American Politics: The American Republic and Its Government

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G.P. Putnam's sons, 1916 - 398 pages

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Page 325 - The Constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable, when the legislature shall please to alter it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law ; if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable...
Page 102 - If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the constitution. Each public officer, who takes an oath to support the constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others.
Page 43 - They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all ; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.
Page 32 - Hooker preached a sermon of wonderful power, in which he maintained that " the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people...
Page 382 - The power, then, to lay and collect duties, imposts, and excises, may be exercised, and must be exercised, throughout the United States. Does this term designate the whole, or any particular portion, of the American empire ? Certainly this question can admit of but one answer. It is the name given to our great republic, which is composed of states and territories. The district of Columbia, or the territory west of the Missouri, is not less within the United States than Maryland or Pennsylvania...
Page 226 - Courts, shall be liable to impeachment for any misdemeanor in office; but judgment in such cases shall extend only to removal from office and disqualification to hold any office of honor, trust, or profit...
Page 249 - States ; 5 To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures ; 6 To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States...
Page 37 - But it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved...
Page 172 - Under this article of the Constitution it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State.
Page 11 - ... the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

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