Under every view of the subject it seems indispensable that the mass of the citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them. (Madison Papers, vol. 3, p. 14.)
The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercy of others. (Otis's Rights of the Colonies, p. 58.)
Amongst all the rights and privileges appertaining unto us, that of having a share in the legislation, and being governed by such laws as we ourselves shall cause, is the most fundamental and essential, as well as the most advantageous and beneficial.
By the natural law whereunto Almighty God hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself (or themselves), and not either by express commission immediately received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny! Agreeable to the same just privileges of natural equity, is that maxim for the English constitution, that "Law to bind all must be assented to by all"; and there can be no legal appearance of assent without some degree of representation.
All British subjects, whether in Great Britain, Ireland, or the colonies, are equally free by the laws of nature; they certainly are equally entitled to the same natural rights that are essential for their own preservation, because this privilege of "having a share in the legislation" is not merely a British right, peculiar to this island, but it is also a natural right, which can not without the most flagrant and stimulating injustice be withdrawn from any part of the British empire by any worldly authority whatsoever. No tax can be levied without manifest robbery and injustice where this legal and constitutional representation is wanting, because the English law abhors the idea of taking the least property from freemen without their consent. It is iniquitous (iniquum est, says the maxim) that freemen should not have the free disposal of their own effects, and whatever is iniquitous can never be made lawful by any authority on earth, not even by the united authority of king, lords, and commons, for that would be contrary to the eternal laws of God, which are supreme.
Political liberty I would say, consists in power, which the members of the State reserve to themselves, of arriving at the public offices, or at least of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them. In countries where every member of the society enjoys an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices, and consequently of directing the strength and sentiments of the whole community, there is a state of the most perfect political liberty.
On the other hand, in countries where a man is excluded from these offices, or from the power of voting for the proper persons to fill them, that man, whatever be the form of the government, has no share in the government and therefore has no political liberty at all. And since every man retains and can never be deprived of his natural right of relieving himself from all oppression, that is, from everything that has been imposed upon him without his own consent, this must be the only true and proper foundation of all governments subsisting in the world, and that to which the people who compose them have an inalienable right to bring them back.
Contemporary construction is properly resorted to to illustrate and confirm the text.... It can never abrogate the text; it can never fritter away its obvious sense; it can never narrow down its true limitations.
The importance of examining the preamble for the purpose of expounding the language of a statute has been long felt and universally conceded in all juridical discussion. It is an admitted maxim ... that the preamble is a key to open the mind of the matters as to the mischiefs to be remedied and the objects to be accomplished by the statute.... It is properly resorted to where doubts or ambiguities arise upon the words of the enacting part, for if they are clear and unambiguous, there seems little room for interpretation, except in cases leading to an obvious absurdity or a direct overthrow of the intention expressed in the preamble. [Story on the Constitution, sec. 457.]
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
They are susceptible of being applied, and often are ingeniously applied, to the subversion of the text and the objects of the instrument. The truth is, in order to ascertain how far an affirmative or negative provision excludes or implies others, we must look to the nature of the provision, the subject-matter, the objects, and the scope of the instrument; these and these only can properly determine the rule of construction (2 Story, 448).