Category: Politics & Law

“The reason of man can only imperfectly judge—nay, and is often therein cozened—hence it must needs follow that all human constitutions are of necessity liable to imperfection, error, and injustice.” – William Ames, “Conscience” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“A division of things is by the law of nations. Nevertheless, by the common consent it may, upon just grounds, be somewhere enacted that almost all possessions should be in common.” – William Ames, “Conscience” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Let there be liberty of the press for printing, to those that are not allowed pulpits for preaching. Let that light come in at the window which cannot come in at the door, that all may speak and write one way, that cannot another.” – John Saltmarsh, “Smoke in the Temple” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“It is not easy by the light of nature to determine more than that there is a God. The sun may be that God. The moon may be that God. To frame a right conception or notion of the First Being, wherein all other things had their being, is not possible by the light of nature alone. Indeed, if a man consider there is a will of the Supreme Cause, it is an hard thing for him by the light of nature to conceive how there can be any sin committed. And therefore the magistrate cannot easily determine what sins are against the light of nature, and what not.” – Sir John Wildman, “Whitehall Debates” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“All civil power whatsoever, either in natural or civil things, is not able to bind men’s judgments, but only their actions.” – Henry Ireton, “Whitehall Debates” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“The necessary thing, that which necessarily leads all men into civil agreements or contracts, or to make commonwealths, is the necessity of it for preserving peace. Because otherwise, if there were no such thing, but every man were left to his own will, men’s contrary wills, lusts, and passions would lead every one to the destruction of another.” – Henry Ireton, “Whitehall Debates” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same as that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One

“Any man that makes a bargain, and does find afterwards ’tis for the worse, yet is bound to stand to it.” – Henry Ireton, “Putney Debates” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“May one be pardon’d and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice; and oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 3.3

“The cease of majesty dies not alone but like a gulf doth draw what’s near it with it: it is a massy wheel, fix’d on the summit of the highest mount, to whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which, when it falls, each small annexment, petty consequence, attends the boisterous ruin.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 3.3

“Autocrats seek to create an apathetic, demobilized citizenry that they can easily control.” – Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz, “The Treacherous Path to a Better Russia,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2023

“There’s no political posture that overrides the need to eat.” – Alicia Kennedy, “On Tradwives”

“In 1993, in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that, under Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (which covers both civil trials and criminal prosecutions in the federal courts), a ‘trial judge must ensure that any and all scientific testimony or evidence admitted is not only relevant, but reliable.’ The Court indicated that the subject of an expert’s testimony should be scientific knowledge, so that ‘evidentiary reliability will be based upon scientific validity.’ The Court also emphasized that, in considering the admissibility of evidence, a trial judge should focus ‘solely’ on the expert’s ‘principles and methodology,’ and ‘not on the conclusions that they generate.’ In sum, Daubert’s requirement that an expert’s testimony pertain to ‘scientific knowledge’ established a standard of ‘evidentiary reliability.’” – Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community, National Research Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward

“There are two ways in which the identification of the law of nature with the rule of man’s unfallen, or his regenerate, condition may tend to radical conclusions. To associate the natural with the unfallen state is to approach the general type of thought now described as primitivistic. To associate it with a regenerate condition presents, on the other hand, some affinity with the type of thought known as perfectibilitarian. In the eighteenth century these two types were to furnish, separately and together, the dominant modes of radical thinking. Discontent with the existing social order issued in the cry of ‘back to nature,’ or in the cry of ‘onward to perfection.’ Then the happy discovery was made that the two things were really identical: in order to go onward to perfection one had only to go back to nature for one’s rule. But before this blessed state of confusion could be achieved dogma must have disappeared or have been interpreted so figuratively that nothing but the smudged outline of its pattern persisted. In some of the radicals of the Puritan revolution these processes are seen at work.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“Scripture is the rule for the church; the law of nature, the only rule for the state. To attempt to introduce the Mosaic Law into the constitution of the state under the guise of natural law is sophistical. Nor are we left without strong indications of what the law of nature teaches in the civil sphere: it teaches that the people not only designate the persons of their governors, but bestow upon them all their power.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“Where civil liberty is entire, it includes liberty of conscience; where liberty of conscience is entire it includes civil liberty.” – James Harrington, Political Aphorisms

“The fact that there is a Puritan doctrine of liberty, whatever its limitations, is immensely important. Repeatedly Puritanism brings the question of liberty up for discussion, and this is a major service. While operating within the prescribed bounds of ‘Christian’ liberty, Puritanism, further, does a great deal to foster the notion of individuality, and an individualistic outlook, with results partially, though not wholly, favourable to democracy.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“The function of the state is to preserve peace and order and to guarantee the freedom of the individual; a wise government will be more willing to repeal old laws than to enact new ones, for the intention of laws is to check the commission of vice, but liberty is the best school of virtue.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“Human nature being what it was, a measure of democracy was the best protection against tyranny.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“Objectives in practical politics are always limited and generally selfish.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“The strong Puritan impulse to action results in the constant intrusion of religion into the secular sphere in an effort to enforce the standards of the holy community upon the world, and in a marked tendency to press on, in the name of that ideal, from the quest for religious liberty to the quest for political power.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“Had not God given the Israelites kings, and whenever they could do so with impunity, had not that model people knocked them about?” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty

“The law taken abstract from its original reason and end is made a shell without a kernel, a shadow without a substance and a body without a soul. It is the execution of laws according to their equity and reason, which is the spirit that gives life to authority.” – John Lilburne, a/k/a Freeborn John (quoted by A. S. P. Woodhouse in Puritanism & Liberty)

“The particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and, therefore, such a construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“When the legislature proceeds to impose on that officer [i.e., the President] other duties; when he is directed peremptorily to perform certain acts; when the rights of individuals are dependent on the performance of those acts; he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away the vested rights of others.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. [The] government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.” – Justice Holmes, United States Supreme Court, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)(internal citations omitted)

“Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the county more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One

“To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanor from the parish where he chuses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One