William Bereford Quotes

The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognized by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.

An act of Congress is binding upon all as much as if it were included … in the Constitution itself.

When Congress writes a good law, then there are fewer lawsuits trying to interpret it.

Courts do not make the law.

In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

It lies in the power of no parliament to make any kind of law or statute, without his [the king's] scepter be to it, for giving it the force of law.

… courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws

Whatever the People has last ordained shall be held as binding by law.

The greatest defect in legislative history is its illegitimacy. We are governed not by legislative intention but by laws… the text should control even if the Congress intended a different result

[…] over the past decade, we’ve argued in court in favor of administrative latitude in decision-making. Now, by asserting the primacy of states rights, we’re flipping that argument on its head. How do we go back to all these cases where we’ve been arguing for executive discretion and say, “Oops, we didn’t mean it”?

Judges ought to remember that their office is Ius dicere and not Ius dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.

[The] fundamental principal of all just legislation [is] that the legislature shall not take the property of A and give it to B.

Every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject.

Statutes against Fundamental Morality are void

restriction on the legislative power is not peculiar to the Constitution of the United States; it was borrowed from Magna Carta; was brought to America by our ancestors, as part of their inherited liberties, and has existed in all the States, usually in the very words of the great charter. It existed in every political community in America in 1787, when the ordinance prohibiting slavery north and west of the Ohio was passed

We be informed by our judges that we at no time stand so high in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, when we as head and you as members are conjoined and knit together in one body politic.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after

A good law is one that holds, whether you recognize it or not; a bad law is one that cannot, however much you ordain it.

No law shall be enforced without the approval of the Duma [parliament].

Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments must always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant.

I respect, too, the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives.

There is a lot of talk in conservative circles about judicial modesty and deferring to the political branches. That view of judging often overlooks the important role that courts have in protecting people's rights. But if there was ever a time to defer, it is when Congress is protecting voting rights in the exact way the Constitution directs it to.

A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.