"Unconstitutional" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the court holden in February, 1819, the opinion of the judges was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, declaring the acts of the legislature unconstitutional and invalid, and reversing the judgment of the State Court. The court, with the exception of Mr. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration, Loyalists and Whigs. The Whigs held that the new policy was flat aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political life,—in a word, unconstitutional: the Loyalists maintained that the new policy was required to preserve the dependence on Great Britain, and therefore a necessity. The Whigs, zealous as they were for the local government, claimed to be loyal to the King: the Loyalists, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... been 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 family were to have ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... keeping persecution at bay; they failed in the third, but failed only after a struggle. The Protestants themselves had created, by their own misconduct, the difficulty of defending them; and armed unconstitutional resistance was an expedient to be resorted to, only when it had been seen how the clergy would conduct themselves. English statesmen may be pardoned if they did not anticipate the passions to which the guardians of orthodoxy were about to abandon themselves. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... 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 destroy the very foundations of civil and religious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the tariff is objected to by some as unconstitutional, and it is considered by almost all as defective in many of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Constitution of the United States, which, more than aught else, has made this Republic the flower of all preceding nations, is yearly becoming less and less regarded by the small men and narrow minds who interpret law and who, instead of showing how unconstitutional any law is which violates the great charter of right, yield to the present craze for Governmental Paternalism, paying no more heed to our Constitution than if it was the ukase of a Czar. In numerous instances ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... 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
... overwhelming majorities in both Houses, and everybody, even those most intimate with the President, confidently expected that he would willingly accept and sign it. But on the 19th of February he returned it with his veto, mainly on the assumed ground that it was unnecessary and unconstitutional, and also because it was passed by a Congress from which eleven States, those lately in rebellion, were excluded—thus throwing out a dark hint that before the admission of the late rebel States to representation this Congress might be considered constitutionally unable to make any ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... 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 despair, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... of writing. Florent, who was a good penman, set him copies in large hand and round hand on slips of paper. The words he chose were very long and took up the whole line, and he evinced a marked partiality for such expressions as "tyrannically," "liberticide," "unconstitutional," and "revolutionary." At times also he made the boy copy such sentences as these: "The day of justice will surely come"; "The suffering of the just man is the condemnation of the oppressor"; "When the hour strikes, the guilty shall fall." In preparing these copy slips he was, indeed, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... rabbled on their way to the House. At the close of December the angry pride of Williams induced ten of his fellow-bishops to declare themselves prevented from attendance in Parliament, and to protest against all acts done in their absence as null and void. Such a protest was utterly unconstitutional; and even on the part of the Peers who had been maintaining the bishops' rights it was met by the committal of the prelates who had signed it to the Tower. But the contest gave a powerful aid to the projects of the king. The courtiers declared openly that the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... of 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... borough-mongering wealth, and family interest, that ever dominated the unreformed Parliament. It was in the King's power to give the control of the House to whom he would—to Chatham, Grafton, Rockingham, or North. The one thoroughly unconstitutional use of the Royal influence, with which the King can fairly be charged, was employed to defeat the most unconstitutional and indefensible measure ever brought forward by a corrupt and unprincipled coalition—the India Bill, which endeavoured to secure for Fox and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... is always danger that law may be misinterpreted or prove unconstitutional. It is the function of the judicial department of government to make decisions, interpreting and applying the law of the nation in particular cases brought before the courts. The law of the nation is superior to all local or sectional law; so is the national judiciary supreme in its authority ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... and is no more deserving the harsh and bitter epithets which have been heaped upon it than that or any similar oath. It ought to be borne in mind that, according to the opinion which prevails in Carolina, the right of resistance to the unconstitutional acts of Congress belongs to the State, and not to her individual citizens; and that, though the latter may, in a mere question of *meum* and *tuum,* resist through the courts an unconstitutional encroachment upon their rights, yet the final stand against usurpation rests not with them, but ...
— Remarks of Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina on the bill to prevent the interference of certain federal officers in elections: delivered in the Senate of the United States February 22, 1839 • John C. Calhoun
... and other cities, the grand juries of Derry, Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, Limerick, Cork, and other counties, at once pronounced most strongly against the proposed Convention. They declared it "unconstitutional," "alarming," "most dangerous;" they denounced it as a copy of the National Assembly of France; they declared that they would "resist it to the utmost of their power;" they pledged "their lives and fortunes" to suppress it. The only answer of the Catholics was the legal ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... 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 ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... mandate from the people of this country, which he has never received"; and he categorically announced that "if you get the decision of the people we shall obey it." And if, as then appeared likely, the unconstitutional conduct of the Government should lead to bloodshed in Ireland, the responsibility, said Mr. Bonar Law, would be theirs, "because you preferred to face civil war rather than face ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... are, in theory and practice, absolutely omnipotent, I can't comprehend how there can be any other constitution. When they enact a law, nobody can question it, nobody can be heard against it; no court can pronounce it unconstitutional. What may have been thought to be unconstitutional they can declare to be law, and that ends it. So they can annihilate any one of the so-called constitutional maxims. When a party in power wants to do a thing, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the Indulgence and against unconstitutional power was firmly maintained by RICHARD CAMERON, during the whole of his public ministry, and in the noble testimony emitted by him shortly before his death. Soon after his return from Holland in ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... different states; that the states had delegated no control over slavery to the Federal Government, which alone had jurisdiction on the high seas, and that, therefore, slaves on the high seas became free and the coastwise trade was unconstitutional. The House, strongly pro-Southern, replied with a vote of censure and Giddings resigned, but he was immediately reelected by his ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... standpoint, received his attention. When the nullifiers assaulted the Union he stood by it; whenever anybody has undertaken to advocate the American "protection" system, he has invariably denounced it as unconstitutional, in this respect differing from another leading Democrat, General Butler. Mr. Tilden also stood by the removal of the deposits from the United States Banks, advocated the establishment of the Sub Treasury, and was the first to contend for free banking. He asserted the supervision of legislatures ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... "at the affectation of representing American independence as a novel idea, as a modern discovery, as a late invention. The idea of it as a possible thing, as a probable event, nay as a necessary and unavoidable measure, in case Great Britain should assume an unconstitutional authority over us, has been familiar to Americans from the first settlement of ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... inwardly thrown off the bonds of modern constitutional ideas and in words recently spoken, where he claimed responsibility for fifty-eight million people, converted these ideas into a formula that, while unconstitutional, is yet moral and deeply earnest. These words were doubly valuable as giving insight into the soul of a man who can be mistaken in his conclusions and means, but not in his motives, since these are directed to the general weal. Here, too, we find the explanation ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... comprised in the laws of 1845; that a law of 1867 granting the gardens of the archbishop's residence to the municipality of Santo Domingo for the establishment of a market and cockpit was repealed in 1871 as being a despoilment of the church and unconstitutional; and that when the mausoleum of Columbus was erected in the cathedral the committee in charge, presided over by the vice-president of the Republic, applied for permission to the authorities of the church. The dispute regarding the mausoleum of Archbishop Merino came ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... Children, there is a separate children's court with rooms attached, where the children for detention wait till they are brought in for trial. Brooklyn has also a children's court. In Pennsylvania, where the juvenile court was at first opposed as unconstitutional, the difficulty was met by first bringing the child before the magistrate in the police court, a course which (though followed by his transferring the case to the special court) perpetuated the very ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... overtures having been proudly spurned, and our beloved South having been threatened with invasion and subjugation, it seemed to me that nothing was left us but stern resistance, or abject submission, to unconstitutional power. A brave and generous people could not for a moment hesitate between such alternatives. A war in defense of our homes and firesides, of our wives and children, of all that makes life worth possessing, is the result. While I most deeply deplored the ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... of preserving peace for the present. What had happened in the meantime was that the war issue, which might never have become acute but for President's Wilson's action, had been used by the Japanese to revive the conflict between North and South, and to instigate the Chinese militarists to unconstitutional action. Sun Yat Sen and most of the Southern politicians were opposed to the declaration of war; Sun's reasons were made known in an open letter to Mr. Lloyd George on March 7th. They were thoroughly sound.[76] The Cabinet, on May 1st, decided in favour ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... 'attainder of treason to work forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted,' be necessarily applicable to the Confiscation Act, it seems to us impossible to avoid the conclusion that the act is unconstitutional. So far as the language of the prohibition is decisive of anything, it must be taken to include all sorts of property, real as well as personal—the term forfeiture certainly having that extent of application ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... the new state constitution of 1870 to include mandatory provisions directing the legislature to pass laws to prevent extortion and unjust discrimination in railway charges. One of the acts passed by the Legislature of 1871 in an attempt to carry out these instructions was declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court in January, 1873. This was the spark to the tinder. In the following April the farmers flocked to a convention at the state capital and so impressed the legislators that they passed more stringent and effective laws for the regulation of railroads. ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... divide portions of it among poor citizens. In spite of the bitter opposition of the nobility, these laws were passed (133). But Gracchus had been obliged to persuade the people to turn a tribune, who resisted their passage, out of office, which was an unconstitutional act. In order to carry out the laws, he would have to be re-elected tribune. But the optimates, led by the consul Scipio Nasica, had been still more infuriated by other proposals of Gracchus. They raised a mob, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... apprehended under the Sabbath law before a Justice. 3d, That as Constable he had no power to detain, and that he did not disclose his authority as Constable to arrest. And 4th, that the Sabbath law and its provisions are unconstitutional. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... too, that each of these legislative questions may give rise to many others connected with them, and that each one may be multiplied to infinity in the courts of justice. Thus, if protecting duties for the encouragement of manufactures are unconstitutional, the duty claimed on every bale of imported goods may be ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... 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
... palpable as to put the liberties of the people in jeopardy and to constrain the several States to interpose their authority to protect their citizens. The legislatures of the several States were advised to adopt measures to protect their citizens against such unconstitutional acts of Congress as conscription and to concert some arrangement with the Government at Washington, whereby they jointly or separately might undertake their own defense, and retain a reasonable share of the proceeds of Federal taxation for that purpose. To remedy the defects of the Constitution ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... the old epic conception of the ancient heroes altered. We can scarcely recognize the Odysseus of Homer in the Odysseus of Sophocles. The kings are regarded by the tragedians with some of the distrust and hatred which the unconstitutional tyrants of Athens had aroused. Just as the later chansons de geste of France, the poems written in an age of feudal opposition to central authority, degraded heroes like Charles, so rhetorical, republican, ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... more unconstitutional,' said the magistrate; 'this is even a greater breach of the peace, and a grosser infringement of his Majesty's prerogative. I believe duelling is one of his Majesty's most undoubted prerogatives, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... constituted authorities and commissaries of police. As it is as dangerous to inquire as to converse on this and other subjects, which the mysterious policy of our Government condemns to silence or oblivion, I have not yet been able to gather any more or better information concerning this league, or unconstitutional opposition to the executive power; but as I am intimate with one of the actors, should he have an opportunity, he will certainly write to me at full length, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... inhabitants had, after a 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Colonies. In 1765 she passed the Stamp Act which caused so much bad feeling that in less than a year she decided to repeal it, but new duties on paper, glass, tea, and other commodities were imposed instead. In the North, Massachusetts took the lead in opposing what the Colonists regarded as the unconstitutional acts of the Crown. The patriotic lawyer of Boston, James Otis, shook the Colony with his eloquence against the illegal encroachments and actual tyranny of the English. Other popular orators of equal eminence, John and Samuel Adams and Josiah Quincy, fanned ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... argument. You have the best of it there, and I 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 which would render them the lords ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... legislature, or of having men duly authorized by constitutional usage to do so. The revival of that personal government which had evoked so much political rancour, and brought governors into the arena of party strife before the rebellion, was the natural result of the obstinate and unconstitutional attitude assumed by Lord Metcalfe with respect to appointments to office ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... Roosevelt proposed that, as a health measure which would benefit alike the cigar-makers and the public, this evil practice be prohibited and that the police put a stop to it. His bill passed in 1884, but the next year the Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, because it deprived the tenement-house people of their liberty and would injure the owners of the tenements if they were not allowed to rent their property to these tenants. In its decision, the court indulged in nauseating ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... court circle of Washington as in the old world which still rules our fashions. But far worse than they, we have the criminal ostentation of a funeral for a Congressman, costing from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, which is simply an unconstitutional and shameful robbery of the people to imitate the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... from a complaint (plausible at least) of one right violated; and we can never be brought to imagine that the true remedy for such disorders consists in an attack on all other rights, and an attempt to drive the people either to unconstitutional submission or absolute despair." The gentlemen, merchants, freemen and inhabitants of the city of Worcester also addressed the king and besought him to adopt such measures as shall "seem most expedient for putting a stop to the further effusion of blood, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... man has made which abridge this right of equal opportunity are unconstitutional in the broad sense of being at variance with God's will. Applied to our Constitution, the vested right of the people to the equal opportunity to labor is higher than the right of the few to retain the fruits of the labor of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... feelings, by a desire to serve his friends, and by anxious tenderness for his children. But by the nation he was regarded as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate ambition; as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional manners; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret-service money, and of keeping down the people with the bayonet. Many ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had determined to appoint no Lord High Admiral or Board of Admiralty, and to keep the entire direction of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this arrangement, which would now be thought by men of all parties unconstitutional and pernicious in the highest degree, was then generally applauded even by people who were not inclined to see his conduct in a favourable light. How completely the relation in which the King stood to his Parliament and to his ministers ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... duties on goods 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 profitably in the home country. A protective tariff ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... burning railroad bridges behind him as he went, and on the following day, June 12, issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand State militia, and denouncing the Lincoln administration as "an unconstitutional military despotism." ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... 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, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... explained that the first minister and several of his colleagues had privately intimated to him their concurrence, but felt unable at the time to explain their altered attitude to the legislature. The next step involved proceedings still more unusual, if not actually unconstitutional: the address of the Legislative Council in reply to the speech from the throne contained a vigorous endorsement of union; and the lieutenant-governor accepted it, without consulting his advisers, and in language which left them no recourse but to resign. A ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... of Parliament and the freedom of the press. During 1765 he seems to have been totally incapacitated for public business. In the following year he supported with great power the proposal of the Rockingham administration for the repeal of the American Stamp Act, arguing that it was unconstitutional to impose taxes upon the colonies. He thus endorsed the contention of the colonists on the ground of principle, while the majority of those who acted with him contented themselves with resisting the disastrous taxation scheme on the ground ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... and cloaked with the deepest hypocrisy. I have been endeavoring for years to conciliate, or rather, reform them by kindness, but hitherto without effect; whether I shall ultimately succeed in purifying this fountain-head of bigotry and unconstitutional principle—I do not wish to use a shorter, but a much stronger term—I cannot yet say. I shall, at all events, from a sense of justice to you, my Lord, and of kindness—mistaken it may be, I grant you—to them, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... first, toleration; and, secondly, perfect religious equality, and intended, as many thought, the destruction of that equality, by substituting a Roman Catholic for a Protestant supremacy; and the means he used for this purpose were such as the English Parliament had pronounced unconstitutional. He impeached the corporate charters by quo warranto, brought to trial before judges whom he influenced, as all his predecessors had done. He invaded the customs of the universities, as having a legal right to do so. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... 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 wrecking of the home ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... their methods of dealing with municipal as well as school legislation, that only a study of the laws of each State will reveal the situation. In Ohio, in 1895, for instance, the Legislature passed a bill enabling women to vote on a municipal tax-levy, which the courts held was unconstitutional, while they granted votes on license and other ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... superior to that of the more servile bhearers, was a fair type of the pure Hindoo manners of that well-bred middle class which clings with orthodox conservatism to its dear traditions, and spurns as unconstitutional all upstart and dandy amendments of the old social and religious law. He had invariably one salutation for an equal,—the right hand gently raised, and the head as gently inclined to meet it; another, for what I may term a familiar superior (such as myself),—the hands joined ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... expressed upon the leading subjects of legislation; and if—which I do not anticipate—any act should pass the two Houses of Congress which should appear to me unconstitutional, or an encroachment on the just powers of other departments, or with provisions hastily adopted and likely to produce consequences injurious and unforeseen, I should not shrink from the duty of returning it to you, with my reasons, for your further consideration. Beyond the due performance of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... bill; he fought for it and it passed. Then he appeared before Governor Cleveland to argue for it on behalf of the Cigar-Makers' Union. The Governor hesitated, but finally signed it. The Court of Appeals declared it unconstitutional, in a smug and well-fed decision, which spoke unctuously of the "hallowed" influences of the "home." It was a wicked decision, because it was purely academic, and was removed as far as the fixed stars from the actual facts of life. But it had one ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... decided in December, 1870, by the second 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 by Congress; and that, if Congress judged ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... popular candidate for the presidency 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, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... 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 ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... 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
... President's emancipatory proclamation had recently issued, and seemed to adapt itself, with wonderful elasticity, to the discontents of all parties; not comprehensive enough for the ultra-Abolitionists, it was stigmatized by the Democrats as unconstitutional and oppressive; while moderate politicians agreed that, beyond irritating feelings already bitter enough, it would be practically invalid as an offensive measure. We shall see, hereafter, how these ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... subsidizing of private organizations does not some day prove a great drawback to the proper development of the public school system, unless it may be, that the courts will declare the practice illegal and unconstitutional. ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... was enacted in New York State a few years ago: an act for the medical examination of the women. It was declared unconstitutional because of one word. It should have read, "the judge may"; instead, it read, "the judge must." Far more difficult to deal with is the opposition of the people who believe that the moral sense of the community would be jeopardized by ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... ratified and highly approved the sale, as before quoted by the Times, and again still more decidedly in 1841. And yet the State, on the technical grounds stated by Mr. Davis, repudiated their bonds. It was unconstitutional to return the money which they had borrowed and used! Could anything be more absurd or dishonorable than this? The law says, if a man borrows money without certain legal authentications, he shall not be forced to repay; but if he receives ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for the recognition of the constitutional inviolability of the slave system were just. After the war began he still advocated peace at any price, and vehemently opposed every effort to subdue the rebellion. To his mind the war was absolutely unconstitutional on the part of the national government, and he denounced it as tyranny and usurpation. His theory seemed to be that if the South were "let alone," a reconstruction of the Union could be satisfactorily effected by squelching ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Marquis of 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
... has power to grant the Municipal Franchise to women. Kansas is the only one, however, which has given such a vote. A bill for this purpose passed the Legislature of Michigan, after years of effort on the part of women, and was at once declared unconstitutional by its Supreme Court. Similar bills have been defeated in many Legislatures on the ground of unconstitutionality. It is claimed generally that they may bestow School Suffrage and this has been granted in over half the States, but frequently it is vetoed by the Governor as unconstitutional, as has ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Van Buren organized the war against the United States Bank. General Jackson was opposed to this institution before he became President, and it was not a difficult task to impress upon his mind that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly, which defied the legislative acts of sovereign States, which was suborning the leading newspapers and public men of the country, and which was using every means that wealth, political chicanery, and legal cunning could devise to perpetuate its existence. All this the honest ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... before us, that of all the Cabinet ministers the Duc de Gramont alone was summoned; whether he learnt subsequently who were also present, and what share they took in promoting the decision, he leaves his readers to guess. It is clear that the proceeding was irregular and totally unconstitutional, and other French writers hint that Gramont's silence is intended to shield une personne auguste from responsibility for a decision that was fatally wrong. When the Council broke up at 7 P. M. (July 12) Gramont immediately despatched from the Foreign Office his famous ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the Constitution authorised a tariff for revenue but not a tariff for a protective purpose. Every State, Calhoun declared, must have the Constitutional right to protect itself against an Act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional. Let such a State, in special Convention, "nullify" the Act of Congress. Let Congress then, unless it compromised the matter, submit its Act to the people in the form of an Amendment to the Constitution. It would then require a three-fourths majority of all the States to pass the obnoxious ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... open to the king-emperor to hold in terrorem over them an appeal to the disfranchised majority. It was the introduction of a Universal Suffrage Bill by Mr Joseph Kristoffy, minister of the interior in the "unconstitutional" cabinet of Baron Fejervary, which brought the Opposition leaders in the Hungarian parliament to terms and made possible the agreement of 1907. But the Wekerle ministry which succeeded that of Fejervary on the 9th of April 1906 contained ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... 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
... was demonstrated to him that his law would wholly destroy the liberty of the press. By holding the charter before his eyes, the advocates of public rights proved that the charter only declared that the licence of the press was to be restrained, and that his bill was therefore radically unconstitutional, because the preliminary censorship was not intended to restrain abuses, but to prevent their taking place. Montesquiou answered gravely, that the persons with whom such objections originated did not understand French; that the words "prevenir" and "reprimer" were perfectly synonymous: and ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... complain of the conduct of him who has indeed the right of recommending to mercy, but whose privilege, as a Privy Councillor, of advising the confirmation of his own condemnations, and of interposing between the victims of legal vengeance and the justice of the throne, is spurious and unconstitutional. When it is considered that my intention of going to the House of Commons was announced on the day on which my absence from the prison was discovered; I say, when it is considered that, as soon as it was known that I had left the prison, it was also known that I had left it for the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... 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 ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... lawyer—"I want you to show that this law is unconstitutional. Do you think that you ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... with Spain is the worst of these. No war finishes without far- reaching 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 waters with all Europe as our enemy and our second-rate statesmen at home pleading for ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... 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 ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... one tax, ma'am, that ever I voted for against my conscience, for I've always been very particular about that; but that is the bacheldor's tax, and that I hold to be very unconstitutional, and I am very sorry I voted for it, because it's very unfair; for how can a man help being a bacheldor, if nobody will have him? and besides, it's not any fault to be taxed for, because We did not make ourselves bacheldors, for we were made so by God, for nobody ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... season than wit. The same observer who conveyed to him this warning thinks that, if Brandeis had himself visited the districts and inquired into complaints, the blow might yet have been averted and the government saved. At last, upon a certain unconstitutional act of Tamasese, the discontent took life and fire. The act was of his own conception; the dull dog was ambitious. Brandeis declares he would not be dissuaded; perhaps his adviser did not seriously try, perhaps did not dream that in that welter of contradictions, the Samoan ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... justice, can grab hold of his money behind his back, as they certified away his wits behind his back, and can administer it in the dark, and embezzle it, chanting "But for us the 'dear deranged' would waste it." Nor do the monstrous enactments which confer this unconstitutional power on subjects, and shield its exercise from the light and safeguard of Publicity, affix any penalty to the abuse of that power, if by one chance in a thousand detected. In Lunacy Law extremes of intellect ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... alike by minorities and majorities, the Executive has been wisely invested with a qualified veto upon the acts of the Legislature. It is a negative power, and is conservative in its character. It arrests for the time hasty, inconsiderate, or unconstitutional legislation, invites reconsideration, and transfers questions at issue between the legislative and executive departments to the tribunal of the people. Like all other powers, it is subject to be abused. When judiciously and properly exercised, the Constitution ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... embodied in concrete form the apprehensions of the country at large, whose inhabitants had now become firmly convinced that King George, in granting the Quebec Bill, had become a traitor, had broken his coronation oath, was a Papist at heart, and was scheming to submit this country to the unconstitutional power of the English monarch. It was not so much a contest between peoples as a conflict of principles, political and religious, the latter of which contributed the active force that brought on the revolt and gave ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... for not lecturing, and it did so with such insistency that the Prior of the Augustinian monastery in Salamanca felt compelled to lodge a protest against this action, which, it was contended, was unconstitutional. This protest was set aside on March 9, 1590, and two professors—one of whom was the Jeromite Zumel—were appointed to defend the position taken up by the University of Salamanca.[246] It is impossible to deny that the behaviour of the ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... naturally full of the recent debate in the Senate on the alleged unconstitutional indiscretions of our Imperial Master. (H.I.M., I should add, is at present on a lecturing tour in the Peloponnesus; statements in the Custos Burdigalensis to the effect that He is giving a series of ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... 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 ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... there 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 ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... a point, strain a point; usurp, violate, do violence to. disfranchise, disentitle, disqualify; invalidate. relax &c (be lax) 738; misbehave &c (vice) 945; misbecome^. Adj. undue; unlawful &c (illegal) 964; unconstitutional; illicit; unauthorized, unwarranted, disallowed, unallowed^, unsanctioned, unjustified; unentitled^, disentitled, unqualified, disqualified; unprivileged, unchartered. illegitimate, bastard, spurious, supposititious, false; usurped. tortious [Law]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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 trying for ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... rising to his feet) That girl has money of her own. (Aloud) Virginie, in these days, credit is the sole wealth of the government. My tradespeople misunderstand the laws of their country, they will show themselves unconstitutional and utter radicals, unless they leave me alone.— Don't you trouble your head about people who raise an insurrection against the vital principles of all rightly constituted states! What you have got to attend to, is dinner,—that is your duty, and I hope ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... construction 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. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... Jefferson and Madison. He was a moderate protectionist, because he believed that domestic manufactures would make the United States independent of European countries in time of war. On the Bank and internal improvements his mind was not made up, although he was inclined to regard both as unconstitutional. ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... be found, instead of performing their appropriate duties, besieging the halls of Congress for the purpose of obtaining special favors and choice places by legislative enactment. Under these circumstances I have deemed it but fair to inform Congress that whilst I do not consider the bill unconstitutional, this is only because, in my opinion, Congress did not intend by the language which they have employed to interfere with my absolute authority to order Captain Meigs to any other service I might deem expedient. My perfect right still remains, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... absolutely uncontrolled. Theoretically it is omnicompetent; parliament—or, to use more technical phraseology, the Crown in Parliament—can make anything law that it chooses; and no one has a legal right to resist, or authority to pronounce what parliament has done to be unconstitutional. No Act of Parliament can be illegal or unconstitutional, because there are no fundamental laws and no written constitution in this country; and when people loosely speak of an Act being unconstitutional, all that they mean ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... 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 of the laws of Congress within the State may be resisted. If we suppose the case of such conflicting legislation sustained by the corresponding executive and judicial ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... log cabins, but no war record. Lincoln was never in any war but the Black Hawk. He was against the Mexican War; and when in Congress voted for resolutions that the war was unconstitutional and improper. No, he is not old Harrison or old Zach Taylor. Still the log cabin is ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... the Senate, and Butler, George F. and E. Rockwood Hoar, Lyman Tremaine, Garfield and Wilson in the House. Senator Carpenter was the only Republican lawyer of any note that took a different view of the matter. While he believed the whole bill was unconstitutional, the section prohibiting race discrimination in the selection of jurors in State courts he believed to be especially obnoxious to the constitution. He declared that if that section could stand the test of a judicial decision all the others could and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... choice of landed men: and of this qualification the member must make oath, and give in the particulars in writing, at the time of his taking his seat. But, subject to these restrictions and disqualifications, every subject of the realm is eligible of common right. It was therefore an unconstitutional prohibition, which was inserted in the king's writs, for the parliament holden at Coventry, 6 Hen. IV, that no apprentice or other man of the law should be elected a knight of the shire therein[f]: in return for which, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... took command of one of the first steamboats launched, at a salary of one thousand dollars a year. Livingston and Fulton had acquired the sole right to navigate New York waters by steam, but Vanderbilt thought the law unconstitutional, and defied it until it was repealed. He soon became a steamboat owner. When the government was paying a large subsidy for carrying the European mails, he offered to carry them free and give better service. His offer was accepted, and in this way he soon built up an enormous freight ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Connecticut to enforce the Sunday laws. His death was caused by his exertions in resisting the removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, a removal accomplished in violation of the Constitution and of public faith. The Supreme Court of the United States declared the law of Georgia unconstitutional. But Georgia defied the mandate of the Court, and it was never executed. The missionary agent was imprisoned and died of his confinement. Mr. Evarts said, "There is a court that has power to execute ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... City of London earned the honourable distinction of being the only body of men in the realm who dared to resist the king's systematic abuse of the royal power. Henry had revived the unconstitutional practice of imposing taxes without the consent of the Commons; but the citizens opposed his illegal demands with such resolution that he was compelled to desist for the time and to proceed with greater caution for the future. Another distinguishing feature ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... 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
... government finally fell today and there is talk of a coalition of national unity, with the Queen herself assuming extraordinary powers. There was general agreement that this would be quite unconstitutional, but that won't prevent ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection." But when Webster and a few Northern leaders objected to such a proceeding as unconstitutional and in derogation of the freedom of the press, the South treated the objection as inimical to Southern interest and security. Thereupon the Southern excitement increased all the faster. The slave-power was not disposed to accept anything short of complete submission on ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... bringing the suit to select the exceptional instead of the average worker I do not know; of course such action was precisely the action which those most interested in having the law broken down were anxious to see taken. The Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional, and in their decision the judges reprobated the law as an assault upon the "hallowed" influences of "home." It was this case which first waked me to a dim and partial understanding of the fact that the courts were not necessarily the best judges of what should be done ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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 support of religious institutions. This once established ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... call witnesses of his own choosing, and after all a medical expert is only a witness who gives opinions instead of facts. Still, a law which authorizes the court to call truly impartial experts would not seem to be 'unconstitutional.' It is certainly not unfair or unreasonable from ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... their serious plight, let them recall the position of Mr. Jefferson, who originally declared that the purchase of foreign territory would make waste paper of the Constitution, and subsequently appealed to Congress for the money to pay for his purchase of Louisiana. When he held such an acquisition unconstitutional, he had not thought he would ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... ourselves with far more self-esteem and applause. And then, sir, only consider how such conduct will gild the future scenes of life. This unfortunate quarrel betwixt us and our countrymen, the tories, is not to last forever. It was only the act of a wicked ministry, attempting, by an unconstitutional tax to enslave an affectionate part of the nation. God can never suffer such an attempt to prosper. It must be but a momentary quarrel; and we ought to accustom ourselves to think of it as such, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... and 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 Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... Supreme Court. Here, in an opinion prepared by Justice Story, the Pennsylvania statute under which the magistrate had acted, providing a mode for the return of fugitives by state authorities, was declared unconstitutional on the ground that only Congress could legislate on the subject; but it was added that while a free State had no right in any way to block the capture of a runaway, as for example by ordering a jury trial to determine whether a seized person had really been ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... The private meetings have related to the use of legal defences and 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, ...
— 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
... notes are received for duties at the port of New York, they should be received for the same purpose in all other ports of the United States, or an unconstitutional preference would be given to that port over other ports. If this privilege is denied to the citizens of other ports, they could make such use of these notes only by transporting them to New York and transporting the coin to their homes for payment; and all this not ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... was drawn up condemning the unconstitutional acts of James II, and offering to settle the crown on William and Mary and their children, with remainders over. On the 13th February this offer was accepted,(1649) and the prince and princess were forthwith ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... Liberator, it is the Great Leveler also. It is the most powerful of the forces for democracy. An aristocracy can hardly be maintained except by distinction in dress, and distinction in dress can only be maintained by sumptuary laws or costliness. Sumptuary laws are unconstitutional in this country, hence the stress laid upon costliness. But machinery tends to bring styles and fabrics within the reach of all. The shopgirl is almost as well dressed on the street as her rich customer. The man who buys ready-made clothing is only a few weeks behind the vanguard of the fashion. ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... constitution? Why, it 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
... never reconcile myself to the bill I send you, which is expressly provided to remove all inconveniences from the establishment of a mode of trial which has ever appeared to me most unjust and most unconstitutional. Far from removing the difficulties which impede the execution of so mischievous a project, I would heap new difficulties upon it, if it were in my power. All the ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England are so many clogs to check ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... expressed the "highest and most becoming resentment," and promptly voted twenty thousand pounds; but on the third reading of the bill they added to it a rider which touched the old question of the pistole fee, and which, in the view of the Governor, was both unconstitutional and offensive. He remonstrated in vain; the stubborn republicans would not yield, nor would he; and again he prorogued them. This unexpected defeat depressed him greatly. "A governor," he wrote, "is ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... very day on which he had abruptly left the place, a handbill, signed "Haverill Dashmore, Captain R. N., Baker Street, Portman Square," announced, in very spirited language, the intention of that gentleman "to emancipate the borough from the unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical faction, not with a view to his own political aggrandizement,—indeed at great personal inconvenience,—but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny, and patriotic passion for the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been greatly excited by the political campaign which began about the third month after his arrival in Clarendon. An ambitious politician in a neighbouring State had led a successful campaign on the issue of Negro disfranchisement. Plainly unconstitutional, it was declared to be as plainly necessary for the preservation of the white race and white civilisation. The example had proved contagious, and Fetters and his crowd, who dominated their State, had raised the issue there. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... maledicti, is one going through all humanity; antediluvian in Cain and Abel, diluvian in Ham and Shem. And the question for the public of any given period is not whether they are a constitutional or unconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are a benignant or malignant vulgus. So also, whether it is indeed the gods who have given any gentleman the grace to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether it is indeed the rabble, or he, who are ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 Prime Minister of ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... is unconstitutional and an invader o' privileges. As to the comfort, as an old coachman I may say it,—vere's the comfort o' sittin' in a harm-chair a lookin' at brick walls, and heaps o' mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o' ale, never goin' through a pike, never meetin' a change ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... were said to have only "conquered by giving way," for they agreed to put the number of men into the Estimate, and thus avoid making a precedent, according to our contention, absolutely unconstitutional. On the other hand, Lord Beaconsfield's speech in the House of Lords was defiant in the extreme, and Holker's [Footnote: The Attorney-General.] in the Lower House was an assertion of higher prerogative doctrine than had been heard in Parliament ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... measures against domestic danger, as embodied in his "alien and sedition laws," were unfortunate. They were in fact an infringement of the rights of free speech and personal liberty, and were with justice denounced as unconstitutional and un-American. His departure from the American Bill of Rights among other things effectually prevented his re-election as President. His wisest closing act was the appointment of John Marshall to the Chief Justiceship ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... to stifle our understanding in such matters. We are trying to get clearly in 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 ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... 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 to the sovereignty of the state—not, indeed, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The details of the division were never disclosed, when the proportions were originally fixed. The segregation of the services classified as "Imperial" is open to serious objections. The method of computation is empirical and unconstitutional, and if carried to its logical conclusion would now result in depriving Ireland of any share whatever in future Equivalent grants, as her contribution to the services thus classified as "Imperial" is practically a minus quantity, though the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various |
