"Unconstitutional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "was my first unconstitutional experience. Well would it have been, if it had been my last and worst. But no. As I proceeded further into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain to this assembly, the ingredients and formation ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... of all our institutions of religion.—It is not here intended that these institutions will be at once abolished—Such a measure would alarm some honest men of the party—a gradual but sure destruction is the evil to be feared. The constitution of the United States was first attacked by an unconstitutional repeal of a law, and now the independence of the Supreme Court is to be destroyed, by impeachments of the judges. So will it fare with your institutions. The principle openly advocated is that none shall be obliged to contribute for the ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... Territories an erroneous meaning. On numerous occasions Congress had by statute excluded slavery from the public domain. This, in the judgment of the Chief Justice, they had no right to do, and such legislation was unconstitutional and void. Specifically the Missouri Compromise had never had any binding force as law. Property in slaves was as sacred as property in any other form, and slave-owners had equal claim with other property owners to protection in all the Territories of the United States. Neither Congress nor a territorial ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... Methodist Episcopal Church are women eligible as lay delegates in this General Conference? If they are, then this substitute offered by Dr. Moore does them an injustice, because it puts a cloud upon their right and title to seats upon this floor. If they are not, then this body would be in part an unconstitutional body if they ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... entering or leaving a country, so arranged that the collection of taxes causes the least possible disturbance to domestic industry. Speaking generally, the duties may be on either imports or exports; but, as export duties are unconstitutional in the United States, our tariff discussions are concerned only with import duties. The most completely revenue-yielding tariff is one touching only articles which, even at the higher prices are not in the least to be produced ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper—The Revolution—four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the government; and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny shall go to this unjust claim. And ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... perspective a ruler, who claims to rule in obedience to no mandates from the people, but in obedience to God. We could not be ruled by such a one in America; and in England such a ruler would be deemed unconstitutional. It is elementary, but necessary to repeat, that we are writing of Germany and the Germans, and of their history, traditions, and political methods. We are making no defence of either the German Emperor or the German people; neither are we occupying an American pulpit to preach to ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... said and written, I fail to see the slightest indication in the political life of either Germany or England to-day that they did harm. Certainly, from his own point of view of what his position entails, they can hardly, as the radicals in Germany claim, be considered as unconstitutional or ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... press the Supreme Court decision which declares the Federal Child-labor Law unconstitutional places upon those working through state channels a still heavier burden of effort at child-protection. This decision of the Supreme Court may well be understood as indicating no indifference to ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... began to concert measures with his Privy Council for the subjugation of Scotland. The "Committee on Scotch affairs" of the English Privy Council was obviously unconstitutional, but matters were fast drifting towards civil war, and it was no time to consider constitutional niceties. It is much more important that the committee was divided and useless. Wentworth, writing from Ireland, advised the king ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... the present connection. The thorough carrying out of a policy of recognition would demand a Federal incorporation act, under which all corporations engaged in anything but an exclusively local business would be obliged to organize; but, as we have already seen, such an act would be unconstitutional as applied to many technically domestic corporations, and it would probably be altogether unconstitutional, except, perhaps, under limitations which would make it valueless. It may be that some means will be found to evade these Constitutional difficulties, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... crowds gathered about the court-house and far down the street, screaming and cheering like a crowd on the night of a presidential election. The judges were clear-headed men, not to be browbeaten. They declared the forcing act unconstitutional, and dismissed the complaint. Popular wrath then turned upon them. A special session of the legislature was convened, four of the judges were removed, and a new forcing-act was prepared. This act provided that no man could vote at elections or hold any office without taking ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... were written under the powerful impulse of feelings which appear to have been almost consentaneous with those of the whole British people. The national spirit has been rouzed against this cruel and unconstitutional attack upon the QUEEN, with pervasive ardour, which forcibly recalls the language of the ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... and it was vetoed by the governor, who was a creature of the trusts. We elected a governor of Colorado, and the legislature refused to permit him to take office. Twice we have passed a national income tax, and each time the supreme court smashed it as unconstitutional. The courts are in the hands of the trusts. We, the people, do not pay our judges sufficiently. But there ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... fall back upon authority. My father, the colonel, is for the king; yours for the Parliament. He says that there are faults on both sides, and indeed, for years he favored the Commons. The king's acts were unconstitutional and tyrannical, and my father approved of the bold stand which Sir George Elliot made against him. Now, however, all this has been changed, he tells me, and the Commons seek to rule without either king or peers. They have sought to impose conditions ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... confer. He who is impartial as to persons must submit to seem lukewarm as to principles. Thus the more towering and eminent the seeming power of Aristides, the more really hollow and insecure were its foundations. To his own party it was unproductive— to the multitude it appeared unconstitutional. The extraordinary honours he had acquired—his monopoly of the magistrature—his anti-popular opinions, could not but be regarded with fear by a people so jealous of their liberties. He seemed to their apprehensions to be approaching gradually ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... government say that many of our reforms are unconstitutional. The same kind of men said the same thing of every effort the Nation has made to end national abuses. But in every case, whether in the courts, at the ballot box, or on the battlefield, the vitality of the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... that drew forth any thing like a display of his oratory was a motion which he made on the 5th of March, 1781, "For the better regulation of the Police of Westminster." The chief object of the motion was to expose the unconstitutional exercise of the prerogative that had been assumed, in employing the military to suppress the late riots, without waiting for the authority of the civil power. These disgraceful riots, which proved to what Christianity consequences the cry of "No Popery" ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... 1912-13 and the fable that he was another Constantine the Great. So far his doubts seemed to have more justification than the faith of Venizelos; and Greece had in return for her security put up with an unconstitutional government and the shame of her broken Serbian treaty. But the strain which Constantine put upon the patience of his people reached the breaking-point in 1916. In May, acting under his orders, Greek troops admitted the Bulgars into Forts Rupel and Dragotin, the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... would have resigned, and were sanguine, under such circumstances, of the result. The parliament, which the ministry was going to dissolve, was one which had been elected by their counsel and under their auspices. It was unusual, almost unconstitutional, thus to terminate the body they had created. Nevertheless, the Whigs, never too delicate in such matters, thought they had a chance, and determined not to lose it. One thing they immediately succeeded in, and that ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... measure, to be resorted to only in extraordinary cases, as where it may become necessary to defend the executive against the encroachments of the legislative power or to prevent hasty and inconsiderate or unconstitutional legislation. By cautiously confining this remedy within the sphere prescribed to it in the cotemporaneous expositions of the framers of the Constitution, the will of the people, legitimately expressed on all subjects of legislation ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... Many English Kings had occasionally committed unconstitutional acts: but none had ever systematically attempted to make himself a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. Such was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to himself. From March 1629 to April 1640, the Houses ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... terms, whether it was constitutional or not, and we have done it, because we knew we could do it; not because we cared for a few niggers; for I say, if a nigger cares enough for freedom to run for it, he ought to have it. Now we knew that was an unconstitutional thing before we put it before Congress; but we put it there to let you know we could drive it down Northern throats, and we ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... draft was almost forgotten by the rioters, in the thirst for plunder and blood, still men in the streets and some of the papers talked of its being unconstitutional, and to be contested in the courts—others that it had been and would be suspended, as though any disposal of it now could affect the conduct of the rioters. Force was the only argument they would listen to. The riot had almost ceased to wear ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... now universally the fashion to speak of the first personage in the state as the great obstacle to the measure. In the first place, I am not bound to believe such rumours because I hear them; and in the next place, I object to such language, as unconstitutional. Whoever retains his situation in the ministry while the incapacities of the Catholics remain, is the advocate for those incapacities; and to him, and to him only, am I to look for responsibility. But waive this question of the Catholics, and put ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... the editor of a Jamaica paper, was arrested, because in an editorial he boldly condemned the trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. And it is probable that he escaped paying dearly for his courage, only because the Chief Justice of Jamaica declared the whole law under which he was arrested unconstitutional, and dismissed the case. A still more significant commentary upon these statements is that other fact, that, in the midst of what they averred were the throes of a great rebellion, the members of the Assembly proceeded to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... humiliate and chastise, not to conciliate, the defeated South. Already, under President Lincoln, this purpose had brought the leaders of the majority more than once into collision with the Executive. Under President Johnson they forced a collision with the Veto power of the President, by two unconstitutional bills, one attainting the whole people of the South, and the other aimed at the authority of the Executive over his officers. In the policy thus developed they had the co-operation of the Secretary at War, Mr. Stanton, and during the recess of Congress in August 1867 it became apparent ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... favorable reply no one in the United States in that day would have been better pleased than Mr. Adams to do so. But the obstacles were insuperable. Besides the undesirability of departing from the "extra-European policy," the mixed courts would have been unconstitutional, and could not have been established even by act of Congress, while the claims advanced by Great Britain to search our ships for English-born seamen in time of war utterly precluded the possibility of ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... resulting, as I recall it now, each time in a large majority for Lincoln. This seemed to greatly disturb an elderly man and when apparently he could stand it no longer, he denounced the government as despotic, the draft unconstitutional, the Emancipation Proclamation as an effort on Lincoln's part to flood the whole North with "niggers," characterizing Lincoln as a tyrant, who ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Crumber returns the member regularly, in spite of all their Reform bills; and Bamford, and Cobblersborough;—and look at Lord Lumley with a whole county in his pocket, not to speak of two boroughs! What nonsense, Plantagenet! Anything is constitutional, or anything is unconstitutional, just as you choose to look at it." It was clear that the Duchess had really studied the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... was no conflict between the Congress and the Court. Then Congress passed a statute which, in 1803, the Court said violated an express provision of the Constitution. The Court claimed the power to declare it unconstitutional and did so declare it. But a little later the Court itself admitted that it was an extraordinary power to exercise and through Mr. Justice Washington laid down this limitation upon it: "It is but a decent respect due to the ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... years before with Lucy and Antoinette. Jubilant over the prospects, she at once began to make plans. She wanted to use all of the fund for lectures, conventions, tracts, and newspaper articles; Lucy thought part of the money should be spent to prove unconstitutional the law which taxed women without representation and Antoinette was eager for a share to establish a church in which she could preach woman's rights with ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... unconstitutional for one club-member to insult a fellow club-member," she cried, in a rage. "And, anyhow, I wish to deny that statement. I'm not ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... afforded by the conflicting opinions respecting the overthrow of monasticism in England. Those who mourn the loss of the monasteries cannot find words strong enough with which to condemn Henry VIII., whom they regard as "unquestionably the most unconstitutional, the most vicious king that ever wore the English crown." Forgetting the inevitable cost of human freedom, and lightly passing over the iniquities of the monastic system, they fondly dwell upon the departed glory of the ancient abbeys. ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... was declared. The first blow was struck by Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in a little square ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... unconstitutional for Congress to collect such statistics, but it is contrary to the spirit of the constitution. Congress has nothing whatever to do with such social questions, which are exclusively matters of state legislation. It has allowed itself to be ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... a constitutional maxim at the South. As to its exercise at the time on the part of the South, he was distinctly opposed, and it was not until Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 men to invade the South, which was deemed clearly unconstitutional, that Virginia withdrew from the ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... effecting the reduction of street car fares to three cents, the state legislature in 1899 passed an act for purchasing or leasing the street railways of the city, but the Supreme Court pronounced this act unconstitutional on the ground that, as the constitution prohibited the state from engaging in a work of internal improvement, the state could not empower a municipality to do so. Certain test votes indicated an almost even division on the question of municipal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... could not be used by the Democrats. The bill met with bitter opposition, for it was alleged that it had no other purpose than to vacate Hardin's office for the benefit of Douglass. This was solemnly denied;[41] but when the bill had been declared unconstitutional by the Council of Revision, Douglass' friends made desperate exertions to pass the bill over the veto, with the now openly avowed purpose to elect him to the office. The bill passed, and on the 10th of February, 1835, the legislature in joint session elected the boyish lawyer ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Samuel Johnston a copy of his proclamation, dated on board His Majesty's ship Cruiser, at Cape Fear, on the 8th of August, 1775, in which he warned the people against the Hillsboro Congress as a dangerous and unconstitutional assembly, and of baneful influence; and further, that to assemble men in arms in the province without authority from the King, was a violation of law for which they would be held answerable. In reply to this proclamation, which was duly laid before the Congress by the Moderator, Mr. Johnston, it ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... during this trying period was surely most harsh and unkind, even though he entertained different political views. Mr M'Leish would probably regard, as a national calamity, the restoration of the Stuarts, knowing well the arbitrary and unconstitutional way they often acted when in power. He might also fear that there would be great danger to the Protestant cause were a Roman Catholic to occupy the throne of Britain. But while we sympathise with these sentiments, and think that Mr M'Leish was ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, the Constitution of the United States and the unwritten rules of the New York Fire Department. The Round Table methods are no longer practicable since the invention of street cars and breach-of-promise suits, and our Constitution is being found more and more unconstitutional every day, so the code of our firemen must be considered in the lead, with the Golden Rule and Jeffries's new punch ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... of Marie, as well as twenty-four other cases, was ably and vigorously conducted by Edwin W. Sims, United States District Attorney in Chicago. He prosecuted under a clause of the immigration act of 1908, which was unfortunately declared unconstitutional early the next year, when for the moment federal authorities found themselves unable to proceed directly against this international traffic. They could not act under the international white slave treaty signed by the contracting powers in Paris in 1904, ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... and the issue of the paper was stopped for a while on the order of Chief Justice Sewell, in the exciting times of that most arbitrary of military governors, Sir James Craig. The action of the authorities in this matter is now admitted to have been tyrannical and unconstitutional, and it is certainly an illustration of human frailty that this same M. Bedard, who suffered not a little from the injustice of his political enemies, should have shown such weakness—or, shall we say, Christian forbearance—in accepting, not long afterwards, a judgeship from the ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... understand that our support is of a 'cause' and not of a man; that the authority of Congress is paramount and must be respected; that the whole body of the Union men in Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation; and if he wishes our support he must confine him-self to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws—to suppress by arms, armed rebellion, and leave political reorganization to Congress. If the supporters ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... imprisoned except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. He had not committed any of these crimes, for a libel had only a tendency to disturb the peace. Still, had he been a private person, his imprisonment would have been legal; but being unconstitutional, he was discharged. Lord Chief Justice Pratt gained great popularity by his charge in favor of the liberation of Wilkes, and ever nobly defended constitutional liberty. He is better known as Lord Camden, the able lord ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... combat it. He eloquently exposed the principles, on which hereditary monarchies are founded. He invoked the constitution, the solemn oaths taken in the Champ de Mai, and conjured the peers, the faithful guardians of the fealty sworn, and of the constituent laws of the monarchy, to reject this unconstitutional resolution, and proclaim Napoleon ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... three-fourths of the net income received under our present tariff.... The board of directors have caused this act to be carefully examined and considered by their own counsel, and by some of the most eminent jurists in the land, and after such examination they are unanimous in their opinion that it is unconstitutional and void.... The board of directors are trustees of this property, and are bound faithfully to discharge their trust, and to the best of their ability to protect it from spoliation and ruin. They have sought the advice of able counsel, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... last treaty with the Indians; and to conclude, he saw the beginning and end of the British empire in Pensylvania. He had been the subject of many crowned heads; but when he heard of the many oppressive and unconstitutional acts passed in Britain, he bought them all, and gave them to his great grandson to make kites of; and embracing the liberty and independence of his country in his withered arms, and triumphing in the last year of his life, in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the general Government, and on the equal rights of other States; a plain violation of the Constitution, a proceeding essentially revolutionary in its character ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... results - percent of vote by party NA; seats - (217 total) number of seats by party NA; note - President GHULAM ISHAQ Khan dismissed the National Assembly on 18 April 1993; it was reestablished, however, on 26 May 1993 by the Supreme Court, which ruled the dismissal order unconstitutional Executive branch: president, prime minister, Cabinet Legislative branch: bicameral Parliament (Majlis-e-Shoora) consists of an upper house or Senate and a lower house or National Assembly Judicial branch: Supreme Court, Federal Islamic (Shari'at) Court Leaders: Chief of State: President ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ascribed to the "factious temper of the times." The favorite doctrine of the majority of the Democratic party on the power of a territorial legislature over slavery he condemned as an attack on "the sacred rights of property." The State legislatures, he insisted, must repeal what he called "their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments," and which, if such, were "null and void," or "it would be impossible for any human power to save the Union." Nay! if these unimportant acts were not repealed, "the injured States would be justified in revolutionary resistance to ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... British Parliament; and by a singular coincidence on the same day, February 9, 1775, the Parliament pledged the lives and property of the Commons to the support of those laws. On the side of the Americans, the courts were declared unconstitutional and their officers traitors—and the practice of the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... 9th of June, he ascended the Tribune, and there enunciated ideas which belonged more to the ministry in their individual capacity, than as the representatives of their Sovereign. This was supremely unconstitutional, and could only be the result of inexperience. What knowledge could those men have had of a free and national constitution? They ought, at least, to have been guided by the laws of honesty and honor. Who will say that they were so, when they gave out that ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... (Edition of 1836), vol. III, p. 503. As to Bills of Rights, however, Marshall expressed the opinion that they were meant to be "merely recommendatory. Were it otherwise, ...many laws which are found convenient would be unconstitutional." Op. cit., vol. III, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... unequivocally sustaining the repudiation of Mississippi. It is true, in the case of the Union Bank bonds of Mississippi, that Mr. Davis justified their repudiation on the ground that the bonds of the State were unconstitutional. But the utter fallacy of this position was shown by two unanimous decisions of the highest judicial tribunal of the State of Mississippi, before whom this very question was brought directly for adjudication, affirming the constitutionality ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... that which Congress may itself impose. The power is plain, and there can be no revision of the judgment of the Senate by any other power in the government. But Mr. Johnson thinks, or says he thinks, that Congress itself, as at present constituted, is unconstitutional. He believes, or says he believes, that the defeated Rebel States whose representatives Congress now excludes are as much States in the Union, and as much entitled to representation, as New York or Ohio. As he specially represents the defeated Rebel States, it is hardly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Reformation both affirmed and denied. It affirmed the constitutional rights of the Church as against the unconstitutional claims of the Pope, and it denied the unconstitutional claims of the State as against the constitutional rights of ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... is constitutional, they may order every petition to be delivered to their door-keeper, and by him to be committed to the flames; for why preserve petitions on which no action can be had? Had the resolution been directed to petitions for an object palpably unconstitutional, it would still have been without excuse. The construction of the Constitution is a matter of opinion, and every citizen has a right to express that opinion in a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... however, in the progress of our history have the people and the legislatures of one or more States, in moments of excitement, been instigated to this conflict; and the means of effecting this impulse have been allegations that the acts of Congress to be resisted were unconstitutional. The people of no one State have ever delegated to their legislature the power of pronouncing an act of Congress unconstitutional, but they have delegated to them powers by the exercise of which the execution ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a nation pays for its imports with its exports. He says it is all "iconoclastic foolishness," declares that a nation does nothing of the kind, and proceeds to animadvert in an unchristian spirit on the density of my economic ignorance. My contemporary's criticism is clearly unconstitutional in that it is cruel and unusual punishment. Now that its editor has annihilated my poor little theory, it is his duty as a great public educator and charter member of the Markhanna Illuminati, to inform me what the hades a nation DOES ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... were properly respected, and the whole piece, with one exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. That exception was the comic countryman, a lean marionnette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in a broad patois much appreciated by the audience. He took unconstitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign; kicked his fellow-marionnettes in the mouth with his wooden shoes, and whenever none of the versifying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his own ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... promises of bribes with public money to force the House of Representatives, in January, 1961, to pack the House Rules Committee, imagine how the President could whip Congress, and the whole nation, into line if the President had just some of the additional, unconstitutional power which the Commission on Money and Credit ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... help carry a bill through making any peace officer automatically lose his office whenever a lynching took place in his county. This bill passed but was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court. I was appointed by the speaker as a member of the visiting board for Prairie View State Normal. As a member of the committee on privileges and Election I single handed fought for a colored man elected from ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... I am constrained to say I think this feature of the act is unconstitutional. It would not be difficult to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the State, Andrew S. Herron; at the same time appointing to the respective offices thus vacated Edward Heath, W. W. Howe, and B. L. Lynch. The officials thus removed had taken upon themselves from the start to pronounce the Reconstruction acts unconstitutional, and to advise such a course of obstruction that I found it necessary at an early dav to replace them by men in sympathy with the law, in order to make plain my determination to have its provisions enforced. The President at once made ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... king issued writs (15 May) for a military levy of the whole kingdom for service abroad, to meet at London on the 7th July, a measure as unconstitutional as the seizure of wool and the levying of taxes without the assent of Parliament. On the day appointed, the barons, who had received a large accession of strength from the great vassals, appeared with their forces at St. Paul's; but instead of complying ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... South, the Southern Unionists were still social outcasts, the officers of the Union were still regarded as foreign tyrants ruling by force. And as to the abolition of slavery, emancipation, although "accepted" in name, was still denounced by a large majority of the former master class as an "unconstitutional" stretch of power, to be reversed if possible; and that class, the ruling class among the whites, was still desiring, hoping, and striving to reduce the free negro laborer as much as possible to the condition of a slave. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... major-general, and Captain Nathaniel Lyon, an excellent soldier, who commanded the little garrison of regulars at St. Louis. When Lincoln called upon Governor Claiborne Jackson to supply Missouri's quota of three-month volunteers the Governor denounced the proposed coercion as "illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, and diabolical"; and thereafter did his best to make Missouri join the South. But Blair and Lyon were too quick for him. Blair organized the Home Guards, whom Lyon armed from the arsenal. ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... dissolved by the government, radical writers were prosecuted by the government for libel, the habeas corpus act was suspended repeatedly, and threatened rioting was met with severe measures. The actions of the ministers, while upheld by the higher classes, were bitterly attacked by others as being unconstitutional ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... an army of "muck-rakers" to fill the magazines with the wildest and most violent of language. State legislatures were emboldened to pass mischievous and restrictive laws, and much of my time began to be occupied in inducing, by various means, our courts to declare these unconstitutional. How we sighed for a business man or a lawyer in the White House! The country had gone mad, the stock-market trembled, the cry of "corporation control" resounded everywhere, and everywhere demagogues arose to inaugurate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... suggestion, a German Parliament was created, elected by universal suffrage, and because the Prussian ministers (to the great indignation of their conservative supporters) asked the Prussian Deputies to grant them indemnity for their unconstitutional conduct of the government during the preceding four years. For the next ten years Bismarck had behind him, in Prussian and in German affairs, a substantial nationalist majority. At times, indeed, he had to restrain their zeal. In 1867, for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... would not presume to dispute Mr. Webster's opinion on a question of constitutional law?" "And why not?" replied Gurowski, in high wrath, and in his loudest tones. "I tell you I can read the Constitution as well as Mr. Webster, and I say that the Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional,—is an outrage and an imposition of which you will all soon be ashamed. It is a disgrace to humanity and to your republicanism, and Mr. Webster should be hung for advocating it. He is a humbug or an ass," continued the Count, his wrath growing fiercer as he poured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... seen that the doctrine maintained by our Government is, that the rebel States have not, by their ordinances of secession, separated themselves from the Union, but that they are still in the Union. The ordinances of secession are, like any other unconstitutional law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the same rights and liberties, within the colonies, that the subjects born in England are entitled within the realm." 2d. "That the power assumed by Parliament to bind the people of these colonies by statutes, in all cases whatever, is unconstitutional, and therefore the source of these unhappy difficulties." The Congress of 1774, in their statement of rights and grievances, affirm "a free and exclusive power of legislation" in their several Provincial ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... Mr. Muller was that the Oregon Ten-Hour Law was unconstitutional: First, because the statute attempted to prevent persons from making their own contracts, and thus violated the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.[41] Next, because the statute did not apply equally to all persons similarly situated and ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... irresistible whirlwind. We have always been able to hold our own in Liverpool, when it came to physical encounters against all comers. We have generally had some organisation or another—whether constitutional or unconstitutional—but, apart from this, the nature of the employment of our working-men, especially in O'Connell's time, brought them together in such a way that large numbers of them knew each other, and could act together in ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... thing that my Secretary of State and his lawyers declare unconstitutional, Patricia," answered the voice of the Gouverneur Faulkner, in which were notes of pain. "You know how it pains me—my God, don't tempt me to—" His voice shook as I saw the beautiful, bare white arms of Madam Whitworth raise themselves and go about his neck like great white grappling ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... felt they had the country behind them, and they proceeded to the unprecedented and unconstitutional course of killing the Budget. This was exactly what Mr. Asquith and his first lieutenant had been waiting for. Lloyd George saw the fruits of his labor destroyed in a day, but he watched the process, not with ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... devotion to the will and pleasure of a Court, have at the same time been most forward in asserting a high authority in the House of Commons. When they knew who were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought it never could be carried too far. It must be always the wish of an unconstitutional statesman, that a House of Commons who are entirely dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely dependent upon their pleasure. It was soon discovered that the forms of a free, and the ends of an arbitrary Government, were ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... abolitionists have is to be found in the fact that their weight may be felt in elections; and this is no small advantage. The one party is unwilling to lose their weight, but at the same time unwilling to be blended with them on the main question; and hence is made this false, absurd, unconstitutional, and dangerous collateral issue on the right of petition. Here is the whole secret. They are willing to play the political game at our hazard, and that of the Constitution and the Union, for the sake of victory at the elections. But to show still more clearly how little foundation ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Hohenzollern, he is a Constitutional Liberal, we should say of an advanced type. We spoke before of his misunderstandings with his ministers; but even those who were originally opposed to him, and who watched his every act with suspicion, state that he has managed with great tact to steer clear of unconstitutional courses; indeed, from their own admissions and the facts of history, it is clear that he must have served a very trying apprenticeship in the art of constitutional rule. His demeanour towards his subjects ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Rai, is not an extremist; but this has to be proved, and it may be presumed that the government was more conversant with his acts and their influence upon the people, and the native army, than some of his defenders are. All must regret the necessity of so unconstitutional a method of dealing with this great evil; but when such a man as the Hon. Mr. Morley, the Secretary of State for India, agrees with the Indian government in this matter, it may be presumed to have ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... their purpose. But we have the pleasure to assure you, that the Letters we have lately receivd from every part of the province, breath the true Sentiments & Spirit of Liberty. There seems to be in every town, an apprehension of fatal Consequences from "the illegal & unconstitutional measures which have been ADOPTED, (as you justly express it) by the British ministry." Your Expression is indeed pertinent; for it has as we think abundantly appeard since you wrote, by some extraordinary Letters which have been ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... complete ascendency over courts and legislatures, in favor of the relief of debtors. He enforced the old laws for the collection of debts, and he baulked several legislative schemes to defraud creditors of their due by declaring the new laws unconstitutional. For the rest, his decisions have seemed to competent critics to show that he possessed unusual legal ability and grasp of principles and a corresponding power of statement, scant as ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... rebellion, and a French alliance, in his mind, that he always doubted whether the new republic had a legal existence at all, and he had been heard to express his surprise that the twelve judges had not long since decided this state of things to be unconstitutional, and overturned the American government by mandamus. His disgust increased, accordingly, as Captain Truck's irreverence manifested itself in stronger terms, and there was great danger that the harmony, which had hitherto prevailed between ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... non-importation scheme was suggested by Virginia, but was on the whole unsuccessful. In February, 1768, Massachusetts sent out a circular letter to the other colonies, inviting concerted protests, and declaring that the new laws were unconstitutional. The protest was moderate, its purpose legal; but the ministry attempted to destroy its effect by three new repressive measures. The first of them, April, 1768, directed the governors, upon any attempt to pass protesting resolutions, to prorogue ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... clergy assent to the contents of the Prayer Book on pain of being deprived of their spiritual promotion. It forbade all changes in matters of belief otherwise than by the king in Parliament. While it barred the unconstitutional exercise of a dispensing power by the king, and kept the settlement of its faith out of the hands of the clergy and in those of the people, it was so contrived also according to the temper of the majority ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... on the validity of the Constitution or law of a State, if it be repugnant to the Constitution or to a law of the United States. Is it unreasonable that it should also be empowered to decide on the judgment of a State tribunal enforcing such unconstitutional law? Is it so very unreasonable as to furnish a justification for controlling the words of the Constitution? We think not. . ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... were all clearly unconstitutional, but they were necessary to save the Capital. They were the acts of a dictator, for Congress was not in session, but he dared to act. Troops were suddenly thrown into the city of Baltimore and its streets and heights planted with cannon. The chief of police was arrested and imprisoned, ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the Duke of Massa interrupted the speaker, exclaiming, "What you say is unconstitutional;" to which the speaker vehemently replied, "I see nothing unconstitutional here except your presence," and continued to read his report. The Emperor was each day informed of what took place in the sitting ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... opened before delivery, and praying that "The House would be pleased to grant, without delay, a Committee to inquire and give immediate redress to the petitioners, and prevent the recurrence of so unconstitutional and infamous a practice." Sir James Graham (Home Secretary) replied that "the House must be aware that from as early a period as the reign of Queen Anne, power existed in the hands of the Principal Secretary of State, to detain and open letters passing through the Post Office; and the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... took proceedings. The President of the High Court, Mr. Kotze, pronounced that this law was unconstitutional, and gave judgment in favor of Brown, but left the amount of damages to be determined later ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... abroad. It was still well-nigh an unconstitutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege, enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreign tour, let it be ever so short. However, this year the proposal of a visit to her uncle King Leopold at Brussels, where several members of Louis Philippe's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... wide if not a discriminate hospitality. We believe her to be a kind-hearted, bustling, ambitious lady, to whom any little faults may easily be forgiven on account of her good-nature and generosity. But we cannot accept her indiscretion as an excuse for a most unconstitutional act performed by the ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Republicans were greatly excited by the Alien and Sedition Acts, and at the suggestion of Jefferson resolutions condemning them as unconstitutional [19] and hence "utterly void and of no force" were passed by the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... accepting the office of United States Senator. He says that he will maintain the interests of all parts of the country, and oppose every effort to loosen the ties of the Union, as well as "all sectionalism, whether it appear in unconstitutional efforts by the North to carry freedom to the Slave States, or in unconstitutional efforts of the South, aided by Northern allies, to carry the sectional evil of slavery into the Free States; or in whatsoever efforts it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the right of such discussion in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretences, the firmer shall be the tone in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner in ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... public. We tried it in the old days, but the courts said the bill to stop tenement cigar-making was unconstitutional. Labor was property, and property is inviolable—rightly so until it itself becomes a threat to the commonwealth. Child labor is such a threat. It has been stopped in the factories, but no one can stop it in the tenement so long as families are licensed to work there. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... that British subjects in America are entitled to the same rights and privileges, as their fellow subjects possess in Britain; and therefore, that the power assumed by the British Parliament, to bind America by their statutes, in all cases whatsoever, is unconstitutional, and the source of these ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... upon the Colonies that brought about separation and laid the foundation of American independence. In resisting the enforcement of these Acts, Otis was actuated not only by disinterested and patriotic motives, but by a statesmanlike discernment of their unconstitutional character and the wrong they would inflict, in being inconsistent with the foundation charter of the Massachusetts Colony. Like many of the Revolutionary fathers, Otis was not at heart a rebel, ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... become the Governor's unconstitutional adviser?' she said. 'Joan, do you know that Luke Tallant kept Mr McKeith talking and smoking in the loggia just below my bedroom for hours last night after every one had gone—I know, because ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... its limit almost automatically with that of physical resistance. The eight-hour clause in this first factory law met with much less opposition in the Legislature than was anticipated, and was enforced for a year before it was pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Illinois. During the halcyon months when it was a law, a large and enthusiastic Eight-Hour Club of working women met at Hull-House, to read the literature on the subject and in every way to prepare themselves ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... factious spirit of the whigs, the extent to which they monopolised power, and the humiliating position to which they had reduced the crown, afford a measure of defence for his scheme of government. Yet it was in itself unconstitutional, for it would have made the ministers who were responsible to parliament mere agents of the king who was not personally responsible for his public acts. And it was not, nor indeed could it be, carried out except by adopting means ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... special act, to drain some wet lands near Chicago. In 1859 two special acts were passed for lands on the American bottoms. In 1865 a general act was passed. All these enactments were under the constitution of 1848 which was silent on drainage, and the courts annulled most of these as unconstitutional. In 1870 the new constitution was framed containing a brief provision on drainage. The late Mr. Browning, a leading member of that convention, drafted a drainage bill which was enacted into a law without change. Large enterprises were organized and got well started; but again ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... to govern themselves; that no Parliament is competent to make such laws for Ireland except an Irish Parliament, sitting in Dublin; and that the claim by other bodies of men to make laws for us to govern Ireland is illegal, unconstitutional, and at variance with the rights of ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... was only one individual who took any considerable lead in the management of the party who ventured to suggest the expediency of pausing before they pledged themselves to support an unconstitutional measure, proposed by a government against which they were arrayed under circumstances of urgent and unusual opposition. The support of an unconstitutional measure may be expedient, but it cannot be denied that it is the most indubitable evidence of confidence. This suggestion, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... Carolina. No such distinction in law has been able to stand the constitutional test of the United States courts as was evidenced by the decision of the Supreme Court in 1911 declaring the Alabama law unconstitutional.[13] But the planters of the South, still a law unto themselves, have maintained actual slavery in sequestered; districts where public opinion against peonage is too weak to support federal authorities in exterminating it.[14] The Negroes themselves dare not protest ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... Zenothemis were friends in days when both were men of wealth and rank. The property of Menecrates, however, was afterwards confiscated by the Six Hundred, and he himself disfranchised, on the ground that he had proposed an unconstitutional measure; this being the regular penalty in Massilia for such offences. The sentence was in itself a heavy blow to Menecrates, and it was aggravated by the sudden change from wealth to poverty and from honour to dishonour. ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... salaries. It was sent to the Legislative Council for concurrence, and was there at once rejected. The Council looked upon the mode adopted by the bill of granting a supply to His Majesty as unprecedented and unconstitutional, as an assumption of the prerogative of the Crown, as calculated to prescribe to the Crown the number and description of its servants, and as certain to make the Crown officers dependent on an elective body, whereby they might be made instrumental in overthrowing the Crown itself. Thus was ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... Dort and six other principal cities inserted their protest against the unconstitutional manner of carrying on the correspondence by their High Mightinesses with the Emperor, concerning the abolition of the barrier treaty and the dismantling of the barrier cities without consulting the Provinces about it; threatening to recall ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... results, and the conscience of a country, like the conscience of a man, may be too severely tried. If we whip Spain—the 'if,' of course, is a euphemism—we not only shall be tempted to do things that are unconstitutional, but we are more than liable to make a laughing- stock of the Monroe doctrine. For reasons I am not going into this beautiful summer morning, with fish waiting to be caught, we are liable to be landed in foreign ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... modes of raising and presenting constitutional questions, and have been composed of lawyers, almost, if not quite, exclusively. The opinions of the defendant, so far as I know, are the same as mine. He believes the act unconstitutional and unjust, and will give it no voluntary aid, but will not recommend or join in forcible violations of it. I am willing to say this, since we have got upon the subject, although it is ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... same time he had a naive horror of bolshevism and anything unconstitutional, and he watched the transformation of his "brave lads" into discontented and idle workmen with dismay and deep distress. He used sometimes to come around to my rooms and talk to me; he had the bewildered air of a ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... of the War Amendments to the Federal Constitution. But they proved to be strong States' Rights men and, therefore, strict constructionists. Those two, with the other States' Rights men already on the bench, constituted a majority of that tribunal. The result was that the court declared unconstitutional and void, not only the national civil rights act, but also the principal sections of the different enforcement acts which provided for the protection of individual citizens by the Federal Government against domestic violence. National citizenship had been ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... bloody contest, averted the intended massacre and the impending tyranny; but it was not astonishing that—so very, few years having elapsed since those tragical events—they should be inclined to scan severely the actions of the man who had already obtained by unconstitutional means the mastery of a most important city, and was supposed to harbour designs upon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "That's High Treason—that's Unconstitutional! Some one will hear you! Then there's another. You sell at a sacrifice to pay your debts. If we get in debt that's exactly what we won't do. A poor man goes broke, but a rich man goes bankrupt. Ever ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Orange Park school, the Association takes up a question which has arisen before, but has never been settled. Theoretically, in the United States all men, whether white or black, enjoy equal civil liberties; practically, in the South, they do not. If the law is found to be unconstitutional, that will go a long way in establishing ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... "progressive," they could cover their intentions in many ways. One method was by urging an amendment so radical that no honest progressive would consent to it, and then refusing to support the more moderate measure because it did not go far enough. Another was to inject some clause that was clearly unconstitutional, and insist upon its adoption, and refusing to vote for the bill without ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... States into line with national interests and national objects. The last and shrewdest turn of Southern politics is a recognition of the necessity of getting into Congress immediately, and at any price. The South will comply with any conditions but suffrage for the negro. It will swallow all the unconstitutional test oaths, repeal all the ordinances of Secession, repudiate the Rebel debt, promise to pay the debt incurred in conquering its people, pass all the constitutional amendments, if only it can have the negro left under its political control. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... present. That is what is the matter with me. The Spec. may go whistle. As for "C. Baxter, Esq.," who is he? "One Baxter, or Bagster, a secretary," I say to mine acquaintance, "is at present disquieting my leisure with certain illegal, uncharitable, unchristian, and unconstitutional documents called Business Letters: The affair is in the hands of the Police." Do you hear that, you evildoer? Sending business letters is surely a far more hateful and slimy degree of wickedness than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... infernal tories have done down there at Harrisburg? They have been and passed an outrageous, oppressive, barbarous, and unconstitutional law! A pretty idea, indeed, if a man can't put a debtor in jail for a less sum than ten dollars! How am I going to support my family, I should like to know, if this law is allowed to stand? I tell you, gentlemen, this law is unconstitutional, and you will see blood running ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... legal-tender decision, that the issue of greenbacks (inconvertible from 1862 to 1879) was constitutional during a time of war; but it was thought that the reissue of these notes since the war, when no war emergency could be pleaded, was unconstitutional. This view, however, was met by the unfortunate decision of the Supreme Court, delivered by Justice Gray, March, 1884, which announced the doctrine that the expediency of an issue of legal-tender paper money was to be determined solely ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... life-sentence gave me my status under this law which had not yet been written on the books. And it is because of my status of lifetimer that I am to be hanged for battery committed on the guard Thurston. It is clearly ex post facto, and, therefore, unconstitutional. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... too true," returned Williams, "that this court has of late stretched its originally unconstitutional powers, and has further provoked the unwarrantable licence of the times by trying to restrain it. The King's best friends allow that it has in many instances 'held that for honourable which pleased, and that for just which profited; and being the same persons ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the legislation enacted during the reconstruction period to stay the hands of the President is too fresh in the minds of the people to be told now. Much of it, no doubt, was unconstitutional; but it was hoped that the laws enacted would serve their purpose before the question of constitutionality could be submitted to the judiciary and a decision obtained. These laws did serve their purpose, and now remain "a dead letter" ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... (Sir Robert Peel's) motives. He would have supported Lord John in any measure which he should have thought fit to introduce, and many would have followed his example. He blamed the want of deference shown to the Queen, by not answering her call with more readiness; he said it was quite new and unconstitutional for a man to take a week before he undertook to form a Government, and to pass that time in discussion with other people, to whom the Sovereign had not yet committed the task; and he had been certain it would end so, when so many people were consulted. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... is just the same as if a boy, twenty-one years of age, would say, "Well, now, I have become of age, and I am wise, and I am going to write out a constitution to cover the rest of my life, and when I am forty I can't do anything that is unconstitutional." ...
— Industrial Conspiracies • Clarence S. Darrow
... fully believe the Supreme Court of the United States correctly laid down the law in the Dred Scott decision, declaring the 8th section of the act of 6th March, 1820, being the prohibition of slavery, to be unconstitutional and void, for the simple reason that it was the right of the people of those new States to make a constitution or laws for or against slavery as they saw fit, and not the right of the Congress, which has no power under its own Constitution to ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... formed an opinion that the law of the United States, known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, is Unconstitutional, so that you cannot indict a person under it for that reason, although the court holds the statute ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... dissolved. At the General Election, Lord John stood for Bedford, and, much to his chagrin, was defeated by a single vote. After the declaration of the poll in August, he crossed over to Paris, where he prolonged his stay till November. The unconstitutional ordinances of July 25, 1830, had brought about a revolution, and Lord John Russell, who was intimate with the chief statesman concerned, was wishful to study the crisis on the spot, and in the ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... more than that, Governor Lawler; it is discrimination without justification. We really have made unusual efforts to provide cars for the shipment of cattle. The bill you propose will conflict directly with the regulations of Federal Interstate Commerce. It will be unconstitutional." ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer |
