by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
There are rights which it is useless to surrender to the government, and which governments have yet always been fond to invade. These are the rights of thinking, and publishing our thoughts by speaking or writing, the right of free commerce, the right of personal...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
The constitution should precisely prescribe the duties and limits of each official’s role. If instead convention is relied on, then the people’s safety is built upon sand. The likes of Sulla, Caesar and Lloyd George will brush convention aside, justifying their...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human beings are not competent to exercise it; God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power upon earth so worthy of honor for itself, that I...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
It is therefore high time for all parties to consider what is best for the whole; and to establish such rules of commutative justice and indulgence, as may prevent oppression from any party. And this can only be done by restraining the hands of power, and fixing it...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
Nor should our assembly be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered. —Thomas Jefferson. Notes on Virginia: Query XI,...
