Stater

“ That is not a foreign but a familiar and domestic government whose officer is your next-door neighbor, whose representatives you deal with every day at the post-office and the custom- house, whose courts sit in your own State, and send their own marshals into your own county to arrest your own fellow-townsman, or to call you yourself by writ to their witness-stands. And who can help respecting officials whom he knows to be backed by the authority and even by the power of the whole nation, in the performance of the duties in which he sees them every day engaged? ”

“ As there is no possibility of establishing the monarchy, as no candidate acceptable to all can be found, it is necessary, it is indispensable to get rid of the suspense, and I say that we should establish a republic. Have you not said that the forms of government are accidental? Gentlemen, you know the republic I want. It is a federal republic. I shall aways defend the federal republic. I am a federal, but, deputies, understand one thing: the republic is a form of government which admits many conditions, and which has many grades. ”

“ We come to put a civic crown upon your head, and shall be happy to carry you at the earliest opportunity in triumph to a seat in our highest tribunal, that you may sit as a judge over us, to support and strengthen by your decisions, if you can, the patriotic efforts of our great and virtuous governor! ”

“ Governors and Magistrates of all sorts, are but the agents and servants of these their creators, appointed to attain the good of the People, by the exercise of the powers and authorities granted to them for that purpose by the People, and responsible to the People for the manner in which all these duties have been performed or neglected. In the relations between such a Sovereign and such its agents, the idea of a compact of any kind, can find no place. ”

“ Who will undertake to say, as a state officer, that the people may not give to the general government what powers, and for what purposes, they please? How comes it, sir, that these state governments dictate to their superiors—to the majesty of the people? ”

“ The King's commission to his governor, which grants the power of government, and directs the calling of a legislature, and the establishing courts, at the same time that it fixes the governor's power, according to the several powers and directions granted and appointed by the commission and instructions, adds, "and by such further powers, instructions, and authorities, as shall, at any time hereafter, be granted or appointed you, under our signet or sign manual, or by our order in our privy council." ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The second is what is also essential to the nature of a subordinate legislature, and what the Colonists never call in question. That therefore the point here meant to be stated as in debate, is, Whether a subordinate legislature can be instructed, restricted, and controuled, in the very act of legislation? whether the King's instructions or letters from secretaries of state, and such like significations of his Majesty's will and pleasure, is a due and constitutional application of the governors, or of the royal negative? ”

“ 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 ”

“ The word Federal comes from the Latin fœdus, a league or compact. A federal form of government is one under which a number of States, while retaining their individual institutions and autonomy, unite together for purposes of defence and for a larger national existence, delegating to a representative national government certain specified powers. The most noteworthy examples in history of this form [115] of government are the Achaean League, the Swiss Republic, and the United States of America. ”

“ A distinguished citizen of our State—an honest man and true patriot—has been appointed Governor. He will soon call a Convention of the people which will be charged with the most vital interests of our State. Choose for this Convention your best and truest men; not those who have skulked in the hour of danger—nor those who have worshipped Mammon, while their country was bleeding at every pore—nor the politicians, who after urging war dared not encounter its hardships, but those who laid their all upon the altar of their country. Select such men and make them serve as your representatives. ”

“ You have already heard the will of the Chiefs respecting the presents and payments from Government. Brother, we have heard you speak of the Governor. It is to him we look; when we hear of him our hearts are glad. ”

“ For a plan, both in outline and in detail, I point to our sister states and to the European countries, that have taken the lead of us: and to the virtues and wisdom, by which our statesmen will be able to supply the defects, avoid the errors, and even, I trust, surpass the excellences, of those states and countries. That the Legislature may be wrought up to act, individual influence, and the more powerful influence of associations for the purpose—of whom I deem you, gentlemen, the chief, because the first—must be exerted. You must draw the minds of the constituent body forcibly to the subject. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Government and Administration.—Executive power is vested in a governor, who is advised in all administrative matters by an executive council, consisting of five official and three unofficial members nominated by the crown. Legislative authority is vested in the Court of Policy, consisting of the governor, who presides and without whose permission no legislation can be initiated, seven other official members and eight elected members. ”

“ The kingdom shall remain divided, as heretofore, into governments, under the usual provincial administrations. No governor-general shall, from this time, be appointed within the kingdom. Article 47. The courts of justice, superior as well as inferior, shall administer justice according to the laws and statutes of the realm. The provincial governors, and all other public functionaries, shall exercise the offices entrusted to them according to existing regulations; they shall obey the orders of the king, and be responsible to him if any act is done contrary to law. ”

“ But, however many instruments the governor might use, there was such a complete unity of responsibility that, in dealing with the administration of a province, we are treating of the powers of a single man. ”

“ Let the people of each state choose its best citizen. The people will know the most eminent characters of their own states; and the people of different states will feel an emulation in selecting those of whom they will have the greatest reason to be proud. Out of the thirteen names thus selected, an executive magistrate may be chosen either by the national legislature, or by electors appointed by it. ”

“ If the Governor of each Presidency were to have in his Council some of the officials of his Government, some of the non- official Europeans resident in the Presidency, and two or three at least of the intelligent Natives of the Presidency in whom the people would have some confidence, you would have begun that which will be of inestimable value hereafter—you would have begun to unite the government with the governed ”

“ That legislators ought to meet once in a year, and as much oftener as the circumstances of the nation may require, at such times and places as may be most convenient.
12. That the people have a right to petition the legislature for a redress of grievances.
13. That every branch of an empire ought to be subject to the supreme legislative head of a nation: To render all proper honour and obedience to the king, and to all in authority, and to be subordinate to the good and wholesome laws of the land. ”

“ While our independent governor is found to crouch to his superiors, and to look down upon and sneer at those below him, he is from time to time receiving instructions how to govern this people, to govern! ”

“ In common with those who ardently desire that the Government of this great country should be conducted upon just, rational, and constitutional principles, we hail the recent accession of your Lordship and your colleagues to office, with the warmest gratitude towards our beloved Sovereign, who has thus graciously confided to you the Administration of the Empire. ”

“ The Chief Departments of the State; the Dual Control of Senate and Princeps
We have already seen that, in the most essential fact of sovereignty—the creation of the Principate—the Senate and people, or rather the Senate as representing the people, was theoretically supreme. [1802] The attribute of sovereignty that comes nearest to this is the power of legislation, for it is one that the “determinate human superior” generally retains in his own hands. ”

“ So long as the Governor-General follows the example set by our beloved monarch as a constitutional sovereign, so long should the favour he finds with the people endure, and any personal popularity is a thing of no account. You have been pleased to endorse afresh the system under which we live and which you think infinitely preferable to that which obtains among our neighbours to the south of us. ”

“ Here the general rule is stated to be, that the deputies were elected by the "colonial legislatures," and the instances in which the people acted "directly in their primary, sovereign capacity, without the intervention of the ordinary functionaries of government," are given as exceptions. ”

“ Upon ascending the throne, the King shall take an oath in the presence of the two Chambers to observe faithfully the present constitution. Article 23. The regent, before entering on the duties of that office, shall swear fidelity to the King and faithful observance of this constitution and of the laws of the State. Article 24. All the inhabitants of the Kingdom, whatever their rank or title, shall enjoy equality before the law. All shall equally enjoy civil and political rights and be eligible to civil and military office, except as otherwise provided by law. ”

“ In reality the lieutenant-governor is a. figure-head, and power is in the hands of the legislature, which consists of two houses, a Legislative Council, appointed nominally by the lieutenant-governor, really by the premier, and an Assembly, chosen by what is practically manhood suffrage. ”

“ In the scheme of our national Government the Presidency is preëminently the people’s office. ”

“ Everything flows directly or indirectly from the power immanent in the Sovereign. Governors and nominated members of Legislative Councils owe their commissions directly, and officials below them indirectly, to his delegation of power. ”

“ The most universal public relation, by which men are connected together, is that of government; namely, as governors and governed, or, in other words, as magistrates and people. Of magistrates also some are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate, deriving all their authority from the supreme magistrate, accountable to him for their conduct, and acting in an inferior secondary sphere. ”

“ He has not only the documents in his pocket to answer all cavils, and to prove all his positions, but he has the eternal reason in his head. This man scornfully renounces your civil organizations,—county, or city, or governor, or army,—is his own navy and artillery, judge and jury, legislature and executive. ”

“ Provincial Governors have also a better Chance in a Republick, to escape with their Plunder, by means of Bribery or Interest; and their Fellow-Citizens, who find their own State to be inriched by the Spoils of their Subject-Provinces, will be the more inclined to tolerate such Abuses. ”

“ In the course of ages, there arises, as among ourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch, ministers, lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative departments, courts of justice, revenue offices, &c., supplemented in the provinces by municipal governments, county governments, parish or union governments—all of them more or less elaborated. ”

“ The Civil Governor of each province is responsible for the fulfilment of all the obligations imposed by the law, but has no voice in the internal management, teaching, &c., of the schools and colleges. ”

“ When the Supreme Governor first placed man under the obligations and sovereignty of law, He created him in His own image and likeness: endowing him with that holy heart and right inclination which obeys the law of God with ease and delight. ”