"Legislating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the introduction of a practice which has become an evil of the greatest magnitude in the present day. Reference is had to the custom of making the halls of Congress a mere arena, where, instead of attending to the legitimate business of legislating for the benefit of the country at large, political gladiators spend much of their time in wordy contests, designed solely for the promotion of personal or party purposes, to the neglect of the interests of their constituents. From ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... laws of planetary distances. A code is a system of laws; jurisprudence is the science of law, or a system of laws scientifically considered, classed, and interpreted; legislation, primarily the act of legislating, denotes also the body of statutes enacted by a legislative body. An economy (Gr. oikonomia, primarily the management of a house) is any comprehensive system of administration; as, domestic economy; but the word is extended to the administration or government of ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... dominion, and particularly in the cardinal right of being represented in the supreme legislature. But that right, he says, they are "incapable of exercising," by reason of their distance. We all agree in this, and it is not their fault? Why then should they not have the right of legislating for themselves, as well as that other part of this one dominion? Why truly, we have "a right of choosing an assembly, which with the concurrence of his Majesty's Governor, hath a power of enacting local statutes, establishing taxes, &c. - Yet still in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... The Parliament was not legislating for the regulation of divine worship. In 1662, as we have seen, both Houses, while stiffly maintaining their right to interfere, expressly declined that task, and declared it the proper work of Convocation. ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... wives and daughters of Pittsburgh obtain the passage, by the city council, of an ordinance causing the arrest of every man found in the streets after 9 o'clock in the evening, and the law will then be equal in its operation. This legislating upon the behavior of one sex by the other exclusively, is one-sided and despotic. Give both sexes a chance at reforming ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... statesmen know nothing of colonies: but their hardihood in legislating for them is, unhappily, equal to their ignorance. It was only last year (1846) that the bill for the government of Western Australia was (according to newspaper report) opposed in the House of Lords by a noble duke, on the ground, as ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... words indicate," was the almost fierce reply. "You're Eton and Oxford, not board-school and apprentice. Your brain brings you to the cause of the people, not your heart. You aren't one of us and never could be. You're an aristocrat, and before we knew where we were, you'd be legislating for aristocrats. You'd try and sneak them into your Cabinet. It's their atmosphere you've been brought up in. It's with them you want to live. That's what I mean when I say that you're not a people's man, Tallente, and I defy any one ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... parte statements and testimony imperfectly authenticated, as well as the absence of all legal forms from their proceedings, and their numbers, among whom the responsibility of giving due attention to the case is divided, add to the peril. The power of legislating retrospectively has far too wide a scope; the constitutional inhibition of ex post facto laws having been construed to apply to criminal or penal cases merely, restraining the legislature from making that an offence which was not so at the time of its commission, or increasing the punishment ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... the Colonies, as I have hinted elsewhere, would not have raised the hue and outcry that they did against these measures, had it not been for one thing, which to them, as Englishmen, was all in all; to wit, the right of taxing themselves, and legislating or making laws for themselves through persons of their own choosing, called representatives. And this is, my little folks, what is meant by taxation, and legislation by representation, in a nation. You will do well to bear this in mind continually; for it is the very ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... power is as likely to mar a man as to make him, to lower as to raise his sense of duty, have nevertheless contracted the habit of talking as if human nature changed when it entered public life, as if the mere possession of public functions, whether of voting or of legislating, tended of itself to secure their proper exercise. We know that power does not purify men in despotic governments, but we talk as if it did so in free governments. Every one would of course admit, if the point ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... a fact that counter memorials, equally respectable, oppose the interference of Congress on the ground that it would be legislating upon a religious ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... like this plan of legislating in the Constitution. The Constitution ought to be an instrument defining and limiting the powers of Congress. We had better leave to Congress, or rather, to assign to Congress the power to exercise this prohibition. I, therefore, move to amend by ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... strain of feeling so youthful and romantic, that they seem more fit to be addressed to one of those Parliaments of Love, which were held during the times of Chivalry, than to a grave assembly employed about the sober realities of life, and legislating with a view to the infirmities ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... having right views on all questions of public interest and some knowledge of the requirements of practical politics. But their power to-day is wholly irresponsible and hence dangerous. Lay on them the responsibility of legislating, with all the criticism and odium of a constituency and a party, in case they make some blunder, and you render them wiser in judgment and more deliberate in action. To secure this large disfranchised class as allies to one of the leading parties would be a wise measure for ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... principles of law, morality, and education. The conception of [Grek: politikae] with which he opened the Ethics would serve as a guide to a father educating his children as well as to the legislator legislating for the state. Finding in his predecessors no developed doctrine on this subject, Aristotle proposes himself to undertake the construction of it, and sketches in advance the programme of the Politics in the concluding sentence of the Ethics His ultimate ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... thought were respectable professions. We have heard of heaven-born Numas, Lycurguses, and Solons, in the history of the world, whose names at least may stand for ideal legislators; but think of legislating to regulate the breeding of slaves, or the exportation of tobacco! What have divine legislators to do with the exportation or the importation of tobacco? what humane ones with the breeding of slaves? Suppose you were to submit the question ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... the extent of conterminous territory that can be subjected to one system and one language and inspired by one patriotism, the better. That there should be some diversity of interests is perhaps an advantage, since the necessity of legislating equitably for all gives legislation its needful safeguards of caution and largeness of view. A single empire embracing the whole world, and controlling, without extinguishing, local organizations and nationalities, has been not only the dream of conquerors, but the ideal ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... much. Whether it does this because of the fear of Exeter Hall as representing a big voting interest, or whether just from the tendency to get everything into the hands of a Council, or an Office, to be everlastingly nagging and legislating and inspecting, matters little; the result is bad, and it fills me with the greatest admiration for my country to see how in spite of this she keeps the lead. That she will always keep it I believe, because I believe that it is impossible that this phase of emotionalism—no, it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... binding upon persons in other states. It does mean, however, that the courts of each state shall endeavor to give the same force to the laws of a neighboring state as those laws would have in the courts of the legislating state. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... chamber and the aulic council, two judiciary tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in controversies which concern the empire, or which happen among its members. The diet possesses the general power of legislating for the empire; of making war and peace; contracting alliances; assessing quotas of troops and money; constructing fortresses; regulating coin; admitting new members; and subjecting disobedient members to the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... sold into slavery; and that all such negroes as shall enter the State after September, 1861, and remain there twenty-four hours, shall also be sold into slavery for ever. Mississippi, Kentucky, and Georgia, and in fact, I believe, all the slave States, are legislating in the same manner. Thus the slaveholders make it almost impossible for free persons of colour to get out of the slave States, in order that they may sell them into slavery if they don't go. If no white persons travelled upon railroads except those who could get ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... had to delegate legislative powers to other bodies than 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 and ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... in America a class of citizens whom the legislating majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges which they had possessed for ages, and to bring down from an elevated station to the level of the ranks of the multitude, it is probable that the minority would ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... without a break, in order to hold the floor against the opposing forces. Clemens was in the gallery most of the time while that speech, with its riotous accompaniment, was in progress.—["When that house is legislating you can't tell it from artillery practice." From Mark Twain's report, "Stirring Times in Austria," in Literary Essays,]—He was intensely interested. Nothing would appeal to him more than that, unless it should be some great astronomic or geologic change. He was also present somewhat ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... agrees with them?" "It agrees very well with them, and the only difficulty they find is, that they have not potatoes to eat; the bread and meat, and constant eating, is what disagrees with them." Now, surely, if we ought to consult the political prejudices of the Irish people when legislating for them, as the Premier says we should do, we ought not altogether to disregard their culinary tastes, or force them to eat a diet which they dislike, only because ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... man proposes a vote for his own job; and bills are introduced without notice and carried through all their stages in a quarter of an hour! One of the greatest advantages of the Union will be that it will be possible to introduce a new system of legislating, and above all, a restriction upon the initiation of money-votes. Without the last I would not give a farthing for my bill: and the change would be decidedly popular; for the members all complain that under the present system they cannot refuse to move a ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... Harrison kept his position, a close observer of all that transpired. I am very much in error, if, before leaving that sink of iniquity, he was not fully satisfied as to the propriety of legislating on the liquor question. Nay, I incline to the opinion, that, if the power of suppression had rested in his hands, there would not have been, in the whole state, at the expiration of an hour, a single dram-selling establishment. The ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... Gosstre's walk, the way to shuffle men and women, how to start themes for them to converse upon, and so forth. Not Juno and her Court surveying our mortal requirements in divine independence of fatigue, could have been more considerate for the shortcomings of humanity. And while they were legislating this and that for others, they still accepted hints for their own improvement, as those who have Perfection in view may do. Lady Gosstre's carriage of her shoulders, and general manner, were admitted to be worthy of study. "And did you notice ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with laughter when you go wallop on to the floor. Well, I don't grudge them their amusement. They must have a dull time settling mundane affairs, and a little joke goes a long way with them, as it does in the House of Commons. Fancy sitting on those green benches legislating for all eternity, with never a recess and never even a dinner hour! Poor high gods! ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... 1886 with the object of promoting the material prosperity of Ireland, many points of interest have been necessarily omitted; but what has been said will suffice to show how baseless is the assertion, so frequently urged as an argument for Home Rule, that the Imperial Parliament is incapable of legislating successfully for Irish wants.[72] Nothing could be more futile than to represent Irish problems, and especially the problems of Irish rural life, as so unique that only a Parliament sitting in Dublin ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... given 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 ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... solid mound which raised him to wider usefulness and clearer vision. He could not become a master workman until he had served a tedious apprenticeship. It was the quarter of a century of reading thinking, speech-making and legislating which qualified him for selection as the chosen champion of the Illinois Republicans in the great Lincoln-Douglas joint debates of 1858. It was the great intellectual victory won in these debates, plus the title "Honest old Abe," won by truth ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... sought for nothing less than national independence, the Germans would at the most have granted a uniform system of provincial self-government in strict subordination to a central representative body drawn from the whole Empire and legislating for the whole Empire. The decision of the Emperor was necessarily a compromise. By a Diploma published on the 20th of October he promised to restore to Hungary its old Constitution, and to grant wide legislative rights to the other States of the Monarchy, establishing for the transaction ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... problem which, in the earlier portion of his work, he set himself, that namely, of the organising of the sciences into a compact body of doctrine, he possessed extraordinary gifts. Later, he took on rather the air of a high priest of humanity, legislating concerning a new religion. It is but fair to say that at this point Littre and many others parted company with Comte. He developed a habit and practice ascetic in its rigour and mystic in its devotion to the positivists' religion—the worship ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... of the convention was devoted almost wholly to legislating for the denomination and to planning for its future work. On the morning of the second day the subject of organization came up for consideration, and the committee selected for that purpose presented a constitution providing for ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... under ordinary circumstances and under extraordinary circumstances, would be most difficult to determine. Many people are only sane in action because they know that they are insane in impulse, and take measures accordingly. They keep a sane front to the world by legislating pretty sternly for themselves. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... and principles shall have been fully developed, and become well understood. The people at the North are attached to the principles of self-government, and you cannot convince them that that is self-government which deprives a people of the right of legislating for themselves, and compels them to receive laws which are forced upon them by a Legislature in which they are not represented. We are willing to stand upon this great principle of self-government every-where; and it is to us a proud reflection that, in this whole discussion, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... intrinsically wrong, God would not have legislated about it in such ways; for granting, if you please, the untenable distinction about his 'not appointing' slavery, but 'finding it in existence' and legislating for it, what necessity could there have been for making such a law as that relating to the boring of the ear, rather than giving the slave his wife and children and suffering them ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... country. I am sincerely one of those, and would rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of legislating for us, assumed by the British Parliament, and which late experience has shown they will so cruelly exercise, would lend my hand to sink the whole island ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a great emancipation. Instead of clinging to the naive belief that Plato was legislating for all mankind, you can discuss his plans as a temporary superstructure made for an historical purpose. You are free then to appreciate the more enduring portions of his work, to understand Santayana when he says of the Platonists, "their ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the clear and unquestionable duty of establishing foreign mail facilities, only by paying liberal prices for the transport of the mails for a long term of years, by creating and sustaining an ocean postal system, by legislating upon it systematically, and by abandoning our slavish dependence upon ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... up; had been standing for an hour; and before a third of it had found out what the President had been saying, he had proclaimed the adoption of the motion! And only a few heard that. In fact, when that House is legislating you can't tell ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was altogether the pleasantest mode of legislating that had ever been devised. He was now perfectly master of his own time, and in fact, he was making out a set of charts for the Leaplow marine, a task that was likely to bring him in a good round sum, as pumpkins were cheap, and in the polar seas he merely ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said, "Mr. Balfour, I have never known of a body of men capable of legislating for the generation ahead, and in some cases those who attempt to legislate even for their own generation are not thought to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... business, and is constantly watching the proceedings of both Houses, vibrating between them like an animated pendulum,' said I. 'Oh,' said Jones, 'he is a member of the Third House!' Here was a new thing to me. I evidently had not learned all the machinery of legislating. I asked for an explanation, and soon learned that the 'Third House' consisted of old ex-members of either House or Senate, broken-down politicians, professional borers, and other vagrants who had made themselves familiar with the modus operandi of legislation, and who negotiated for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... claimed and usually exercised, exclusive power, and so with Lower Canada. The consolidated statutes of Canada and the consolidated statutes of Upper Canada must be sought in separate volumes. The practice of legislating for one province alone was not confined to local or private matters. For instance, as the two communities had widely different ideas as to Sabbath observance, the stricter law was enacted for Upper Canada alone. Hence also arose the theory of the double majority—that ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... taxes or serve in the army or navy? In these various ways the state is no less functioning politically for the benefit of the people than when coercing recalcitrant citizens, warning or fighting other nations, or legislating in its congressional halls. Its opportunity to regulate the social interests of its citizens is almost illimitable, for while a written constitution may prescribe what a state may and may not do, those who made the constitution have the power to revise it ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... doubt is, it is out of place in a Government report, which may be quoted against a poor low-caste man as authoritative pronouncement regarding his social position. Justice and humanity, good grounds in the eyes of the Indian Government ere now for legislating contrary to caste ideas, ought to have enjoined the ignoring of caste ideas here. It is no mere fancy that after an accident one of these low-caste masons in South India might be brought to the door of a Government hospital and be refused admission by a native medical officer because ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... that it is "practically more favorable to the fugitive than the law of 1793"!!! The Southern lawyers, then, who drafted the bill, were a set of blunderers, and your constituents are blockheads for blaming you for legislating against human rights, when, in fact, you were loosening the bonds of the oppressed, and facilitating escape from the prison-house. Your assertion may well excite astonishment at the South as well as the North, till your proof is known, and then, indeed, astonishment ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... Patriarchial and Jewish dispensations, appeared unto them and "a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, HEAR YE HIM." Math. xvii, 5. Here is the authority that gave the institution peculiar to the Jews legislating with reference to Him whose doings were to end that system of things, and lead all into "a new and living way." Paul says: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." So Christ took ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880
... in constituting, legislating, and administering by rule according to the measurements ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... debate, adverted to the state of the Jews in France, I entirely agree with the illustrious Duke near me, and the right reverend Prelate, that this country is not bound to follow the example of foreign nations in legislating for any portion of the community. But it ought not to escape attention, that Buonaparte, in legislating for the Jews, did not go the full length of this bill; and before he did anything for them, he ordered ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... government, no less than in legislating for a state, there should be constant reference to great principles, if only from the exceeding difficulty of foreseeing, or appreciating, the results in detail of ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... which had especially inspired Raffles in his opposition to the Dutch. In respect of the question of the authority of his legislation, he writes that he considered himself justified in thus provisionally legislating for the settlement by reason of the existence of "an actual and urgent necessity for some immediate and provisional arrangements." He further states that in framing these regulations he has, while giving ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... out-going made action necessary. Well, the new railroad was to be constructed through the plantation, and I worked with all the energy I could to forget. You see what you did for me, Katrine! And at every turn, circumventing, obstructing, legislating against me, urging me on by mental friction, was Dermott McDermott. Am I tiring you?" ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... their solution the highest order of ability, self-denial, and love of country. I beg you to take my testimony, coming from another land long engaged in grappling with the same kind of difficulties; I beg you to take my testimony that the troubles of your body in legislating for your country, and those which you are to encounter in the future, are not peculiar to your country, to your race, to your institutions, to your customs. They inhere in the task before every legislative body representing the vastly differing interests, opinions, sentiments, ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Mr. Hobart's objections as to the wisdom of conformity in legislating for the Roman Catholics in both countries, is indicated in a subsequent letter; but that Mr. Hobart differed from his Lordship as to the prudence of maintaining a Government opposition between the two sects is no less apparent. Lord Buckingham's influence in moderating Mr. Hobart's ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... the difficulty of legislating in Anglo-Saxon fashion for foreign countries and comprehending their psychology was furnished by two political trials which, taking place in Paris during the Conference, enabled the delegates to estimate the distance that separates the Anglo-Saxon ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon |
