By the People: Arguments and Authorities for Direct Legislation Or the Initiative and the Referendum |
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By the People: Arguments and Authorities for Direct Legislation Or the ... Eltweed Pomeroy No preview available - 2015 |
By The People: Arguments And Authorities For Direct Legislation Or The ... Eltweed Pomeroy No preview available - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
55th Congress adopted advocates Alexander Contee Hanson Alexander Kent American ballot become believe body boss bribery candidates cantons cent citizens Congress conservative constitutional amendments corruption decide democracy democratic Direct Legislation League district editor educated elected electors equality ernment evils favor Federal form of government franchise Free List freedom give Hare-Spence House individual initiative and referendum interest islation John labor law of averages law-making lawyers legis legislature less lobby majority masses matter means measures ment method municipal nation Numa Droz number of votes opinion opposed organization passed people's petition platform political parties poll popular Populists President principles Prof progress Proportional Representation question quota reasonable minority rect reform repre republic Republican rule self-government Senate social society Swiss Switzerland things THOMAS MCEWAN tion tive to-day true Union United University of Geneva voice voters Wendell Phillips whole
Popular passages
Page 64 - Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
Page 95 - This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
Page 26 - Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others ? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him ? Let history answer this question.
Page 29 - Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestable unalienable.
Page 56 - No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.
Page 62 - The people are the only censors of their governors, and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty.
Page 62 - ... we may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people, are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient.
Page 32 - All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands, is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.
Page 78 - All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform, or abolish the same whenever they may deem it necessary; and no special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted that may not be altered, revoked, or repealed by the General Assembly.
Page 61 - Were I to assign to this term a precise and definite idea, I would say, purely and simply, it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority...