Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes
… the magistrate should know what law he is to administer, that the subject should know under what law he is to live.
1st Baron Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1800-1859, British Historian & Secretary of War (Liberal), Member of Parliament, Speech on the Government of India, July 10, 1833
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Many of our Founding Fathers held the view that the Jurors should decide not only about the facts but also they have the final decision on the law. The concept of the jury not following the judge’s interpretation and instructions as to the law is called Jury Nullification of which many of the founders approved. In modern times however, most states require the jury to accept the judge’s instructions as to the law, and the Jury’s only role is to decide on the facts. Maryland is the only state left which allows the jury to make the final decision on the law as well as the facts. However, many jurors will silently nullify the Judges instructions and vote accordingly as jurors need not explain their reasoning in most jurisdictions. See {641742}, {590841}, {591140} & {591139} for similar views by other Founding Fathers.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
1st Baron Macaulay. An autocracy can produce an extensive coherent legal code much easier than a popular government because a few people can make all the decisions and need the final approval of one. The democracy has all the different forces and views of society to contend with and it takes much more to resolve and compromise a final code. The result however is not only fairer generally but is respected more by the people.
Sunday Excise Laws, sometimes called “Blue Laws”, prohibited commercial activity on Sunday, the day most Christians believe to be the Sabbath. Then such laws had not been constitutionally tested and when the were later were they were all found to be unconstitutional. Some Christian sects believe that Saturday is the Sabbath as do most Jews. Muslims believe Friday is the Sabbath. So any state determination on the Sabbath favors some religious viewpoint and discriminates against others. Today, decisions about Sabbath are left to individual consumers and store owners.
Three Chicago Aldermen had marched on an art school demanding that a painting they found offensive be removed from public display. The police seized the painting, prompting a lawsuit.
The Senator was arguing against a bill to correct an aspect of the immigration law where infants and very young clildren are broght to the United States by parents who entered illegally. The children grow up in the United States—the only country and home that they have ever known. American law required that they be deported to “their countries” which they have no memory of and many do not even speak the language or know the culture. Sessions, is an example of the view that law defines justice. Therefore laws cannot be unjust nor can enforcing the law. Opponents point out that even in the United States we have, in earlier times, “enforced the law” which we came to regret and see as an injustice. The Fugitive slave laws, the Southern racial discrimination laws, and the law allowing Japanese American Citizens to be interned and lose their land during WWII are a few examples of laws, the enforcement of which is seen by most Americans as having been unjust. The execution of “witches” in early America was in conformity with the law.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, FRS FRSE PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist, on contemporary and historical sociopolitical subjects, and as a reviewer. His The History of England was a seminal and paradigmatic example of Whig historiography, and its literary style has remained an object of praise since its publication, including subsequent to the widespread condemnation of its historical contentions which became popular in the 20th century.
