"Legislate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me, absurd and impatient legislation on the subject of building. By some of its provisions a certain description of cellar in that town will be thrown out of occupation on a given day. Now, where are the inhabitants of these cellars to go to? You might as well legislate that no food except of a certain quality should be sold; but it does not seem likely that this would secure the maintenance of the population so legislated upon. Inconsiderate measures of this kind occasionally put even ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... I must be careful how I attempt to legislate for that country, or I shall have two tame elephants sent after me by the man what puts ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... way through the rich, balsam-scented twilight of the woods, where one joy-haunted thrush was still singing: "You know that in America the law is careful not to meddle with a man's private affairs, and we don't attempt to legislate personal virtue." ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... back as her own. Her original history is also our original history; and if, since the moment of separation, she has gone ahead of us in some respects, it may be said, without violating truth, that we have kept up in others, and, in others again, are ahead ourselves. We are to legislate, then, with regard to the present actual state of society; and our own experience shows us, that, commencing manufactures at the present highly enlightened and emulous moment, we need not resort to the clumsy helps with which, in less auspicious times, governments have sought to enable ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule, that the will of the majority shall govern, to the settlement of the question of domestic slavery in the Territories. Congress is neither "to legislate slavery into any Territory or State nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... chiefly for legislative purposes, that is, authoritatively to explain the church's creed and enact canons to regulate the administration of discipline, but frequently and at short stated intervals to review the proceedings of the inferior judicatories of the church, as well as to legislate regarding matters of doctrine and discipline. Whether its peculiar vitality in the Scottish Church is to be ascribed to its popular constitution, or to the fact that it has in general faithfully represented the national sentiments in those controversies which in ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... not, Eusebius, have all their wrongs righted—so lovely is the moral beauty of their wonderful patience in enduring them. What—if they were in a condition to legislate and impose upon us some of their burdens, or divide them with us? What man of your acquaintance could turn dry-nurse—tend even his own babes twelve hours out of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... fall of the Derby administration in England, ended the opposition from that source to the Canadian demands. But Hincks, who had firmly vindicated the right of the Canadian parliament to legislate on the matter, now hesitated to use the power placed in his hands, and declared that legislation should be deferred until a new parliament had been chosen. The result was that the work of framing the measure of ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... soon legislate again on the hastily organized Bureau, which had so quickly grown into wide significance and vast possibilities. An institution such as that was well-nigh as difficult to end as to begin. Early in ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the government of the country were enacted in Spain, and the officers for their execution were appointed by the Crown, and sent out to the New El Dorado. The Mexicans had been brought up ignorant of how to legislate or how to rule. When they gained their independence, after many years of war, it was the most natural thing in the world that they should adopt as their own the laws then in existence. The only change ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... to legislate for our newly-acquired territory, it is doubted whether the Louisianians can be received into the Union without an amendment to the Constitution. Consider of this. Again, are they citizens of the United States, or can Congress make them such? A bill establishing a form of government ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... her rule at home, as well as in her policy towards her colonies, pressing upon her colonial possessions practical independence. She demands that they shall be so far free as to legislate for themselves, and pay their own expenses. England is now gathering together her representatives from Africa, and proposes under her benign sway to form a republican government for long-despised ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... line; I must leave that sort of wofsmithing to the romantic novelist. Besides, I have my well-known panacea for all the ills our state is heir to, in a civilization which shall legislate foolish and vicious and ugly and adulterate things out of the possibility of existence. Most of the adsmithing is now employed in persuading people that such things are useful, beautiful, and pure. But in any civilization they shall not even be suffered to be made, much less ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ancient way, were also reduced, and new fortresses and garrisons bridled the fighting clans of the west. With Cromwell as protector in 1654, Free Trade with England was offered to the Scots with reduced taxation: an attempt to legislate for the Union failed. In 1655-1656 a Council of State and a Commission of Justice included two or three Scottish members, and burghs were allowed to elect magistrates who would swear loyalty to Cromwell. Cromwell died on the day of his fortunate star (September ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... a prenuptial examination were made compulsory there is no doubt of the very prompt and salutory effect it would have on present-day vice. It has often been said that "You cannot legislate virtue or sobriety into a people." We are familiar too with the maxim that "You can lead a horse to the well, but you cannot make him drink." You can lead a horse to the well, however, and lo! he drinks. If you ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... sufficient to insure their independency;" to be liberally paid for their services, and to be subject to restrictions similar to those of the first. Fifthly, To have each branch invested with power to originate acts; to give the national legislature the right to legislate in all cases where the state governments might be incompetent, or in which the harmony of the confederation might be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation; to negative all laws passed by the individual states that might contravene the articles of union; and to call forth ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... merchants praying for a repeal of the stamp tax. To enforce the act without bloodshed was impossible. In March, 1766, therefore, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. [9] But at the same time it enacted another, known as the Declaratory Act, in which it declared that it had power to "legislate for the colonies in all ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... when the will is weakened through the use of liquor. Those who have the welfare of the race at heart are therefore compelled to give considerable thought to this subject. According to past experience, it will not help to try to legislate sobriety into the people. Education and industrialism are the factors which it seems to me will be most potent in solving the alcohol problem. Morality, which in the last analysis is a form of selfishness, ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... principle of law that Congress has exclusive right and power to legislate on the subjects specially assigned to it by the Constitution, while power is delegated to the several States to legislate on those subjects not thus expressly placed within the control of Congress. It would seem clear that ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... on Incorporations, to whom was referred House bill number 302, entitled "An act to incorporate the Pingsquit Railroad," having considered the same, report the same with the following resolution: 'Resolved, that it is inexpedient to legislate. Brush Bascom, for the Committee.' Gentlemen, are you ready for the question? As many as are of opinion that the report of the Committee should be adopted—the gentleman from Putnam, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... them, were extremely queer. The prominent statesmen they talked of most were Fox, Pitt, Lord John Russell, Palmerston, Peel, Gladstone and Disraeli; and apart from the fault they had to find with the latter as a statesman, they believed him to be unwilling to legislate in their interests, though even they didn't appear to have the ghost of an idea as to how those interests were to be legislatively served. They knew there was something the matter, that was all. They also had a strong antipathy to Disraeli owing ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... treachery's dye, And every letter crusted with a lie. Alas! no treason has degraded yet The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet; A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge, Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge; While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame! Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... an embodiment of ancestral injunctions. The living ruler able to legislate only in respect of matters unprovided for, is bound by the transmitted command of the unknown and the known who have passed away. Hence the trait common to societies in early stages that the prescribed rules of conduct, of whatever ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... his power against it. But this was the description of all others which recommended it to the Irish race—for it was, in truth, the only policy which could compel British statesmen to give ear to the wretched story of Ireland's grievances and to legislate in regard to them. It is sad to have to write it of Butt, as of so many other Irish leaders, that he died of a broken heart. Those who would labour for "Dark Rosaleen" have a rough and thorny road to travel, and they are happy if the end of their journey is not to be found ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... superstitions that hold a great part of the people in a degrading bondage. Our need is of statesmen who are bold enough and strong enough to cast off the restraints of party, of imbecile fears, of words that answer to no reality, and legislate with honest zeal for the general good. How many men are there in Parliament who represent anything more respectable than the interest of a trade, or a faction, or their ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... and importing merchandise of every description free of duty. [13] These and similar laws show that the government, far from regarding the colonies merely as a foreign acquisition to be sacrificed to the interests of the mother country, as at a later period, was disposed to legislate for them on more generous principles, as an integral ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... colonial legislatures; and county councils, borough councils, district councils, and parish councils share with it in various degrees the task of legislating for the country. They can, of course, only legislate, as they can only administer, within the limits imposed by Act of Parliament; but their development, like the multiplication of central administrative departments, indicates the latest, but not the final, stages in the growth ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... him—not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the admired wisdom of the nation that set him to legislate over us. When Lord Farintosh walked the streets at night, he felt himself like Haroun Alraschid—(that is, he would have felt so had he ever heard of the Arabian potentate)—a monarch in disguise affably observing ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said, the error is merely one of language; the jurisdiction being clearly legal. Is this true? Can Congress, legally or constitutionally, legislate for American citizens, when undeniably within the jurisdiction of foreign states? Admit this as a principle, and what is to prevent Congress from punishing acts, that it may be the policy of foreign countries to exact from even casual residents. If Congress can punish me, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... what is just and righteous, Socrates, God forbid! for scarcely could any other legislate aright, of not ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... expenditure on soldiers and ships; reduce our overweening army of diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain from meddling in everybody's quarrels; redeem from taxation the workman's necessaries—a free breakfast-table; peremptorily legislate against the custom of primogeniture; encourage the distribution and transfer of land; and, under the aegis of the ballot, protect from the tyranny of the landlord and ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... or of the new stock, form a band called the court, 'The court!" exclaims D'Argenson. "The entire evil is found in this word, The court has become the senate of the nation; the least of the valets at Versailles is a senator; chambermaids take part in the government, if not to legislate, at least to impede laws and regulations; and by dint of hindrance there are no longer either laws, or rules, or law-makers. . . . Under Henry IV courtiers remained each one at home; they had not entered into ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... into the adoption of extreme measures. They are already preparing to retrace their steps, and for several reasons. They are discovering that they have been fighting a bugbear; also, that their legislation against the bugbear cannot legislate. Also, that money stays away from radical communities, that many possible advantages are lost; that combinations properly controlled have, within themselves, the capabilities of accomplishing much good. Despite the threatened damage ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... again on May 3rd, I noted that Sir William was "wrongheaded about the right of asylum," but that I hoped he would not be allowed by his colleagues to offer to legislate on extradition ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... to qualify Calcutta local associations with other local associations. This plan will be attended of course with some trouble and expense. I intend to make some inquiries to ascertain what the latter is likely to be. I do not see why we should not legislate in camp, if there be difficulty in providing house accommodation.... I should like, if possible, to hit upon a plan which would give us a sufficient range in choosing and varying our places of meeting. More ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... existence. Let us do the wise thing—go not so much to the prayer meetings, but to the legislatures, get bills passed, laws made that will drive out the false and disastrous conditions now obtaining; legislate so that it will no longer be possible for people to drink themselves drunk, steep themselves in drugs, smoke themselves yellow with tobacco, yield to the fascination of gambling in any form. Let society be cleaned from these evils and the result will be certain. A generation that shall ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... any which, however they might be in spirit more rigidly conformable to his precepts, were found in their working not to succeed. And here I cannot help observing, that the heads of the Church of England appear not to have duly weighed this matter, when an attempt was lately made to legislate upon it. Do the English bishops mean to assert, that they know better than the heads of all the other Protestant communities in the world—that they are more accurate expounders of the gospel, and have a more intimate knowledge of God's will? Did it never ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting ...
— The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America • Thomas Jefferson
... to show the singular manner of legislating in those times.* Not, but that it was necessary thus to legislate, as it was certainly better to have some kind of civil government than none. The raising of two regiments of cavalry was suggested by Gen. Greene, and highly approved both by the governor and Marion, and it certainly promised well at first. Col. Hezekiah Maham, who had been ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... six and one-half millions of Catholics in Filipinas, besides those who are not Catholics (one and one-half millions, counting idolaters and Moros yet to be civilized), not to permit or encourage freedom of worship, the government which rules the destiny of these islands ought to legislate along those lines, since the laws ought to be adjusted to the needs of the majority of their inhabitants. The Americans themselves who shall take up their residence here ought to accommodate themselves to that law. No temporal ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... law are not completed in the foregoing description. The bill having reduced potash prices, the mine owners threatened to recoup themselves by reducing wages. But the members of the Reichstag were not to be balked by such threats; they could legislate about wages just as easily as about prices and allotments. So they amended the bill by providing that if any owner should reduce wages without the consent of his employees, his allotment should be restricted ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... ascertain the images called up by the terms "the people," "the masses," "the proletariat," "the peasantry," by many who theorize on those bodies with eloquence, or who legislate without eloquence, we should find that they indicate almost as small an amount of concrete knowledge—that they are as far from completely representing the complex facts summed up in the collective term, as the railway images of our non-locomotive ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... the sober habits of observation and the positive acquirements that must give him the stamina to attempt the higher flights of thought. The eagle's wings are nothing without his pectoral muscles. It is not Swedenborg and his disciples that legislate for the scientific world; they may suggest truth, but they rarely prove it, and never bring it into such systematic forms as narrow-minded Nature will insist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in the House, while a Randolph Churchill, who confessedly found politics more exciting than any other form of sport, including even horse-racing, should be a success. As in Athens of old, the rhetorician is master of the field. Does it not seem ridiculous that a man shall be allowed to legislate who has not passed an examination in political philosophy, political economy, and universal history? As absurd as that men should be able to set up as critics merely by purchasing reviews, that they should be permitted to ply without a license. Still, monstrous as is the mischief wrought by the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... in the minds of those who advocate such legislation, between legal marriage and procreation. The persons who fall into such confusion have not yet learnt the alphabet of the subject they presume to dictate about, and are no more competent to legislate than a child who cannot tell A from B is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declamation in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... that the first convention of volunteer delegates met, and some months after Mr. Grattan moved an address to the throne asserting the legislative independence of Ireland. 'The address passed; the repeal of a certain act, empowering England to legislate for Ireland, followed; and the legislative independence of ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... prayed the company to "give us power to allow or disallow of their orders of court, as his majesty hath given them power to allow or reject our laws." So early did it appear that, from the necessity of the case, the colony must in large part legislate for itself, and so early did a spirit ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... to our guests, we may be bound to refrain from, though for ourselves there be in it no latent evil or lurking danger. This, however, is a matter in which each person must determine his duty for himself alone, and in which no one is authorized to legislate for others. It may seem to a conscientious man a worthy enterprise to vindicate and rescue from its evil associations an amusement or indulgence in itself not only harmless, but salutary; and there may be an equally strong sense of right on ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... make any progress in morals we must abandon the idea that morals are defined by the statutes; we must recognize that there is a wide margin between that which the law prohibits and that which an enlightened conscience can approve. We do not legislate against the man who uses the printed page for the purpose of deception but, viewed from the standpoint of morals, the man who, whether voluntarily or under instructions, writes what he knows to be untrue or purposely misleads his readers as to the character of a proposition ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... sixty members, fifteen appointed by the president of the republic, and the others appointed by the board itself whenever vacancies occur. This body meets once a year to hear reports, to pass upon the general school policy, and to legislate for the schools. Out of its membership is chosen an executive committee that meets once a week, and upon which devolves the chief management of educational affairs. This committee is answerable to the general board, to which it renders an annual report. Men of the highest character and intelligence ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... yours, to our species,' I replied, 'can hardly be conceived. I cannot but look upon man as something more than a part of the state. He is, first of all, a man, and is to be cared for as such. To legislate for the state, to the ruin of the man, is to pamper the body, and kill the soul. It is to invert the true process. The individual is more than the abstraction which we term the state. If governments cannot exist, nor empires hold their ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... that parliament could not rightfully legislate for the colonies was maintained as a corollary from the proposition that parliament could not tax them, a gloomy discontent was manifested. That the spirit of opposition seemed to be expiring, without securing the rights they claimed, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... made between men and women? Why should women, more than men, be governed without their own consent? Why should women, more than men, be denied trial by a jury of their peers? On what authority are women taxed while unrepresented? By what right do men declare themselves invested with power to legislate for women? For the discussion of these vital questions friends are invited to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... this moment about to legislate for it; but I think, however, that it would be by no means difficult to find machinery sufficiently simple and effective for the purpose. I am clearly of opinion that there should, be a maximum value on all land, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... jury been on the other side, their tormentors were gratuitously declared to be blameless. There was only one virtue, pugnacity: only one vice, pacifism. That is an essential condition of war; but the Government had not the courage to legislate accordingly; and its law was set aside for ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... a little bored. Youth did not appeal to her at all, except in young men, of whom she was pertinaciously fond. As to small boys, she considered them an evil against which somebody ought to legislate. These small boys, though they had been slow in beginning to eat, were slower still in finishing. Their appetites seemed to grow gradually but continuously, with what they fed upon, and it was impossible for the tall footmen ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... nations is the predominance of old men in the governing bodies. For not only are they apt to have over-intellectualized life, not only have they become specialists in purpose and therefore narrow, but the atrophy of the passions and desires of youth and middle life has rendered them unfit to legislate for the bulk of the race, who are the young and middle-aged. It is no true democracy where old age governs the rest of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... on the shore of some desolate and silent bay in the Hebrides, another Liverpool, with its docks and warehouses and endless forests of masts? Who can say that the huge chimneys of another Manchester may not rise in the wilds of Connemara? For our children we do not pretend to legislate. All that we can do for them is to leave to them a memorable example of the manner in which great reforms ought to be made. In the only sense, therefore, in which a statesman ought to say that anything is final, I pronounce this bill final. But in what sense will your bill be final? Suppose that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... had been admitted with it existent. What the North tried to do was to abolish slavery where it had already existed, legally, and under the full permission of the Constitution. All of the Louisiana Purchase had slavery when we bought it, and under the Constitution Congress could not legislate slavery out ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... popularity and his life. The Italian provinces had furnished their share of the armies which had beaten Jugurtha, and had destroyed the German invaders. They now demanded that they should have the position which Gracchus designed for them: that they should be allowed to legislate for themselves, and no longer lie at the mercy of others, who neither understood their necessities nor cared for their interests. They had no friends in the city, save a few far-sighted statesmen. Senate and ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... settle them with new men and exterminate or drive out the present rebels as exiles." Congress in dealing with these provinces was not bound even by the Constitution, "a bit of worthless parchment," but might legislate as it pleased in regard to slavery, the ballot, and confiscation. With regard to the white population, he said: "I have never desired bloody punishments to any great extent. But there are punishments quite as appalling, and longer remembered, than death. They are more advisable, because ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... listened so attentively to such sentiments as these, from a lady with a title, that I can repeat, word for word, what she said next. "We hav'n't deserved our own titles; we hav'n't earned our own incomes; and we legislate for the country, without having been trusted by the country. In short, we are a set of impostors, and the time is coming when we shall be found out." Do you believe she really meant that? All as false as false can be—that's what ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... it control over local administration it could have it; or, again, it could be conceded the powers of local control vested in the provincial governments in Canada, where the provincial assemblies have exclusive power to legislate for themselves in respect of local works, municipal institutions, licenses, and administration of justice in the province. Further, subject to certain provisions protecting the interests of different religious bodies, the provincial ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... recapitulate three;—the enormous pecuniary interests involved; the social difficulty arising from the amount of negro population; and, though last not least, the perplexing problem—if Washington's opinion, that "Slavery can only cease by legislative authority," is received—how Congress can legislate for independent and sovereign States beyond the limits of the Constitution by which they are mutually bound to each other. I feel sure that much of the rabid outcry, the ovation of Mrs. B. Stowe, and other similar exhibitions, have ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... eight millions of his countrymen, recklessly to create fresh discords between the Irish and English nations, and to perpetuate animosities that the last five-and-twenty years had done so much to assuage. Having thus precipitately committed himself, the minister was forced to legislate. 'I suspect,' wrote Mr. Gladstone to his great friend, Sir Walter James, 'John Russell has more rocks and breakers ahead than he reckoned upon when he dipped his pen in gall to smite first the pope, but most those who not being papists are such traitors ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a substantive system of jurisprudence; and now for centuries English practitioners have so expressed themselves as to convey the paradoxical proposition that, except by Equity and Statute law, nothing has been added to the basis since it was first constituted. We do not admit that our tribunals legislate; we imply that they have never legislated; and yet we maintain that the rules of the English common law, with some assistance from the Court of Chancery and from Parliament, are coextensive with the complicated interests of ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... remark. They will make different impressions on different readers; according to the extent of prejudice or liberality existing in different minds. They show that even during the most absolute period of ecclesiastical domination, there was one spot in England where attempts to legislate for the priesthood (though perhaps feeble enough) were made. The legislative {101} powers of the corporation were at that time very ample; and the only condition by which they appear to have been limited was, that they should not override an act of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... to be bestowed on the first beast, by extending to the Latin rulers that aid which enabled them to perpetuate their system of tyranny, to legislate over the laws and subjects of Jehovah, and to claim the obedience which only God can demand. The arms of Justinian, both in the East and West, caused the Roman name to be respected, and ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... protection of the law, so that they may speak without fear of arrest, and beg them to plainly and boldly state their grievances. Let a commission of the best and wisest amongst Irishmen, with some of our highest English judges added, sit solemnly to hear all complaints, and then let us honestly legislate, not for the punishment of the discontented, but to remove the causes of the discontent. It is not the Fenians who have depopulated Ireland's strength and increased her misery. It is not the Fenians who have evicted tenants by the score. It is not the Fenians who have checked cultivation. ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... others that he can permanently stand the test of irresponsible power over them. On the contrary, the best and wisest is he who is ready to go to the humblest in a spirit of inquiry, to find out what he wants and why he wants it before seeking to legislate for him. Admitting the utmost that can be said for the necessity of leadership, we must at the same time grant that the perfection of leadership itself lies in securing the willing, convinced, open-eyed ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... determined the means. If, therefore, the distinction between external and internal taxes was untenable, it convinced the American, not that Parliament had a right to tax the colonies, but only that it had no right to legislate for them. And when Englishmen grounded the legislative rights of Parliament upon the solid basis of positive law, the colonial patriot appealed with solemn fervor to natural law and the abstract rights of man. Little wonder that the more ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... give weight to their resentment. The moment women get the vote in any community, the first thing they proceed to do is to close the saloons. In a thousand generations to come men of themselves will not close the saloons. As well expect the morphine victims to legislate the sale of morphine ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... and had been very sensibly remarked upon by Junius Americanus. This warm and judicious advocate for the province I apprehend was mistaken in saying, that the supreme authority of the British parliament to legislate forces has been always acknowledged here; when he reads the answer of the house to the speech, he will find the contrary clearly shown, even from Gov. Hutchinson's history. What will be the consequence of this controversy, time must discover; it must be placed to the credit of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... alter the method and conduct of Irish administration before touching the parliamentary power to legislate and to tax came with extraordinary weight in coming from such a man; and the history of the previous Home Rule Bills was not encouraging to anyone, especially to those who had been members of Mr. Gladstone's two last administrations. From ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... because those modest martyrs were working people, proud that by the sweat of their brows they wrung from a niggardly soil the food they ate, proud also that they could leave the plough to govern or to legislate, able also to survey a county or rule ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... Education shall succeed to all the powers and trusts of the President and Directors of the Literary Fund of North Carolina, and shall have full power to legislate and make all needful rules and regulations in relation to free public schools and the educational fund of the State; but all acts, rules and regulations of said Board may be altered, amended or repealed by the General Assembly, and when so altered amended or ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... Minnesota until otherwise directed by congress or the president of the United States." I mention this feature of the treaty because it gave rise to much litigation as to whether the treaty making power had authority to legislate for settlers on the ceded lands of the United States. The power was sustained. These treaties practically obliterated the Indian title from the lands composing Minnesota, and its ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... Irishman, and thus I heard him sing— "To legislate at Westminster's a dull decorous thing: But O in merry Austria's deliberative hall, Bedad, the fun and divilment ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... Beamish's idea of the gold giving out, the geological formation of the goldfields rendered that improbable. He sympathised with the squatters, who naturally enough believed their rights to the land inalienable; but a government worthy of the name must legislate with an eye to the future, not for ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... easy for him to get them to be all in a story. Poor fellows! each one of them had his own peculiar views and his own peculiar troubles too closely pressing on his brain. The Dictator was never impatient—but he kept asking himself the question: 'Suppose I had the power to legislate, and were now called upon by these men and in their own interests to legislate, what on their own showing should I be ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... but in deference to the prejudices of South Carolina and Georgia the clause was struck out by Congress. When George III. and his vetoes had been eliminated from the case, it became possible for the states to legislate freely on the subject. In 1776 negro slaves were held in all the thirteen states, but in all except South Carolina and Georgia there was a strong sentiment in favour of emancipation. In North Carolina, which contained ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... where Satan winks his eye— We will make the sinful earth a credit by and by: Europe may be stubborn, but we'll legislate her dry, And then we'll ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Minister, Mr. Lloyd George let us know that he was not only ready but keen to go forward on practical lines. When Parliament met we asked the Prime Minister to receive a large and representative deputation of women who had worked for their country during the war. Our object was to ask him to legislate at once on the lines recommended by the Speaker's Conference but we were pushing an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Bill was removed, and Lincoln accepted it. But the suspicion with which many Republicans were beginning to regard him was now reinforced by a certain jealousy of Congressmen against the Executive power; they grumbled and sneered about having to "ascertain the Royal pleasure" before they could legislate. This was an able, energetic, and truly patriotic Congress, and must not be despised for its reluctance to be guided by Lincoln. But ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... achieve. Priests, schools of thought, political schemers, leaders of men, have always slipped into the error of assuming that they can think out the whole—or at any rate completely think out definite parts—of the purpose and future of man, clearly and finally; they have set themselves to legislate and construct on that assumption, and, experiencing the perplexing obduracy and evasions of reality, they have taken to dogma, persecution, training, pruning, secretive education; and all the stupidities of self-sufficient energy. ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... duty which he owes to the people and approve bills which for want of time it is impossible he should have examined, or by his refusal to do this subject the country and individuals to great loss and inconvenience. Besides, a practice has grown up of late years to legislate in appropriation bills at the last hours of the session on new and important subjects. This practice constrains the President either to suffer measures to become laws which he does not approve or to incur the risk of stopping the wheels of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... unacknowledged and unknown throughout the whole of christendom? Shall they alone be held responsible for opinions and conduct which had become sacred by antiquity, and which were common to christians of all other denominations? Every government then in existence assumed to itself the right to legislate in matters of religion; and to restrain heresy by penal statutes. This right was claimed by rulers, admitted by subjects, and is sanctioned by the names of Lord Bacon and Montesquieu, and many others equally famed for their talents ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... universal tendency of the people is to sustain and continue to build up an unparalleled prosperity, it should be our highest aim to so legislate as to permanently promote and not cripple it. This Congress should be, and I profoundly hope it will be, marked ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... said that, after Henry and Lee had made their first speeches, Samuel Chase of Maryland was so impressed by their superiority that he walked over to the seat of one of his colleagues and said: "We might as well go home; we are not able to legislate with these men." But some days afterward, perhaps in the midst of the work of the committee on the statutes affecting trade and commerce, the same member was able to relieve himself by the remark: "Well, after all, I find these are but ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... compelled to deny this, and to admit that, notwithstanding the consciousness of our liability to error, and in spite of all those many individual experiences which may have strengthened the consciousness, each man does at the moment so far legislate for all men, as to believe of necessity that he is either right or wrong, and that if it be right for him, it is universally right,—we must then proceed to ascertain:—secondly, whether the source of these ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... by a certain generation among them, and it is not right and just nor expedient to abolish it, may we not safely ask, How did the Most High legislate concerning slavery among the people to whom he gave a code of laws ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... 1874) Mr. Parnell grew to be conspicuous in politics. He became the leader of the Home Rule members of the House of Commons, who sought, by obstructing the progress of business, to compel the English government to withdraw its measures of coercion, and to legislate in accordance with the views of himself and his associates. The "obstructionists," by joining the Tories, effected the retirement of the Gladstone Cabinet (1885). In Ireland a system of "boycotting" was adopted for the punishment of landlords guilty of evicting tenants. This led to deeds of violence ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... King could not legislate without the consent of his Parliament. Secondly, he could impose no tax without the consent of his Parliament. Thirdly, he was bound to conduct the executive administration according to the laws of the land, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the future so imminent, that the good sense of the people saved the young nation in time, by sheltering it under that broad, strong roof, the present national Constitution. Thus the individual States legislate and act for themselves in all that concerns themselves alone. But in that which concerns themselves in connection and in common with other States, and where, if each State were absolutely independent, such State action would come into conflict with the wants or rights of other ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and his survey is admirable. He is a large subject; I cannot speak more or wiselier of him now, nor needs it; his works are true, to blame and praise him, the Siegfried of England, great and powerful, if not quite invulnerable, and of a might rather to destroy evil than legislate for good. At all events, he seems to be what Destiny intended, and represents fully a certain side; so we make no remonstrance as to his being and proceeding for himself, though ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... absurd if it were applied only to the children of the poor. He contended that the Upper and Middle Classes were every bit as much in need of a compulsory system, if their children were to be properly educated, as the working classes for whom it was proposed to legislate. This theme he illustrated, with the most exuberant fun and fancy, in a letter addressed to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1867, and afterwards republished in Friendship's Garland. Arminius, the cultivated ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... be the case that it will be impossible to induce a sufficient number of the great States to transfer the ultimate right of waging war to a representative International Government, or to cede to such a Government the right to legislate on international relations with power to enforce obedience to these laws. There are, however, many of us who hold that these powers are essential to an international arrangement which shall effectively guarantee the peace of the ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... diatribes of Sumner in the Senate; the assault on Sumner by Brooks. In the midst of this carnival of ferocity came the Dred Scott decision, cutting under the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, denying to the people of a Territory the right to legislate on slavery, and giving to all slave-holders the right to settle with their slaves anywhere they pleased outside a Free State. This famous decision repudiated Douglas's policy of leaving all such questions to ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... who can not do considerably more than read and write. The voter makes the laws, and why should the laws regulating the holding of property be made by a man who has no interest in property beyond a covetous desire; or why should he legislate on education when he possesses none! Then again, women do not bear arms to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of the nineteenth century the Social-Democracies of Europe set out to 'legislate capitalism out of office.' The class struggle was to be won in the capitalist legislatures. Step by step concessions were to be wrested from the state; the working class and the Socialist parties were to be strengthened by means of 'constructive' reform and social legislation; each ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... labor question. Philanthropic and commercial aspects. Attempt of Congress to legislate under power to regulate commerce. Decision of Supreme Court holding law unconstitutional. The decision explained. Reenactment of law by Congress under cover of power to lay taxes. Arguments for and against constitutionality of ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... behalf of the ship-builders of Maine. If he were a judge, as a celebrated namesake of his once was, he would do it by hanging a majority of members of the House he had the honor of addressing. In default of that he wanted them to legislate sensibly upon it. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... established by the government. The last of the combination acts were passed in 1799 and 1800, and were an undisguised exercise of the power of the employing class to use their membership in Parliament to legislate in their own interest. It provided that all agreements whatever between journeymen or other workmen for obtaining an advance in wages for themselves or for other workmen, or for decreasing the number of hours of labor, or for endeavoring to prevent any employer from engaging any one whom he ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... obvious. Not to speak of the simplicity of expecting the hierarchy to be satisfied by this small concession, what were such arguments but the admission of Home Rule in its worst form? "You resist the demand of the Irish members to legislate for Ireland; you have just been demanding, and obtaining, the support of English members against those amendments of the Land Bill which Irish members declare to be necessary. Now you bid us surrender our own judgment, ignore our own responsibility, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... determined; when their more strictly geographical sites have been fixed; when we have some data as to the quantity of humidity pervading their localities; then, and not till then, shall we be able to legislate for the geography of ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... thou shouldst in this narrow island be under my authority. But because of thy wondrous humility and thy perfect charity, Christ thy Lord giveth thee a half of Ireland as thine inheritance." Here there is another version of the claim of Clonmacnois to legislate ecclesiastically for half of the island. They then erected a cross as a token of their fraternal bond, putting a curse upon whomsoever should make a breach in their agreement. In a Life of Saint Enda, quoted by the Bollandists (September, vol. ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... without doubt, in a well constituted society, each organ has its definite function, that is to say, administration is carried on by those who have learnt how to administer, legislation and the amendment of laws by those who have learnt how to legislate, justice by those who have studied jurisprudence, and the functions of a country postman are not given to a paralytic. Society should model itself on nature, whose plan is specialisation. "For," as Aristotle says, "she is not niggardly, like ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet |
