Federalist Papers Quotes - Comprehensive 39

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[I]t seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

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H F1 Call to Study New Constitution

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… the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. … we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy.

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H F1 Call to Study New Constitution

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the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.

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H F1 Call to Study New Constitution

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"a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing Demagogues, and ending Tyrants. "

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H F1 Call to Study New Constitution

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WHEN the people of America reflect that they are now called upon to decide a question, which, in its consequences, must prove one of the most important that ever engaged their attention, the propriety of their taking a very comprehensive, as well as a very serious, view of it, will be evident.

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J F2 United America

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Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government … [H]owever it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.

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J F2 United America

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This country and this people seem to have been made for each other

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J F2 United America

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"Many, indeed, were deceived and deluded, but the great majority of the people reasoned and decided judiciously; and happy they are in reflecting that they did so. "

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J F2 United America

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IT IS not a new observation that the people of any country (if, like the Americans, intelligent and wellinformed) seldom adopt and steadily persevere for many years in an erroneous opinion respecting their interests.

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J F3 Union Provides Safety Against Foreign Danger

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The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe.

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H F6 Hostilities Between Separated States

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It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust … at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.

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"H F9 Constitution: ""Confederate Republic"" Form"

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"The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries, or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided "

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"H F9 Constitution: ""Confederate Republic"" Form"

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"A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between a CONFEDERACY and a CONSOLIDATION of the States. The essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between the members has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary; "

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"H F9 Constitution: ""Confederate Republic"" Form"

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"The definition of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC seems simply to be ""an assemblage of societies,"" or an association of two or more states into one state. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. "

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"H F9 Constitution: ""Confederate Republic"" Form"

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The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.

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"H F9 Constitution: ""Confederate Republic"" Form"

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"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets. "

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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"democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; "

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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"A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, … The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. "

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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"The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures. "

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M F10 Large Republic Controls Effects of Faction

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"most of the popular governments of antiquity were of the democratic species; and even in modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no example is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle. If Europe has the merit of discovering this great mechanical power in government, by the simple agency of which the will of the largest political body may be concentred, and its force directed to any object which the public good requires, America can claim the merit of making the discovery the basis of unmixed and extensive republics. "

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M F14 Republic: Best for American People

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"As the natural limit of a democracy is that distance from the central point which will just permit the most remote citizens to assemble as often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a republic is that distance from the centre which will barely allow the representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs. "

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M F14 Republic: Best for American People

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The general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. The subordinate governments, which can extend their care to all those other subjects which can be separately provided for, will retain their due authority and activity.

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M F14 Republic: Best for American People

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"Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation. "

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H F15 Confederation Near Total Collapse

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Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice,

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H F15 Confederation Near Total Collapse

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In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of sovereign power, an impatience of control, that disposes those who are invested with the exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all external attempts to restrain or direct its operations… Power controlled or abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by which it is controlled or abridged.

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H F15 Confederation Near Total Collapse

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The natural death of the Confederacy is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing, if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form.

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H F15 Confederation Near Total Collapse

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a federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens.

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H F16 Legislation for States: Civil War Inevitable

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An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of … a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority.

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H F16 Legislation for States: Civil War Inevitable

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The people … the natural guardians of the Constitution

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H F16 Legislation for States: Civil War Inevitable

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And as to those mortal feuds which … spread a conflagration through a whole nation … proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberments of empire.

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H F16 Legislation for States: Civil War Inevitable

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"Allowing the utmost latitude to the love of power which any reasonable man can require, I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons intrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition. Commerce, finance, negotiation, and war seem to comprehend all the objects which have charms for minds governed by that passion; and all the powers necessary to those objects ought, in the first instance, to be lodged in the national depository. The administration of private justice between the citizens of the same State, the supervision of agriculture and of other concerns of a similar nature, all those things, in short, which are proper to be provided for by local legislation, can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It is therefore improbable that there should exist a disposition in the federal councils to usurp the powers with which they are connected; because the attempt to exercise those powers would be as troublesome as it would be nugatory; and the possession of them, for that reason, would contribute nothing to the dignity, to the importance, or to the splendor of the national government. But let it be admitted, for argument's sake, that mere wantonness and lust of domination would be sufficient to beget that disposition; still it may be safely affirmed, that the sense of the constituent body of the national representatives, or, in other words, the people of the several States, would control the indulgence of so extravagant an appetite. It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the State authorities. The proof of this proposition turns upon the greater degree of influence which the State governments if they administer their affairs with uprightness and prudence, will generally possess over the people …"

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H F17 Authority Over Individual Citizens

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"The separate governments in a confederacy may aptly be compared with the feudal baronies; with this advantage in their favor, that from the reasons already explained, they will generally possess the confidence and good-will of the people, and with so important a support, will be able effectually to oppose all encroachments of the national government. "

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H F17 Authority Over Individual Citizens

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The POWERS are not too extensive for the OBJECTS of federal administration, or, in other words, for the management of our NATIONAL INTERESTS

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H F23 Federal Responsibilities, Powers, Organization

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The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy.

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H F26 Legislative Military Authority

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Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution…. Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.

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H F26 Legislative Military Authority

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Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country?

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H F26 Legislative Military Authority

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"the laws of the Confederacy, as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative, executive, and judicial, in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the respective members, will be incorporated into the operations of the national government AS FAR AS ITS JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY EXTENDS; "

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H F27 Federal Authority Over Individual Citizens

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the whole power of the proposed government is to be in the hands of the representatives of the people. This is the essential, and, after all, only efficacious security for the rights and privileges of the people, which is attainable in civil society.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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But in a confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

Front 46

the great body of the people of an immense empire … are in a situation, through the medium of their State governments, to take measures for their own defense

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.

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H F28 National/State Resources Counter Threats

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"The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another… Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy … "

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H F30 Taxation: Revenue for National Government

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… that maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT

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H F30 Taxation: Revenue for National Government

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"Its future necessities admit not of calculation or limitation; and upon the principle, more than once adverted to, the power of making provision for them as they arise ought to be equally unconfined. I believe it may be regarded as a position warranted by the history of mankind, that, IN THE USUAL PROGRESS OF THINGS, THE NECESSITIES OF A NATION, IN EVERY STAGE OF ITS EXISTENCE, WILL BE FOUND AT LEAST EQUAL TO ITS RESOURCES. "

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H F30 Taxation: Revenue for National Government

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But who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums.

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H F30 Taxation: Revenue for National Government

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every power ought to be commensurate with its object

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H F31 Federal Taxation Won't Usurp State Powers

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"Men, upon too many occasions, do not give their own understandings fair play; but, yielding to some untoward bias, they entangle themselves in words and confound themselves in subtleties. "

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H F31 Federal Taxation Won't Usurp State Powers

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As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.

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H F31 Federal Taxation Won't Usurp State Powers

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I repeat here what I have observed in substance in another place, that all observations founded upon the danger of usurpation ought to be referred to the composition and structure of the government, not to the nature or extent of its powers. The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty.

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H F31 Federal Taxation Won't Usurp State Powers

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"It should not be forgotten that a disposition in the State governments to encroach upon the rights of the Union is quite as probable as a disposition in the Union to encroach upon the rights of the State governments. What side would be likely to prevail in such a conflict, must depend on the means which the contending parties could employ toward insuring success. As in republics strength is always on the side of the people, and as there are weighty reasons to induce a belief that the State governments will commonly possess most influence over them, the natural conclusion is that such contests will be most apt to end to the disadvantage of the Union; and that there is greater probability of encroachments by the members upon the federal head, than by the federal head upon the members. But it is evident that all conjectures of this kind must be extremely vague and fallible: and that it is by far the safest course to lay them altogether aside, and to confine our attention wholly to the nature and extent of the powers as they are delineated in the Constitution. Every thing beyond this must be left to the prudence and firmness of the people; who, as they will hold the scales in their own hands, it is to be hoped, will always take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the general and the State governments. "

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H F31 Federal Taxation Won't Usurp State Powers

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But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.

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H F32 Union Tax Doesn't Limit State Authority

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all laws which shall be NECESSARY and PROPER … treaties made by their authority shall be the SUPREME LAW of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding … hese two clauses have been the source of much virulent invective and petulant declamation against the proposed Constitution.

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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the power of taxation, … is the most important of the authorities proposed to be conferred upon the Union.

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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But it may be again asked, Who is to judge of the NECESSITY and PROPRIETY of the laws to be passed for executing the powers of the Union? … I answer, in the second place, that the national government, like every other, must judge, in the first instance, of the proper exercise of its powers, and its constituents in the last. If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify. The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

Front 61

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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a goverment, … is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. [which F discussed societies joining together to form a larger society?]

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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… acts of the larger society [Union] which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies … will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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… an improper accumulation of taxes on the same object might tend to render the collection difficult or precarious,

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H F33 Necessary and Proper/Supreme Law of the Land

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I FLATTER myself it has been clearly shown in my last number that the particular States, under the proposed Constitution, would have COEQUAL authority with the Union in the article of revenue, except as to duties on imports. As this leaves open to the States far the greatest part of the resources of the community, there can be no color for the assertion that they would not possess means as abundant as could be desired for the supply of their own wants, independent of all external control.

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H F34 Union, States Concurrent Taxation Jurisdiction

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however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

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H F34 Union, States Concurrent Taxation Jurisdiction

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"What are the chief sources of expense in every government? What has occasioned that enormous accumulation of debts with which several of the European nations are oppressed? The answers plainly is, wars and rebellions; "

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H F34 Union, States Concurrent Taxation Jurisdiction

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frugality and economy … become the modest simplicity of republican government.

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H F34 Union, States Concurrent Taxation Jurisdiction

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A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union.

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H F34 Union, States Concurrent Taxation Jurisdiction

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[If] the federal power of taxation were to be confined to duties on imports, it is evident that the government, for want of being able to command other resources, would frequently be tempted to extend these duties to an injurious excess.

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H F35 Representatives Understand Effects of Tax Policy

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Is it not natural that a man who is a candidate for the favor of the people, and who is dependent on the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the continuance of his public honors, should take care to inform himself of their dispositions and inclinations, and should be willing to allow them their proper degree of influence upon his conduct? This dependence, and the necessity of being bound himself, and his posterity, by the laws to which he gives his assent, are the true, and they are the strong chords of sympathy between the representative and the constituent.

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H F35 Representatives Understand Effects of Tax Policy

Front 72

Dependen[ce] on the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the continuance of his public honors … and the necessity of being bound himself, and his posterity, by the laws to which he gives his assent, are … the strong chords of sympathy between the representative and the constituent.

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H F35 Representatives Understand Effects of Tax Policy

Front 73

[As to] the business of taxation… The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue… it is necessary that the person in whose hands it should be acquainted with the general genius, habits, and modes of thinking of the people at large, and with the resources of the country.

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H F35 Representatives Understand Effects of Tax Policy

Front 74

It has been asserted that a power of internal taxation in the national legislature could never be exercised with advantage, as well from the want of a sufficient knowledge of local circumstances, as from an interference between the revenue laws of the Union and of the particular States.

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

Front 75

The taxes intended to be comprised under the general denomination of internal taxes may be subdivided into those of the DIRECT and those of the INDIRECT kind … as to the latter, by which must be understood duties and excises on articles of consumption…

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

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A small land tax will answer the purpose of the States, and will be their most simple and most fit resource.

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

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Many spectres have been raised out of this power of internal taxation, to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes …

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

Front 78

… the probability is that the United States will either wholly abstain from the objects preoccupied for local purposes, or will make use of the State officers and State regulations for collecting the additional imposition. This will best answer the views of revenue, because it will save expense in the collection, and will best avoid any occasion of disgust to the State governments and to the people.

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

Front 79

Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burdens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!

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H F36 Internal Taxation by Federal Government

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"all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and that even during this short period the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands "

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 81

all power should be derived from the people

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 82

Not less arduous must have been the task of marking the proper line of partition between the authority of the general and that of the State governments.

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 83

All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 84

The convention, in delineating the boundary between the federal and State jurisdictions, must have experienced the full effect of them all.

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 85

The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

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M F37 Difficulties Faced by Constitutional Convention

Front 86

we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 87

The President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office.

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 88

"But it was not sufficient, say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, ""for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States."" And it is asked by what authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some precision."

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 89

"Without inquiring into the accuracy of the distinction on which the objection is founded, it will be necessary to a just estimate of its force, first, to ascertain the real character of the government in question; "

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 90

"In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced. "

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 91

the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America … this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 92

Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 93

"the House of Representatives will derive its powers from the people of America; and the people will be represented in the same proportion, and on the same principle, as they are in the legislature of a particular State. So far the government is NATIONAL, not FEDERAL. The Senate, on the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as political and coequal societies; and these will be represented on the principle of equality in the Senate, … So far the government is FEDERAL, not NATIONAL. The executive power will be derived from a very compound source. From this aspect of the government it appears to be of a mixed character, presenting at least as many FEDERAL as NATIONAL features. "

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 94

"The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character "

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 95

"But if the government be national with regard to the OPERATION of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it in relation to the EXTENT of its powers. The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government…. In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects. It is true that in controversies relating to the boundary between the two jurisdictions, the tribunal which is ultimately to decide, is to be established under the general government. But this does not change the principle of the case. "

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 96

The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both.

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M F39 National vs. Federal Republic

Front 97

Federalist 40 -- whether the convention were authorized to frame and propose this mixed Constitution.

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M F40 Was Convention Authorized to Draft Constitution?

Front 98

"In some instances, as has been shown, the powers of the new government will act on the States in their collective characters. In some instances, also, those of the existing government act immediately on individuals. In cases of capture; of piracy; of the post office; of coins, weights, and measures; of trade with the Indians; of claims under grants of land by different States; and, above all, in the case of trials by courts-marshal in the army and navy, by which death may be inflicted without the intervention of a jury, or even of a civil magistrate; in all these cases the powers of the Confederation operate immediately on the persons and interests of individual citizens. "

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M F40 Was Convention Authorized to Draft Constitution?

Front 99

"We have seen that in the new government, as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction. "

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M F40 Was Convention Authorized to Draft Constitution?

Front 100

"But that the objectors may be disarmed of every pretext, it shall be granted for a moment that the convention were neither authorized by their commission, nor justified by circumstances in proposing a Constitution for their country: does it follow that the Constitution ought, for that reason alone, to be rejected? … The sum of what has been here advanced and proved is, that the charge against the convention of exceeding their powers … has no foundation to support it; "

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M F40 Was Convention Authorized to Draft Constitution?

Front 101

THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on the States. The SECOND, to the particular structure of the government, and the distribution of this power among its several branches.

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 102

Is the aggregate power of the general government greater than ought to have been vested in it?

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 103

"in all cases where power is to be conferred, the point first to be decided is, whether such a power be necessary to the public good; as the next will be, in case of an affirmative decision, to guard as effectually as possible against a perversion of the power to the public detriment. "

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 104

Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 105

A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 106

the progress of population, … must be the general measure of the public wants.

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 107

"Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power ""to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,"" amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. "

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 108

"Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. "

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 109

"But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, "

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 110

Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 111

But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 112

How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!

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M F41 Constitutionally Vested Federal Powers

Front 113

Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.

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M F42 Regulate International Relationships/Provide Harmony, Relationships Among States

Front 114

"No axiom is more clearly established in law, or in reason, than that wherever the end is required, the means are authorized; wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power necessary for doing it is included. "

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M F44 Provisions Restricting State Authority/Provisions Giving Efficacy to All the Rest

Front 115

"If it be asked what is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [nec & prop clause] of the Constitution, and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer, the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them; … the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in the last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers. The truth is, that this ultimate redress may be more confided in against unconstitutional acts of the federal than of the State legislatures, for this plain reason, that as every such act of the former will be an invasion of the rights of the latter, these will be ever ready to mark the innovation, to sound the alarm to the people, and to exert their local influence in effecting a change of federal representatives. "

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M F44 Provisions Restricting State Authority/Provisions Giving Efficacy to All the Rest

Front 116

The number of individuals employed under the Constitution of the United States will be much smaller than the number employed under the particular States.

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M F45 Federal Powers Not Dangerous to States

Front 117

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. 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 operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. "

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M F45 Federal Powers Not Dangerous to States

Front 118

I proceed to inquire whether the federal government or the State governments will have the advantage with regard to the predilection and support of the people. …We must consider both of them as substantially dependent on the great body of the citizens of the United States.

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 119

"The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this subject; and to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other. "

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 120

the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States…. By the superintending care of these, all the more domestic and personal interests of the people will be regulated and provided for.

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 121

... The new federal government … will be … disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the preorgatives of their governments

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 122

Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments.

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 123

"Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. … But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter. "

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 124

"[On] an unwarrantable measure of the Federal Government .. the means of opposition are powerful and at hand...
- the disquietude of the people
- their repugnance and perhaps refusal to cooperate with the officers of the Union
- the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State
- the embarrassments created by [State] legislative devices
- the signals of general alarm
- a correspondence would be opened
- plans of resistance would be concerted
- one spirit would animate and conduct the whole
- the same combination in short would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial by force would be made in the one case, as was made in the other... But what degree of madness could ever drive the Federal Government to such an extremity?"

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 125

But what degree of madness could ever drive the Federal Government to such an extremity?

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 126

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 127

[I]t will not possess the confidence of the people, and its schemes of usurpation will be easily defeated by the State governments, who will be supported by the people.

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M F46 Federal vs. State Government Authority

Front 128

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

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M F47 Separation of Legislative, Executive, Judicial Powers

Front 129

It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 130

After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others. What this security ought to be, is the great problem to be solved.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 131

"Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the Constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power? This is the security which appears to have been principally relied on by the compilers of most of the American constitutions. But experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly overrated; and that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful, members of the government. The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex."

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 132

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 133

The founders of our republics …seem never for a moment to have turned their eyes from the danger to liberty from the … magistrate, … They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 134

"In a democracy … tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter [executive department]. But in a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; … it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions. "

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 135

The legislative department, …[i]ts constitutional powers being at once more extensive, and less susceptible of precise limits, … can, with the greater facility, mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the co-ordinate departments.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 136

the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 137

The concentrating these [all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary] in the same hands, is precisely the definition of despotic government.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 138

One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 139

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 140

"The other State which I shall take for an example is Pennsylvania … the Council of Censors, … in the years 1783 and 1784. A part of the duty of this body, as marked out by the constitution, was ""to inquire whether the constitution had been preserved inviolate in every part; and whether the legislative and executive branches of government had performed their duty as guardians of the people, or assumed to themselves, or exercised, other or greater powers than they are entitled to by the [PA] Constitution…. it appears that the [PA] Constitution had been flagrantly violated by the legislature in a variety of important instances. "

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 141

"[I]t appears that the [PA] Constitution had been flagrantly violated by the legislature in a variety of important instances.
- A great number of laws had been passed, violating, without any apparent necessity, the rule requiring that all bills of a public nature shall be previously printed for the consideration of the people; although this is one of the precautions chiefly relied on by the [PA] constitution against improper acts of legislature.
- The constitutional trial by jury had been violated, and powers assumed which had not been delegated by the constitution.
- Executive powers had been usurped.
- The salaries of the judges, which the constitution expressly requires to be fixed, had been occasionally varied; and cases belonging to the judiciary department frequently drawn within legislative cognizance and determination."

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 142

The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.

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M F48 Separation of Government's Powers, continued

Front 143

the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived,

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M F49 Jefferson: Constitution Convention to Correct Power

Front 144

We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments.

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M F49 Jefferson: Constitution Convention to Correct Power

Front 145

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 146

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 147

"A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. "

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 148

"In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the legislature into different branches; … It may even be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions."

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 149

"First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. "

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 150

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

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M F51 Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

Front 151

"The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished from those of representatives, consist in a more advanced age and a longer period of citizenship. A senator must be thirty years of age at least; as a representative must be twenty-five. And the former must have been a citizen nine years; as seven years are required for the latter. The propriety of these distinctions is explained by the nature of the senatorial trust, which, requiring greater extent of information and stability of character, requires at the same time that the senator should have reached a period of life most likely to supply these advantages… "

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 152

First. It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. In this point of view, a senate, as a second branch of the legislative assembly, distinct from, and dividing the power with, a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people, by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient. This is a precaution founded on such clear principles, and now so well understood in the United States, that it would be more than superfluous to enlarge on it.

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 153

Secondly. The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 154

Thirdly. Another defect to be supplied by a senate lies in a want of due acquaintance with the objects and principles of legislation.

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 155

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood,

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 156

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 157

… the faculty and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 158

"But the most deplorable effect of all is that diminution of attachment and reverence which steals into the hearts of the people, towards a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity, and disappoints so many of their flattering hopes. No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability. "

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M F62 Senators: Qualifications, Need For

Front 159

The cool and deliberate sense of the community ought in all governments, and actually will in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers.

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M F63 Number Senators, 6-year term

Front 160

… how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind.

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H F70 One Person Holds Executive Authority

Front 161

In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority.

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H F70 One Person Holds Executive Authority

Front 162

"In the single instance in which the governor of this State is coupled with a council that is, in the appointment to offices, we have seen the mischiefs of it in the view now under consideration. Scandalous appointments to important offices have been made. Some cases, indeed, have been so flagrant that ALL PARTIES have agreed in the impropriety of the thing. When inquiry has been made, the blame has been laid by the governor on the members of the council, who, on their part, have charged it upon his nomination; while the people remain altogether at a loss to determine, by whose influence their interests have been committed to hands so unqualified and so manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I forbear to descend to particulars. "

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H F70 One Person Holds Executive Authority

Front 163

The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government. …In a republic it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body.

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 164

"Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 165

the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power… though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 166

"as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 167

courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 168

the rights of the courts to pronounce legislative acts void

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 169

"There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 170

If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It is not otherwise to be supposed, that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their WILL to that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose, that the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 171

"A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 172

"Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental. "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 173

It not uncommonly happens, that there are two statutes existing at one time, clashing in whole or in part with each other, and neither of them containing any repealing clause or expression. …The rule which has obtained in the courts for determining their relative validity is, that the last in order of time shall be preferred to the first. But this is a mere rule of construction, not derived from any positive law … They thought it reasonable, that between the interfering acts of an EQUAL authority, that which was the last indication of its will should have the preference.

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 174

"But in regard to the interfering acts of a superior and subordinate authority, of an original and derivative power, the nature and reason of the thing indicate the converse of that rule as proper to be followed. They teach us that the prior act of a superior ought to be preferred to the subsequent act of an inferior and subordinate authority; and that accordingly, whenever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former."

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 175

"It can be of no weight to say that the courts, on the pretense of a repugnancy, may substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature. This might as well happen in the case of two contradictory statutes; or it might as well happen in every adjudication upon any single statute. The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body. The observation, if it prove any thing, would prove that there ought to be no judges distinct from that body."

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 176

"If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges that fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act. "

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H F78 Federal Judiciary: Term: Good Behavior

Front 177

A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

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H F79 Judiciary: Independence, Salary, Impeachment

Front 178

The plan of convention declares that the power of Congress, or, in other words, of the national legislature, shall extend to certain enumerated cases. This specification of particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended.

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H F83 Trial by Jury