Law

"Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune."

"A hoarseness caused by swallowing gold and silver."

"Flowery oratory he Walpole] despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, "All those men have their price.""

"And ye sail walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin ye'll consent to be his bride, Nor think o' Donald mair."

"There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none."

"What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?"

"There is gold for you. Sell me your good report."

"Tis gold Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up Their deer to the stand o' the stealer: and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief; Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man."

"His sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment."

"Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold."

"No abuse of power has so tarnished the corporate image or shown the need for government legislation as the numerous public revelations of wholesale political and foreign bribery that came to light during the 1970s. These revelations are one of the most sordid chapters in American corporate history. Investigations revealed widespread illegal corporate political contributions and extensive bribery of foreign government officials. When the bribes were large, they significantly distorted the corporation's actual financial picture, thus misleading company stockholders as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the . When U.S. corporations bribe officials of developing countries, they may help to undermine that country's political stability and in some cases contribute to the spread of anti-American feeling. A particularly serious situation develops when pharmaceutical corporations bribe health officials in other countries to obtain permission to sell dangerous drug products."

"Citizens United v. FEC]] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor."

"'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices."

"When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face."

"God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction."

"In a perfectly new case—a case altogether primae impressionis—I think the Judges are bound to hold fast to the principles of the common law—to remember the maxim, "Salus reipublicae suprema lex," and if the condition be really in principle against the public good, to pronounce it in their judgment void."

"Whatever is by the common law, can only be affected by statute."

"I shall always as far as I can by law endeavour to support the common law of the land and that excellent method of trial by juries, upon which all our lives, liberties and properties depend; and I shall endeavour as far as I can to prevent the encroachment of any jurisdiction whatever that proceeds by another law and another method of trial."

"I here give my opinion as a Common Lawyer; not presuming to say what the Court of Chancery would do upon the same question."

"Great attention and respect is undoubtedly due to the decisions of a Lord Chancellor: but they are not conclusive upon a Court of common law."

"The Court of Common Pleas is the lock and key of the common law."

"The common law of England must direct the determination of a common law question. By common-law determinations we are bound; and to them we must always adhere: for, these are the proper constitutional declarations of the law of the land. They are so considered, even by the Court of Chancery itself. When any doubt arises in a cause of equity concerning a point of common law, it is usually referred to the determination of a Court of Common Law."

"The common law is the custom of the kingdom, and we are bound to know it, and must be all governed by it."

"The common law, though not to be found in the written records of the realm, yet has been long well known. It is coeval with civilised society itself, and was formed from time to time by the wisdom of man. Good sense did not come with the Conquest, or at any other one time, but grew and increased from time to time with the wisdom of mankind."

"There is no doubt whatever that as far as common law is concerned, the Courts in this country have been bound, most of them, by inflexible rules handed down in great measure from the time of the Plantagenets, and until certain modern statutes were passed there was no possibility of altering or improving them."

"I am not for stirring a single pebble of the common law."

"The common law does not consist of particular cases decided upon particular facts: it consists of a number of principles, which are recognised as having existed during the whole time and course of the common law. The Judges cannot make new law by new decisions; they do not assume a power of that kind: they only endeavour to declare what the common law is and has been from the time when it first existed. But inasmuch as new circumstances, and new complications of fact, and even new facts, are constantly arising, the Judges are obliged to apply to them what they consider to have been the common law during the whole course of its existence, and therefore they seem to be laying down a new law, whereas they are merely applying old principles to a new state of facts."

"Common law is common usage, and where there is no law there can be no transgression."

"It is difficult to struggle with the common law."

"We ourselves of the present age, chose our common law, and consented to the most ancient Acts of Parliament, for we lived in our ancestors 1,000 years ago, and those ancestors are still living in us."

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of troops among us; For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States; For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent; For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury; For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses; For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies; For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and fundamentally altering the Forms of our Governments; For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with the power to to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever."

"The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience... The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics."

"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact."

"Yet the whole structure of the common law is an obvious denial of this theory; it stands as a monument slowly raised, like a coral reef, from the minute accretions of past individuals, of whom each built upon the relics which his predecessors left, and in his turn left a foundation upon which his successors might work."

"The Common lawes of the Realme should by no means be delayed for the law is the surest sanctuary, that a man should take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all, lex est tutissima cassis."

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason... The law, which is perfection of reason."

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

"Modus et conventio vineunt legem: Custom and agreement overrule law."

"Customs which are consistent may be pleaded against each other."

"All customs must be supposed to have had a good commencement, unless they appear to be inconsistent or against reason."

"Whatever may be the effect of the prevailing fashions of the times, I do not think that the argument of inconvenience, arising out of those fashions, can at any time be relied upon against a current of decisions."

"If the custom be general, it is the law of the realm: if local only, it is lex loci, the law of the place. Now, all laws are general, as far as the law extends; and all customs of England are of course, immemorial.1 No usage, therefore, can be part of that law, or have the force of a custom, that is not immemorial."

"Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

"As usage is a good interpreter of the laws, so non-usage, where there is no example, is a great intendment that the law will not bear it."

"I know not how or where to ascertain when an usage becomes of age."

"I cannot draw a distinction as to what length of time will render a practice legal."

"There can be very few cases, where a custom has been sufficiently proved, in which a Court could hold that it was unreasonable, for that it must be convenient is shown by the fact that it has been established and followed."

"In many cases a party undertakes to prove a custom from the time of legal memory, the reign of Richard the Second; but that proof is generally established by evidence of acts done at a much later period, and frequently no evidence is given beyond the present century."

"You say it was in the Saxons' time; you do not come to any time within 600 years; you speak of those times wherein things were obscure."

"We shall go according to the constant usage within memory."