Annual Report of the Illinois State Bar Association

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Page 150 - If, then, the courts are to regard the Constitution— and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature — the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.
Page 148 - As men, whose intentions require no concealment, generally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the ideas they intend to convey, the enlightened patriots who framed our constitution, and the people who adopted it, must be understood to have employed words in their natural sense, and to have intended what they have said.
Page 163 - The judicial department comes home, in its effects, to every man's fireside ; it passes on his property, his reputation, his life, his all. Is it not to the last degree important that he should be rendered perfectly and completely Independent, with nothing to influence or control him, but God and his conscience? ... I have always thought, from my earliest youth until now, that the greatest scourge an angry Heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and sinning people was an ignorant, a corrupt, or...
Page 147 - ... (if they contend for that narrow construction which, in support of some theory not to be found in the constitution, would deny to the government those powers which the words of the grant, as usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the general views and objects of the instrument ; for that narrow construction which would cripple the government, and render it unequal to the objects for which it is declared to be instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly understood,...
Page 148 - The government, then, of the United States, can claim, no powers which are not granted to it by the constitution, and -the powers actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication.
Page 164 - This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here, or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.
Page 68 - If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery . . . .
Page 27 - England ; for which purpose we have given power, under our great seal, to the governors of our said colonies respectively, to erect and constitute, with the advice of our said councils respectively, courts of judicature and public justice within our said colonies, for the hearing and determining all causes, as well criminal as civil, according to law and equity, and as near as may be agreeable to the laws of England...
Page 27 - ... to make, constitute, and ordain laws, statutes, and ordinances for the public peace, welfare, and good government of our said colonies, and of the people and inhabitants thereof, as near il I as may be, agreeable to the laws of England...
Page 147 - This instrument contains an enumeration of powers expressly granted by the people to their government. It has been said that these powers ought to be construed strictly. But why ought they to be so construed? Is there one sentence in the constitution which gives countenance to this rule.' In the last of the enumerated powers, — that which grants, expressly, the means for carrying all others into execution, — congress is authorized "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper

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