The People

A conventional sovereignty being thus retained by the people over the state governments, and by the people and the state governments also, over the federal government, neither of these governments can legitimately acquire any species of sovereignty at all, because it would be contrary to the conventional sovereignty actually established.

I do not however admit that “sovereignty and the right of self-government” are equivalent things, except it is supposed that both reside in the people, and neither in a government.

But it may be objected, if sovereignty and despotism are synonimous terms, that the sovereignty of the people is also a despotism.

“The trial by jury,” then, is a “trial by the country”—that is, by the people—as distinguished from a trial by the government.

In order to effect this end, it is indispensable that the people, or “the country,” judge of and determine their own liberties against the government;

The authority to judge what are the powers of the government, and what the liberties of the people, must necessarily be vested in one or the other of the parties themselves—the government, or the people;

This may seem a paradox to vulgar minds, which are more strongly affected by the smallest disorder before their eyes, than by the most pernicious, though remote, consequences produced by one false principle adopted by a nation.

It is then they begin to conceive, and acknowledge the most palpable truths, which, from their very simplicity, commonly escape vulgar minds, incapable of analysing objects, accustomed to receive impressions without distinction, and to be determined rather by the opinions of others, than by the result of their own examination.

This evil will be still greater, if the laws be written in a language unknown to the people;

When it came to fixing the penalty, the jurymen wished to impose a sentence of death upon him, but I begged them to do nothing like that on a prosecution brought by me, and I agreed to the fine of a talent which these men themselves proposed,—not that I wished to save Arethusius from the death penalty (for he deserved death on account of the wrongs which he had committed against me), but that I, P …

It happened that I was sent as trierarch round the Peloponnesus, and from thence I had to carry to Sicily the ambassadors whom the people had elected.

A reason which the people of Marseilles urged in the dispute between Caesar and Pompey.

In a word, our forefathers had resolved that the people as the supreme master of the state, should appoint the magistrates, call to account those who failed in their duty, and judge in cases of dispute;

When we lost our fleet in the Hellespont and our city was plunged into the disasters of that time, who of our older men does not know that the “people’s party,” as they were called, were ready to go to any length of hardship to avoid doing what the enemy commanded, deeming it monstrous that anyone should see the city which had ruled over the Hellenes in subjection to another state, whereas the par …

But the best and strongest proof of the fairness of the people is that, although those who had remained in the city had borrowed a hundred talents from the Lacedaemonians with which to prosecute the siege of those who occupied the Piraeus, yet later when an assembly of the people was held to consider the payment of the debt, and when many insisted that it was only fair that the claims of the Laced …

and especially those which teach how men in power should deal with the people, and how the rank and file should be disposed to their rulers.

but I desired both to put myself as far above such suspicions as possible and at the same time to set up my conduct as a pattern to my people, knowing that the multitude are likely to spend their lives in practices in which they see their rulers occupied.

Will it be said that abolishing the taxes on justice would not answer the purpose, for that supposing them all abolished, justice would still remain inaccessible to the body of the people?

—that the persons on whom it bears hardest, are those on whom a burthen of any kind lies heaviest, and that they compose the great majority of the people:

From this statement it needs not much study to perceive, that for the bulk of the community, as far as ordinary cases of the civil kind are concerned, justice is but an empty name.

Although the inquiry may be of no legal importance, it may nevertheless be one pertinent to the subject, whether it be matter of history even—to say nothing of legal proof—that the people of the country did really understand or believe that the constitution sanctioned slavery?

Of course the intentions of the people at large are the only ones, that are of any importance to be regarded in determining the legal meaning of the instrument.

This convention sat with closed doors, and it was not until near fifty years after the people had adopted the constitution itself, that these private intentions of the framers authentically transpired.

for were it visible, people would fall to killing one another, and the order of things would break down.

12 — I have seen some people take pains over buying books and arranging them and spending the bulk of their hours upon this;

33 — Your preoccupation with people is a weakness of the weakness of confidence in the spirit, and evidence of the soul's poverty;

When the Pajriya people call upon you two, O Aśvins — come with food and prizes to the knower.

Then do you suppose it possible to know popular government without knowing the people?

Therefore, if that is so, we will include despots in the people, and men of small means, if they are thrifty, in the rich.

However, as the state you are preparing yourself to direct is governed by the people, no doubt you know what popular government is?