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,...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Constitutional Law
Convinced by woeful and eternal experience, societies found it necessary to lay restraints upon their magistrates or public servants, and to put checks upon those who would otherwise put chains upon them; and therefore these societies set themselves to … form national...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Direct Democracy
The legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given with trust for the...
by Matthew Bransgrove | Sep 15, 2015 | Direct Democracy
Executive recall is a remedy whereby the electorate, upon realizing they have elected the wrong person, can remove the incumbent part way through his term. Experience shows this remedy is used sparingly; in the eighteen U.S. states whose constitutions provide for the...