Belva Lockwood Quotes

We recommend a uniform system of laws for the several states.

I wonder much that a court of Law should be in doubt whether a Resolution of Congress can superceed the Law of a Sovereign State.

[The new Federal Government] would either triumph over the state governments and reduce them to entire subordination or in the course of a few years … the contests about the boundaries of power between the particular [State] governments and the general government … will produce a dissolution of the union.

You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations... until they were all litigated out.

to negative all laws passed by the several States, contravening in the opinion of the National Legislature the articles of Union.

The [Federal] constitution and the laws thereof are supreme ... they control the constitution and laws of the respective states, and cannot be controlled by them.

One of the main goals of the reforms is to broaden the rights of Mexicans. We needed a standard criminal code, the same rule of law all over the country. Instead of having different laws in every state, there will be the same law all over the country — at the federal and the local level — for any criminal procedure.

Historically, there is a presumption that the legitimate police powers of the states are not to be pre-empted by federal law unless Congress has made that purpose clear.

Congress has broad powers to regulate and control commerce. Congress also cannot force a state to 'un-decriminalize' something; states' rights are routinely upheld by the Court.

I just think it gets confusing for our communities when the federal law is different from the state law.

A difference must be made between a decision against the constitutionality of a law of Congress and of a State. The former acts as a restriction on the powers of this government, but the latter as an enlargement.

The health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last night clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state's sovereignty.

A lot of industry groups have said they support a federal law. They don't want to have to deal with 50 different state laws.

Nullification is the Jeffersonian idea that the states of the American Union must judge the constitutionality of the acts of their agent, the federal government, since no impartial arbiter between them exists.

The fate of this government depends absolutely upon raising it above the state governments.

The federal government should stay out of it.

This setting of State laws above the guarantees of the National Constitution is one of the forms of 'State Rights' which has already wrought so much evil to the country. Unless the United States is held as superior to States, we have no nation; we are merely a confederation of States…

The government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action.

The laws you have already passed for the establishment of a judiciary system have opened the doors of justice to all descriptions of persons. You will consider in your wisdom whether improvements in that system may yet be made, and particularly whether a uniform process of execution on sentences issuing from the Federal courts be not desirable through all the States.

An act of the Congress of the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force

James Madison was pessimistic about the country when he could not get accepted his proposal to allow the Congress to veto state laws.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they will go unprotected, in spite of all the laws the Federal government can put upon the national statute-book.

Since my election as Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, I have been a proud member of a group of federalism-minded state attorneys general who have methodically, indeed relentlessly, worked to restore the proper balance of power between the federal government and the states.

Wringing your hands about states' rights, forget it. They're gone. Basically, the federal government can do whatever it wants. Who's going to protect the states? My court? Ha - we're feds!

Particularly as a supposed 'conservative,' Trump ought to know something about the relationship between the federal government and the states.