State rights

“ The general government will be as ready to preserve the rights of the states, as the latter are to preserve the rights of individuals,—all the members of the former having a common interest, as representatives of all the people of the latter, to leave the state governments in possession of what the people wish them to retain. ”

“ We perfectly agree with your Honour in the general principle that, in a free government, the majority must determine and decide upon all existing or projected measures. But it will be recollected, that the decision of that majority, to be binding, must be constitutional and just. Government is formed for the security of the citizen, and the protection of its rights. Whenever his liberty is infringed, his rights violated or unprotected, if not absolved from his allegiance, he may demand redress, and take all lawful measures to obtain it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The state governments should be held secure to their reserved rights, and the General Government sustained in its constitutional powers, and that the Union should be revered and watched over as the palladium of our liberties. ”

“ If a State by omission neglects to give to every citizen within its borders a free, fair, and full exercise and enjoyment of his rights it is the duty of the United States Government to go into the State, and by its strong arm to see that he does have the full and free enjoyment of those rights. ”

“ Under the pressure of all the excited feeling growing out of the war, our statemen have still believed that the existence of the State with powers for domestic and local government, including the regulation of civil rights—the rights of person and of property—was essential to the perfect working of our complex form of government, though they have thought proper to impose additional limitations on the States, and to confer additional power on that of the Nation. ”

“ Inasmuch as we are, first, citizens of the United States, and second, of the State wherein we reside, the primal rights of all citizens should be regulated by the national government, and complete equality in civil and political rights everywhere secured. ”

“ Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to secure to all citizens of the United States, in every State, the same political rights and privileges; and to all persons in every State equal protection in the enjoyment of life, liberty and property. ”

“ It is a mistake then to think of the state as an aggregation of individuals under a sovereign; equally so whether we suppose the individuals as such, or apart from what they derive from society, to possess natural rights, or suppose them to depend on the sovereign for the possession of rights. A state presupposes other forms of community, with the rights that arise out of them, and only exists as sustaining, securing, and completing them. ”

“ In the exercise of these natural rights, it has been supposed, men with a view to their general interest established political society. From that establishment is derived both the system of rights and obligations maintained by law as between man and man, and the right of the state to the submission of its subjects. ”

“ Protection to life, liberty, and property rests, primarily, with the states, and the amendment furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the states upon those fundamental rights which belong to citizenship, and which the state governments were created to secure. ”

“ The state is for him the complex of those social relations out of which rights arise, so far as those rights have come to be regulated and harmonised according to a general law, which is recognised by a certain multitude of persons, and which there is sufficient power to secure against violation from without and from within. The other forms of community which precede and are independent of the formation of the state, do not continue to exist outside it, nor yet are they superseded by it. ”

“ Having thus established these principles, with respect to the rights of individuals in a state of nature, and what is due to each, on entering into government, (principles established by every writer on liberty,) they proceeded to show, that States, when once formed, are considered, with respect to each other, as individuals in a state of nature; that, like individuals, each State is considered equally free and equally independent, the one having no right to exercise authority over the other, though more strong, more wealthy, or abounding with more inhabitants. ”

“ The State might require such oath for any period of their past lives, might call upon them to affirm whether they had observed the Ten Commandments, or had discharged any particular civil or moral duty, or had entertained any particular sentiments, or desires, or sympathies, as a condition of their being allowed to engage in one of the ordinary pursuits of life, in a profession, trade, or business. It might impose conditions which individuals and whole classes in the community would be unable to comply with, and thus deprive them of civil and political rights. ”

“ The rights of an individual with regard to matters which primarily concern the State are public or political rights, or, in other words, duties or functions to be exercised by the possessor not in accordance with his own wish or interest, but primarily at least with a view to the interest of the State, and therefore may be limited or extended in any way which conduces to the welfare of the community. ”

“ But as states are a collection of individual men, which ought we to respect most, the rights of the people composing them, or of the artificial beings resulting from the composition? Nothing could be more preposterous or absurd than to sacrifice the former to the latter. ”

“ In some governments, it may come within the gentleman's idea, when he says it can do no harm; but even in these governments, you find bills of rights do not uniformly obtain; and do those states complain who have them not? Is it a maxim in forming governments, that not only all the powers which are given, but also that all those which are reserved} should be enumerated? I apprehend that the powers given and reserved form the whole rights of the people, as men and as citizens. I consider that there are very few who understand the whole of these rights. ”

“ The ultimate meaning of the expression "that to secure these rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," seems therefore to be that by the law of nature and of nations there is a universal right of free statehood of all communities on the face of the earth within territorial limits of suitable size for the development and operation of a just public sentiment. ”

“ The same principle of States rights, as compared with those of all the States, if a correct principle of self-government, should also be recognized as the proper one to be acted upon in counties as against the State, and in cities as against counties and States, and in wards as against cities, and by citizens as against the wards in which they reside, and by the several partners of firms as against the authority of the firm as a whole. ”

“ Because, in cases, where some citizens of one state have demands against all the citizens of another state, the cause of liberty and the rights of men forbid, that the latter should be the sole judges of the justice due to the latter; and true republican government requires, that free and equal citizens should have free, fair, and equal justice. 9. To controversies between citizens of the same state, claiming lands under grants of different states ”

“ But, on the other side, it was urged, that none of those arguments could with propriety be applied to the formation of a federal government over a number of independent States; that it is the State governments which are to watch over and protect the rights of the individual, whether rich or poor, or of moderate circumstances, and in which the democratic and aristocratic influence or principles are to be so blended, modified, and checked, as to prevent oppression and injury; that the federal government is to guard and protect the States and their rights, and to regulate their common concerns ”

“ As, then, the individuals in Congress will all share in the burdens they impose, and be personally affected by the good or bad laws they make for the Union, they will be under the strongest motives of interest to lay the lightest burdens possible, and to make the best laws, or such laws as shall not unnecessarily affect either the property or the personal rights of their fellow-citizens. ”

“ Everywhere the bill of rights forms the first part of the constitution, following which as second part comes the plan or frame of [Pg 87] government. The right of the creator of the state, the originally free and unrestricted individual, was first established, and then the right of that which the individuals created, namely, the community. ”

“ Unless I am very much mistaken the principles on which that decision rests will be found to apply with an extensive reach to all the great concerns of the people, and will check any undue encroachments upon civil rights, which the passions or the popular doctrines of the day may stimulate our State Legislatures to adopt. ”

“ The administration of the state gives rise to rights, to the establishment of powers necessary for its administration. (5) New situations of life may arise out of the extended dealings of man with man which the state renders possible (e.g. through the crowding of population in certain localities) which make new modes of protecting the people a matter virtually of right. And, as new rights arise in the state once formed, so further purposes are served. It leads to a development and moralisation of man beyond the stage which they must have reached before it could be possible. ”

“ The Federal courts must of course decide ultimately what are the respective spheres of State and Nation in connection with any law, State or National, and they must decide definitely and finally in matters affecting individual citizens, not only as to the rights and wrongs of labor but as to the rights and wrongs of capital; and the National Government must always see that the decision of the court is put into effect. ”

“ Antithesis.—The only object of the erection of a state government is to secure to each the full possession of his rights; and the state has only to discover and apply the means which will secure this object. ”

“ To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. ”

“ Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty! ”

“ To solve this contradiction we must discover its ground.
The state takes possession of the remainder, not in respect to its form, as remainder and as property, but in respect to its substance, as something which is necessary to sustain life.
In order to solve the contradiction thoroughly, form and substance must, therefore, be separated. The state must have the power of taking the substance without touching the form.
Without exhibiting here unnecessary profundity, I shall solve the problem at once. ”

“ It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. ”

“ Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support. ”

“ 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. ”

“ National protection for national citizens in their equal civil, political, and religious rights, to be guaranteed by amendment of the United States constitution and afforded through the United States courts. ”

“ I have stated that the discontented states of this Union have demanded nothing by clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged constitutional rights—rights affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country; rights older than the Constitution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all countries, and of all centuries. ”

“ Article III of the Constitution provides for courts and judges, and fixes their jurisdiction—their power—and gives direction as to trial and penalty in certain cases.
Thus we find that the Constitution guarantees a National government (a republican form of government) , confers certain powers formerly held by the people, provides an executive to enforce the powers granted, a legislative body to make laws under which the powers may be exercised, and establishes [pg 185] courts to construe and apply the laws enacted, to the end that human rights and liberties shall be protected. ”

“ When the Constitution of the United States was enacted, a government was formed upon the premise that people, as individuals, are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and property, and with the right of local self-government. ”