State constitution

“ The question for us is whether, if the state Constitution undertakes to authorize such a law, it encounters the Constitution of the United States. It is a question of the power of the state as a whole. ”

“ In all these respects the state is supreme, and its legislative body, conforming its action to the state Constitution, may do as it will, unrestrained by any provision of the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ It was to frame, for the consideration of their constituents, one federal and national constitution—a constitution that would produce the advantages of good, and prevent the inconveniences of bad government—a constitution whose beneficence and energy would pervade the whole Union, and bind and embrace the interests of every part—a constitution that would insure peace, freedom, and happiness, to the states and people of America. ”

“ A Constitution, being derived from a superior authority, is to be expounded and obeyed, not controlled or varied by the subordinate authority of a legislature. A law, on the other hand, resting on no higher authority than that possessed by every successive legislature, its expediency, as well as its meaning, is within the scope of the latter. ”

“ How is it possible, for a moment, to reconcile the notion, that each state is the supreme judge for itself of the construction of the constitution, with the very first resolution of the convention, which formed the constitution: "Resolved, &c. that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme, legislative, judiciary, and executive?" ”

“ THE STATE CONSTITUTION The state constitution is the supreme law of the state and is supposed to represent the direct voice of the people. Since the Union was formed, state constitutions have been framed by conventions of delegates elected especially for the purpose, and in most cases have been submitted to the people for their ratification. Amendments may be proposed either by such conventions or by the state legislatures, but they must also be ratified by the people. ”

“ After all our doubts, our suspicions, and speculations, on the subject of government, we must return at last to this important truth—that, when we have formed a constitution upon free principles, when we have given a proper balance to the different branches of administration, and fixed representation upon pure and equal principles, we may, with safety, furnish it with all the powers necessary to answer, in the most ample manner, the purposes of government. ”

“ Under the American Constitution 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. ”

“ In laws, we are obliged to act without ourselves determining, or promising any thing at all." [41] It is a rule prescribed; that is, it is laid down, promulgated, and established. It is prescribed by the supreme power in a state, that is, among us, by the people, or a majority of them in their original sovereign capacity. Like the ordinary municipal laws, it may be founded upon our consent, or that of our representatives; but it derives its ultimate obligatory force, as a law, and not as a compact. ”

“ It will be remembered, that a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is solemnly enjoined by most of the state constitutions, and particularly by our own, as a necessary safeguard against the danger of degeneracy, to which republics are liable, as well as other governments, though in a less degree than others. ”

“ To refer a state, therefore, to the exercise of a power, as reserved to her by the Constitution, the impossibility of exercising which was an inducement to adopt the Constitution, is, of all remedial devices, the last that ought to be brought forward. ”

“ The Constitution is the work or will of the people themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited capacity. Law is the work or will of the legislature, in their derivative and subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the creator, and the other of the creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of the legislative authority, and prescribes the orbit in which it must move. ”

“ The limited and well-defined powers under which we acted, and which could not, on any possible construction, embrace an idea of such magnitude as to assent to a general Constitution, in subversion of that, of the state. ”

“ Whether formed by a single people, or by different societies of people, in their political capacity, a constitution, though originating in consent, becomes, when ratified, obligatory, as a fundamental ordinance or law. [62] The constitution of a confederated republic, that is, of a national republic formed of several states, is, or at least may be, not less an irrevocable form of government, than the constitution of a state formed and ratified by the aggregate of the several counties of the state. ”

“ But the general [31] presumption being, that men who govern, will in doubtful cases, construe laws and constitutions most favourably for increasing their own powers; all wise and prudent people, in forming constitutions, have drawn the line, and carefully described the powers parted with and the powers reserved. By the state constitutions, certain rights have been reserved in the people; or rather, they have been recognized and established in such a manner, that state legislatures are bound to respect them, and to make no laws infringing upon them. ”

“ The authority of the Legislature, says the same author who is quoted by your Excellency, "does not extend so far as the fundamentals of the constitution. They ought to consider the fundamental laws as sacred, if the nation has not in very express terms, given them the power to change them. For the constitution of the state ought to be fixed; and since that was first established by the nation, which afterwards trusted certain persons with the Legislative power, the fundamental laws are excepted from their commission." ”

“ The general government is one of specific powers, and it can rightfully exercise only the powers expressly granted, and those which may be 'necessary and proper' to carry them into effect; all others being reserved expressly to the states, or to the people. It results, necessarily, that those who claim to exercise a power under the Constitution are bound to show that it is expressly granted, or that it is 'necessary and proper,' as a means to execute some of the grated powers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation ”

“ At the present time the doctrine of the Supreme Court, and therefore of the Government, is that all acts of the American Government in the annexed insular, transmarine and transterranean regions, are acts of absolute power, when directed toward communities, though tempered by "fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution" or by "the applicable provisions of the Constitution," when directed toward individuals. ”

“ The first and grand leading, or rather misleading, principle in this debate, and on which the advocates for this system of unrestricted powers must chiefly depend for its support, is that, in forming a constitution, whatever powers are not expressly granted or given the government, are reserved to the people, or that rulers cannot exercise any powers but those expressly given to them by the Constitution. ”

“ They undertook to form a general government which should stand on a new basis—not a confederacy, not a league, not a compact between states, but a constitution; a popular government, founded in popular election, directly responsible to the people themselves, and divided into branches, with prescribed limits of power, and prescribed duties. ”

“ All the States should be required to organize under a general State law, which should be clearly and concisely set forth in the Constitution, which should recognize the general government as the determining power, and not that it exists by the sufferance of the States, but that the States exist as organic bodies, because they have complied with the requirements of the Constitution, which was necessary to constitute them States. ”

“ These points being agreed, they proceeded to consider how and in what manner such a government could be formed, as, on the one hand, should be sufficiently energetic to raise us from our prostrate and distressed situation, and, on the other, be perfectly consistent with the liberties of the people of every state. ”

“ It has exceeded the hopes of those who devised it, and become an object of admiration to the world. Nothing is clearer, in my view, than that we are chiefly indebted for the success of the Constitution, under which we are now acting, to the watchful and auxiliary operation of the state authorities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In performing its high functions, it acts, not as a judicial power, but in the far more elevated and authoritative character of an amending power — the only one in which it can be called into action at all. In this character, it can amend the constitution, by modifying its existing provisions — or, in case of a disputed power, whether it be between the federal government and one of its co-ordinates — or between the former and an interposing State — by declaring, authoritatively, what is the constitution. ”