State organ

“ The powers of government shall be divided into three distinct departments, each of them to be confided to a separate body of magistracy; to wit, those which are legislative to one, those which are judiciary to another, and those which are executive to another. No person, or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except in the instances hereinafter expressly permitted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Resolved, That we regard the judicial department of the government of the United States, as sacred in its origin, and invaluable in its purposes and objects, as either the executive or legislative departments; and we also regard the designs of any community, to destroy it, or to paralyze its influence, among the people of these states, as the manifestation of feelings, unfriendly to the permanent interests of our common country. ”

“ While the authority of the Federal Government extends to but part of our vast system of national, State, and local justice, yet the standards which the Federal Government establishes have the most profound influence upon the whole structure. ”

“ An effective judiciary establishment, commensurate to the legislative authority, was essential. A government without a proper executive and judiciary would be the mere trunk of a body, without arms or legs to act or move. ”

“ All responsibility for the people's welfare was assumed by the monarch, who in turn was actively aided by a hierarchy of officials in state and church, in the central government and the local administrative areas. ”

“ This power, in well constructed governments, is divided into three departments, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. The legislative department is that by which the laws of the state are made. The legislature is composed of two bodies, the members of which are elected by the people. In limited monarchies where one branch of the legislature is elective, the other is an aristocratic body, composed of men of wealth and dignity, as the British house of lords. ”

“ It should be put into the hands of all our functionaries, authoritatively, as a standing instruction, and true exposition of our Constitution, as understood at the time we agreed to it. It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State governments are superior to the federal, or the federal to the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic ”

“ Many of us, sir, said he, are officers of government; many of us have seats in the Senate and Assembly: let us, on this solemn occasion, forget the pride of office; let us consider ourselves as simple citizens, assembled to consult on measures that are to promote the happiness of our fellow-citizens. As magistrates, we may be unwilling to sacrifice any portion of the power of the state; as citizens, we have no interest in advancing the powers of the state at the expense of the Union. ”

“ The people of the State the only "people" then known under our political system had a regularly and lawfully constituted government, already in their hands and subject to their direction. They had a complete corps of administrative officers, an executive, a legislative, a judiciary, filling every department of a free, representative government, all holding office under State authority alone and wearing no badge of official subordination to any power. ”

“ The administration of justice throughout the Union is vested in a minister of state who has all the powers of the attorney-generals of the several colonies at the time of the Union, save that power as to the prosecution of crimes is vested in each province in an official appointed by the governor-general in council and styled the attorney-general of the province. ”

“ Then there is a Federal government which is supreme and sovereign throughout the entire United States in all those affairs which the Federal Constitution gives to the control of the Federal government. The police power of a State is commonly defined as the power of a State to control all of its domestic internal affairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One class of men whose special function it is to conceive, plan and direct in the affairs of state, and who therefore constitute its head. And in well-organized governments this head must consist of a deliberative and an executive department—a law-making and a law-executing power—functions corresponding perfectly to those of the cerebrum and cerebellum in the head of every individual. This head of the government or state, too, is in the thought of ends. ”

“ There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments, which alone suffices to place the matter in a clear and satisfactory light,—I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice. This, of all others, is the most powerful, most universal, and most attractive source of popular obedience and attachment. ”

“ The Organization of Government.—The political organization depends upon the functions that the state has to perform, as the structure of any group corresponds to its functions. The modern national machinery is a complicated system, and is becoming more so as constitutional conventions define more in detail the powers and forms of government, and as legislatures enter the field of social reform, but the simplest attempt at regulation involves several steps, and so naturally there are several departments of government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As we advance in our knowledge of this disease, as facts develop the source from which individuals receive it, the State authorities charged with the care of the public health, and Congress with that of the general commerce, will become able to regulate with effect their respective functions in these departments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One great step toward such a form of government was made in the establishment of our federal and state governments by giving effect to the theory of the tripartite nature of governmental powers, entrusting each of the three to a different person or group of persons, or, in other words, to a different department, each restraining the other departments from exceeding their defined powers, so that the government, however democratic, shall not run wild. ”

“ The administrative organs shall enforce the law, carry out the social plans and other decisions of the assembly, execute the established policy, follow the state of affairs in particular fields of life, organize and discharge particular services, deliberate on administrative matters, exercise administrative supervision and perform other administrative business, prepare acts, and perform other expert services for the assemblies and their political-executive organs. ”

“ So too the officers of the state derive their commission from the people, albeit the king, in conformity with law, decides the detail of their appoint ment, together with the other necessary arrangements of the executive government. Once establish the principle, and the consequences are easy to draw. ”

“ Senators find ambiguity in the terms “under any so-called State or municipal authority”; but I submit, Sir, that this is because they do not sufficiently regard the whole series of Reconstruction Acts and construe these words in their light. If there be any ambiguity, it is removed by other words, which furnish a precise and unassailable definition of the term “so-called State authority.” ”

“ The powers thus conferred are essentially necessary to accomplish the objects for which these institutions were established. The power to establish them is found clearly granted in the 7th article of the Constitution.' The article here referred to gave the legislature power to establish benevolent and other state institutions. ”

“ To exercise, exclusively, legislative authority at the seat of the general government, and over a district around the same not exceeding ——— square miles, the consent of the legislature of the state or states, comprising the same, being first obtained. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nothing can be more contradictory than to say that the national legislature, without a proper check, will follow the example of the state legislatures, and, in the same breath, that the state legislatures are the only proper check. ”

“ Among the earliest acts of the provincial legislature, which were approved, were an act for the prevention of frauds and perjuries, conform able to that of Charles II.; an act for the observance of the Lord’s day; an act for solemnizing marriages by a minister or a justice of the peace; an act for the support of ministers and schoolmasters; an act for regulating towns and counties; and an act for the settlement and distribution of the estates of persons dying intestate. ”

“ The government was placed in the hands of the people in the first of the series of territorial organizations. The demotæ elected a demarch (δήμαρχος) , who had the custody of the public register; he had also power to convene the demotæ for the purpose of electing magistrates and judges, for revising the registry of citizens, and for the enrollment of such as became of age during the year. They elected a treasurer, and provided for the assessment and collection of taxes, and for furnishing the quota of troops required of the deme for the service of the state. ”

“ In the new constitution, provision has been made by which our heads of departments can speak for themselves and the administration, in behalf of its entire policy, without resorting to the indirect and highly objectionable medium of a newspaper. It is to be greatly hoped that under our system we shall never have what is known as a government organ. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. ”

“ But further.—This central government itself, like the nation which it serves, is a compound body; a unit composed of parts, each of which in its own sphere is independent, yet beyond that sphere is limited by the functions of the other parts. This government is a triple compound, and consists of the legislative, the judicial, and the executive departments.
The legislative, or Congress, declares the will of the nation. ”

“ In the first place, the division of the sovereign power of government into three co-ordinate and independent departments, both in the states and in the nation—the executive, the legislative and the judicial departments—is more insisted upon than in any other government that has ever been established. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The result of a division of the executive power is either a more or less speedy establishment of the right of the strongest, or a continued state of war; that of a division of the legislative power is either truth, or general tranquillity. ”

“ It is not to be presumed that the constitution of any state could mean to define and fix the precise numbers and descriptions of all officers to be permitted in the state, excluding the creation of any new ones, whatever might be the necessity derived from that variety of circumstances incident to all political institutions. ”