Understanding court cases

[77shovelhead]

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

[77shovelhead]

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.

In our system, we GIVE our soverign POWER to the ones we delagate, and the ones we delagate are not subject to law, yet we retain soverignty itself. Is this correct?

From Bouvier's,
SOVEREIGN. A chief ruler with supreme power; one possessing sovereignty. (q. v.) It is also applied to a king or other magistrate with limited powers.

2. In the United States the sovereignty resides in the body of the people. Vide Rutherf. Inst. 282.



SOVEREIGNTY. The union and exercise of all human power possessed in a state; it is a combination of all power; it is the power to do everything in a state without accountability; to make laws, to execute and to apply them: to impose and collect taxes, and, levy, contributions; to make war or peace; to form treaties of alliance or of commerce with foreign nations, and the like. Story on the Const. §207.

2. Abstractedly, sovereignty resides in the body of the nation and belongs to the people. But these powers are generally exercised by delegation.

3. When analysed, sovereignty is naturally divided into three great powers; namely, the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary; the first is the power to make new laws, and to correct and repeal the old; the second is the power to execute the laws both at home and abroad; and the last is the power to apply the laws to particular facts; to judge the disputes which arise among the citizens, and to punish crimes.

4. Strictly speaking, in our republican forms of government, the absolute sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation; (q. v.) and the residuary sovereignty of each state, not granted to any of its public functionaries, is in the people of the state. (q. v.) 2 Dall. 471; and vide, generally, 2 Dall. 433, 455; 3 Dall. 93; 1 Story, Const. §208; 1 Toull. n. 20 Merl. Reper. h. t.

[Billboard]

I guess no one has replied yet, so check this out:

In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a legal case establishing a principle or rule that a court or other judicial body utilizes when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.

Here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent