State power

“ Would the people of any one state trust those of another with a power to control the most insignificant operations of their state government? We know they would not. Why, then, should we suppose, that the people of any one state would be willing to trust those of another with a power to control the operations of a government, to which they have confided their most important and most valuable interests? In the legislature of the Union alone are all represented. ”

“ The administration of the state under the system of sovereign authority, the control of the senate, and the source of political power in the will of the nation itself, are made to work together and restrain one another so as fairly to keep the benefits and neutralize the excesses of all, while the constitution has within it the power of continual reform, so that the machine of government may be ever shaping itself into more perfect fitness to its work. ”

“ The right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to the balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depended. ”

“ Should the general government and a state come into conflict, we have a higher remedy; the power which called the general government into existence, which gave it all its authority, and can enlarge, contract, or abolish its powers at its pleasure, may be invoked. The states themselves may be appealed to, three-fourths of which, in fact, form a power, whose decrees are the constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. ”

“ The powers both of the general government and the state governments, under this system, are acknowledged to be so many emanations of power from the people. The great object now to be attended to, instead of disagreeing about who shall possess the supreme power, is, to consider whether the present arrangement is well calculated to promote and secure the tranquillity and happiness of our common country These are the dictates of sound and unsophisticated sense, and what ought to employ the attention and judgment of this honorable body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A republic, where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature.
The separate advantages of monarchy are unity of council, decision, secrecy, and dispatch; the military strength and energy resulting from these qualities of government; the exclusion of popular and aristocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of succession, all competition for the supreme power, thereby repressing the dangerous hopes and intrigues of aspiring citizens. ”

“ 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 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 our complex system, presenting the rare and difficult scheme of one general government, whose action extends over the whole, but which possesses only enumerated powers, and of numerous state governments, which retain and exercise many powers not delegated to the Union, contests respecting power must arise. ”

“ These state governments have been, by the people of each state, instituted under, and, expressly or impliedly, in subordination to the general government, which is expressly recognized by all to be supreme law; and as the power of the whole is, in the nature of things, superior to the power of a part, other things bring equal, the power of a state, a part, is inferior to the power of all the states. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other side, the greatness of the state gives the depositaries of public authority greater temptations and additional means of abusing that authority, so that the more power is required by the government to control the people, the more power should there be in the sovereign to control the government. ”

“ Take, for instance, the exercise of political power. Is a state free in proportion to the number of its subjects who are admitted to rank among its citizens, or to the degree in which its recognised citizens are invested with political authority? ”

“ The focal center of the executive power is the government, while that of the legislative is the learned—and if this latter great support and pillar should prove defective, how is it conceivable that the state should stand? ”

“ There necessarily exists, in every government, a power from which there is no appeal, and which, for that reason, may be termed supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable. Where does this power reside? To this question writers on different governments will give different answers. ”

“ The general tendency is all towards extending the power of governments. Some would fain extend the sphere of the State’s activity so as to give to the State control over almost every action of our daily lives. ”

“ Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; ”

“ 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? ”

“ Upon you, fellow-citizens, as the representatives of the States and the people, is wisely devolved the legislative power. ”

“ The State is a collection of officials, different for different purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and of the power of bureaucrats. ”

“ The principal source of the harm done by the State is the fact that power is its chief end. ”

“ I view the states as made for the people, as well as by them, and not the people as made for the states; the people, therefore, have a right, whilst enjoying the undeniable powers of society, to form either a general government, or state governments, in what manner they please, or to accommodate them to one another, and by this means preserve them all. ”

“ To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundred years, I should say that the important facts are not its industrial energy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federal power, and the integrity of the individual States. ”

“ No candid man can dispute that I have given a correct description of the constitution-making power: that power which created and organized the Government, which delegated to it, as a common agent, certain powers, in trust for the common good of all the States, and which imposed strict limitations and checks against abuses and usurpations. ”

“ Our Federal Government was set up as one of limited powers, but it was also given broad power to do all that was 'necessary and proper' to carry out its basic purpose of governing the Nation, so long as those powers were not exercised contrary to the limitations set forth in the Constitution. ”

“ In truth, it involved a direct power to establish institutions, rewards, and immunities for all the great interests of society, and was, on that account, deemed too broad and sweeping. It would establish a general, and not a limited power of government. ”

“ The highly complex character of a system in which the duties and rights of the citizen are thus governed by distinct sovereignties, would seem to render the administration of the central power—surrounded as it is by jealous and vigilant local governments—an exceedingly difficult and delicate task. ”

“ It appears to us, that a sovereign government promotes its power as well as the interests of its subjects, by confining the direct exercise of its legislative and administrative functions to matters of general and permanent concern ”

“ 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. ”

“ The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. ”

“ Upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civil government, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the people alone are competent to perform ”

“ 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. ”

“ The classes into which they distribute their members, the manner in which they establish the legislative and executive powers, the imperceptible circumstances by which they are led to have different customs, and to confer on their governors unequal measures of power and authority, give rise to perpetual distinctions between constitutions the most nearly resembling each other, and give to human affairs a variety in detail, which, in its full extent, no understanding can comprehend, and no memory retain. ”

“ The objectors do not advert to the natural strength and resources of state governments, which will ever give them an important superiority over the general government. If we compare the nature of their different powers, or the means of popular influence which each possesses, we shall find the advantage entirely on the side of the states. ”

“ Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of powers, which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them your commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a living, active, effective organization.—Burke. ”