American Constitutional Law, Volume 2

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Little, Brown,, 1889 - Constitutional law - 1400 pages

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Page 1317 - States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses — to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half year to the respective states an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted, — to build and equip a navy — to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each state for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such state...
Page 1318 - All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts contracted by or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present Confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged.
Page 770 - A person has no property, no vested interest, in any rule of the common law. That is only one of the forms of municipal law, and is no more sacred than any other. Rights of property, which have been created by the common law, cannot be taken away without due process ; but the law itself, as a rule of conduct, may be changed at the will or even at the whim of the Legislature, unless prevented by constitutional limitations. Indeed, the great office of statutes is to remedy defects in the common law...
Page 750 - That no man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.
Page 1320 - States, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives. Section 2. — 1. The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year, by the people of the several states ; and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.
Page 766 - They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation; which embraces everything within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the general government; all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves.
Page 753 - By the law of the land, is most clearly intended, the general law; a law, which hears before it condemns; which proceeds upon inquiry, and renders judgment only after trial.
Page 779 - The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
Page 1309 - That every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes, by force of the term, a right to employ all the means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power, and which are not precluded by restrictions and exceptions specified in the Constitution, or not immoral, or not contrary to the essential ends of political society.
Page 752 - We know of no case, in which a legislative act to transfer the property of A to B, without his consent, has ever been held a constitutional exercise of legislative power in any State in the Union. On the contrary, it has been constantly resisted as inconsistent with just principles, by every judicial tribunal in which it has been attempted to be enforced.

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