United States or Cameroon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In this age of democracy, the average individual is too apt to recognize two constitutions one, the constitution of the State, and the second, an unwritten constitution, to him of higher authority, under which he believes that no law is obligatory which he regards as in excess of the true powers of government.
Such is the labyrinth of confusion and contradiction this anarchical system leads into; a system that cancels all constitutions by God and men anent civil government.
While it has been the origin of all subsequent law, while, adopted by the Romans, it makes at this day the universal spirit which animates the codes and constitutions of Europe it was moulded to the habits, the manners, and the condition of the people whom it was intended to enlighten, to harmonize, and to guide.
Many fell by the wayside, but a group of strong men formed themselves into a "University Federal Labour Union." Dick Morse, captain of the 'Varsity crew, became president of it. Representative union constitutions were studied.
Even had their eyes been opened, there were disintegrating forces at work which the highest political wisdom could do no more than arrest; and little good is really effected by prolonging artificially the lives of either constitutions or individuals beyond their natural period.
Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution and see only the law. This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions.
"We have found," says James Monroe, in his speech on the subject before the Virginia Convention, "that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union; and has been prejudicial to all the states in which it has existed." All the states in their several Constitutions and declarations of rights have made a similar statement.
It was maintained by the Liberals that the right to reject supplies every year was an essential part of a constitutional system; they appealed to the practice in England and to the principles adopted in the French and Belgian Constitutions. Their argument was that this practice which had been introduced in other countries must be adopted also in Prussia.
Some of them enquired the cause, and he bade them pray to God for the city of Malacca, which was visited with an epidemical disease. Xavier said true; for the sickness was so general, and so contagious, that it seemed the beginning of a pestilence. Malignant fevers raged about the town, which carried off the strongest constitutions in a little space, and the infection was caught almost at sight.
Yet it is equally true, that the same passion will sometimes make mountains of molehills, and produce despair in the midst of hope; but these cold fits last not long in good constitutions.
Word Of The Day