration of justice and the execution of the civil and criminal laws? Can the state governments become insignificant while they have the power of raising money independently, and without control? ”

“ Government consists essentially in making, judging, and enforcing the laws. In absolute monarchical forms of government, of which Russia and Turkey are examples, these three departments are vested in the same head ”

“ The constitution, contemplating the grant of limited powers, and distributing them among various functionaries, and the state governments, and their functionaries, being also clothed with limited powers, subordinate to those granted to the general government, whenever any question arises, as to the exercise of any power by any of these functionaries under the state, or federal government, it is of necessity, that such functionaries must, in the first instance, decide upon the constitutionality of the exercise of such power. ”

“ The vice of it lies, it seems to me, in a failure to grasp the actual nature of our institutions. It is a maxim of our system that the law making power of the state rests in the first instance with the people of the state. This power, for the purpose of convenience, is delegated to certain selected persons who meet together in order to put into effect the will of the people. ”

“ In a state government, I consider all power flowing immediately from the people in their individual capacity, and that the people, in their individual capacity, have, and ought to have the right of choosing delegates in a state legislature, the business of which is to make laws, regulating their concerns, as individuals, and operating upon them as such ”

“ In our complex system of polity, the public will, as a source of authority, may be the will of the people as composing one nation; or the will of the States in their distinct and independent capacities; or the federal will, as viewed, for example, through the Presidential electors, representing, in a certain proportion, both the nation and the States. ”

“ The preservation of the states in a certain degree of agency is indispensable. It will produce that collision between the different authorities which should be wished for in order to check each other. ”

“ To make our States one as to all foreign concerns, preserve them several as to all merely domestic, to give to the federal head some peaceable mode of enforcing its just authority, to organize that head into legislative, executive, and judiciary departments, are great desiderata in our federal constitution. ”