Considerations on the Questions of the Adoption of a Constitution, and Extension of Suffrage in Rhode Island

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Thomas H. Webb & Company, 1842 - Rhode Island - 64 pages

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Page 47 - The fourth section of the fourth article of the constitution of the United States provides that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion ; and on the application of the legislature or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Page 44 - God that the established government be obeyed, and no longer. . . . This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.
Page 46 - No usage, law, or authority whatever is so binding that it need or ought to be continued, when it may be changed with advantage to the community. The family of the prince, the order of succession, the prerogative of the crown, the form and parts of the legislature, together with the respective powers, office, duration, and mutual dependency of the several parts, are all only so many laws, mutable like other laws whenever expediency requires, either by the ordinary act of the legislature, or, if the...
Page 44 - ... so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed, and no longer This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.
Page 47 - February 28, 1795, provided, that, " in case of an insurrection in any State against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State or of the executive, when the legislature cannot be convened, to call forth such number of the militia of any other State or States, as may be applied for, as he may judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection.
Page 51 - Union; and if an exigency of lawless violence shall actually arise, The Executive Government of the United States, on the application of your Excellency, under the authority of the resolutions of the Legislature already transmitted, will stand ready to succor the authorities of the State in their efforts to maintain a due respect for the laws.
Page 47 - ... whenever it may be necessary in the judgment of the President to use the military force hereby directed to be called forth, the President shall forthwith and previous thereto, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time...
Page 50 - I have from the first felt persuaded that your excellency and others associated with yourself in the administration of the government would exhibit a temper of conciliation as well as of energy and decision. To the insurgents themselves it ought to be obvious, when the excitement of the moment shall have passed away, that changes achieved by regular and, if necessary, repeated appeals to the constituted authorities, in a country so much under the influence of public opinion, and by recourse to argument...
Page 50 - States forthwith to interpose the authority and power of the United States to suppress such insurrectionary and lawless assemblages, to support the existing government and laws, and protect the State from domestic violence.
Page 47 - States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the prerequisites of the law in that respect.

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