77shovelhead
04-19-2010, 04:52 PM
Goldhedge,
In reading the case, Yick Wo v, Hopkins, that you linked to in my other thread, I find that I have questions. If you, or anyone else, can and will, I would apprecate a few responses.
I know squat about court cases and their relavence or purpose and need to know why people use them as if to make a point about what they are talking about. Understanding the content is only part of the lesson. Knowing the relavence and importance would help me understand why I would want or need to understand it.
Below I have bolded [118 U.S. 356, 370] from the Yick Wo v, Hopkins case. What is this? I ASSUME that is refering to something but what, I don't know. I read the case up to this point and realized that I didn't know what I was reading or why until this paragraph jumped out at me and seems to be an important part of the case.
I will post more questions as I go.
When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are sup- [118 U.S. 356, 370] posed to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision; and in many cases of mere administration, the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion, or by means of the suffrage. But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts bill of rights, the government of the commonwealth 'may be a government of laws and not of men.' For the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
CC
In reading the case, Yick Wo v, Hopkins, that you linked to in my other thread, I find that I have questions. If you, or anyone else, can and will, I would apprecate a few responses.
I know squat about court cases and their relavence or purpose and need to know why people use them as if to make a point about what they are talking about. Understanding the content is only part of the lesson. Knowing the relavence and importance would help me understand why I would want or need to understand it.
Below I have bolded [118 U.S. 356, 370] from the Yick Wo v, Hopkins case. What is this? I ASSUME that is refering to something but what, I don't know. I read the case up to this point and realized that I didn't know what I was reading or why until this paragraph jumped out at me and seems to be an important part of the case.
I will post more questions as I go.
When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are sup- [118 U.S. 356, 370] posed to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision; and in many cases of mere administration, the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion, or by means of the suffrage. But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts bill of rights, the government of the commonwealth 'may be a government of laws and not of men.' For the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
CC