"Equality before the law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dawn of the day that shall mean freedom for woman and the ennobling of the race was first seen by Wyoming, on the crest of our continent, and the clarion note was sounded forth, "Equality before the law." For a quarter of a century she was the lone watcher on the heights to sound the tocsin of freedom. At last Colorado, from her splendid snow-covered peaks, answered back in grand accord, "Equality before the law." Then on Utah's brow shone the sun, and she, too, exultantly joined in the trio, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... equality before the law? Neither the constitution of 1790, nor that of '93, nor the granted charter, nor the accepted charter, have defined it accurately. All imply an inequality in fortune and station incompatible with even a shadow ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... great Slaughter-house cases, which casts a shadow of doubt on the right of Congress to pass the pending bill, or to adopt such other legislation as it may judge proper and necessary to secure perfect equality before the law to every citizen of the Republic. Sir, I protest against the dishonor now cast upon our Supreme Court by both the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Georgia. In other days, when the whole country was bowing beneath the yoke of slavery, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... prepared. Speranski considered the Code Napoleon the model of all progressive legislation. Its adoption was desired, but it was suited only to a homogeneous people; it was a modern garment and not to be worn by a nation in which feudalism lingered, in which there was not a perfect equality before the law; hence the emancipation of the serfs must be the corner-stone of the new structure. The difficulties grew larger as they were approached. He had disappointed the friends of his youth, had displeased his nobility, and a general feeling of irritation prevailed upon finding ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... intended only for the upper class. Thus, right down to modern times an educated person could be judged under regulations different from those applicable to the common people, or if judged on the basis of the laws, he had to expect a special treatment. The principle of the "equality before the law" which the Legalists had advocated and which fitted well into the absolutistic, totalitarian system of the Ch'in, had been attacked by the feudal nobility at that time and was attacked by the new gentry of the Han time. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... no temptation to do wrong. If they hurt the state, they hurt themselves, for they are the state. Is a man likely to hurt himself? Equality is my axiom. Nor, by equality, do I mean your narrow pitiful equality before the law, as it is sometimes tarmed, for that may be no equality at all; but, I mean an equality that is substantial, and which must be restored, when the working of the law has deranged it. Fellow-citizens, do you know what leap-year means? I dare say some of you don't, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... them, and recover damages, if he can. This may be right enough in itself; but I think, then, that all property should be defended by civil suit, and should become public after forty-two years of private tenure. The Constitution guarantees us all equality before the law, but the law-makers seem to have forgotten this in the case of our infant literary industry. So long as this remains the case, we cannot expect the best business talent to go into literature, and the man of letters must keep his present low grade ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... has made equality before the law one of the maxims of our civilized governments, failure in which wakens our apprehension and our fear; it has made equal suffrage a fact, although practical people only yesterday laughed at it as a dream; it has made equality in opportunity for an ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... Progress in this direction, then, has consisted in the growth of a really tolerant spirit, which has led to the removal from Catholics, Protestant dissenters, and Jews all civil disabilities, and the placing of all sects on an absolute equality before the law. This is but a completion of the work of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... participant in the sovereignty, citizen, and, as bound to obedience to the law, subject. The individual loses his natural freedom, receiving in exchange the liberty of a citizen, which is limited by the general will, and, in addition, property rights in all that he possesses, equality before the law, and moral freedom, which first really makes him master of himself. The impulse of mere desire is slavery, obedience to self-imposed law, freedom. The sovereign is the people, law the general popular will directed to the common good, the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of the labourer) more than are paid by the poor. "In England" (says M. de Tocqueville of even the eighteenth century) "the poor man enjoyed the privilege of exemption from taxation; in France, the rich." Equality before the law is as well-nigh complete as it can be, where some are rich and others poor; and the only privileged class, it sometimes seems to me, is the pauper, who has neither the responsibility of self-government, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley |
