Michael Kinsley Quotes

The power of eminent domain is essential to a sovereign government.

The power of eminent domain is merely the means to an end.

Last Thursday, our Supreme Court backed that local governments can co-opt private property, and give it to another private entity, for economic development.

All private property is held subject to the demands of a public use. The constitutional guarantee of just compensation is not a limitation of the power to take, but only a condition of its exercise.

One would expect that private property taken by eminent domain would become land available for public use such as parks and roads. Unfortunately, this decision creates a loophole for government to manipulate the definition of public use simply to generate greater tax revenue.

While I believe our Constitution allows for State and local governments to execute the power of eminent domain for those purposes that specifically serve the public good, condemning property solely to implement economic development plans is not serving the public good.

What 'eminent domain' laws mean in practice is that politicians have a right to seize your property and turn it over to someone else, in order to gain campaign contributions and win votes.

The fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that no private property shall be taken for a public use without the payment of just compensation.

Private property ought to be subservient to public uses, when necessity requires it; nevertheless, whenever any particular man's property is taken for the use of the public, the owner ought to receive an equivalent in money

One of the specific powers and responsibilities of the federal government is to secure the borders. Property can be taken with due process of law and just compensation.

Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property 'without just compensation.' The basic model of an unconstitutional 'taking' would be if the government threw you out of your house.

The exercise of the power of eminent domain is against common right. It subverts the usual attributes of the ownership of property.

The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is 'okay' to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is.

Wherever indeed a right of property is infringed for the general good, if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made; but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform.

Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.

I didn't say wonderful, I say eminent domain is something you need Chris. Eminent domain - if I build a highway - go ahead. I know exactly what you're saying. But if I build a highway, and if something's in the way of the highway, you're going to have to do something with that.

The end of all political associations is, the preservation of the rights of man, which rights are liberty, property, and security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it...

While property may he regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will he recognized as a taking.

Contracts, however expressed, cannot fetter the constitutional authority of the Congress. Contracts may create rights of property, but when contracts deal with a subject matter which lies within the control of the Congress they have a congenital infirmity. Parties cannot remove their transactions from the reach of dominant constitutional power by making contracts about them.

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property

We are charged with being a menace to the United States, with being inimical to the Constitution and Government, simply because we have undertaken to legitimately and legally test in the courts, as we have the most perfect right to do, the legality and constitutionality of the law and the commissioners' rulings

No man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom.

Alien ownership of land should be prohibited…. all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers

Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery but of liberty. It denotes that he is a subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.