"Equality before the law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them to be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed, as the case may be, for trial before such of the United States or territorial courts as by this act have cognizance of the offence, and, with a view to affording reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, and the prompt ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... elective franchise. The minority, however, was composed of very earnest men of the same type as those who originally created and combined the anti-slavery sentiment of the country, and who now espoused the right of the negro to equality before the law. Equality, they believed, could neither be conferred nor maintained unless the negro were invested with the badge of American manhood—the right to vote—a right which they were determined to guarantee as firmly to ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... wives, sisters and daughters! The woman who, seeing this, dares not maintain her rights is the one to hang her head and blush. We ask only for justice and equal rights—the right to vote, the right to our own earnings, equality before the law; these are ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... whom had no experience of political life, succeeded, within two months, in drafting a Constitution which has since served as a model for several European nations. It was the result of various influences: the groundwork—based on individual liberty, equality before the law, freedom of the press, of worship, of public meeting, of association and of teaching—was no doubt inspired by the French. On the other hand, the preponderance of legislative power, represented by the Chamber and the Senate, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... direct tax on the capitalist in favour 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, nor the toil ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... their company was not only bad taste, but it was foolish, I have often heard my father say that the great superiority of the American practice of democracy over the French ideal was that it didn't involve any assumption of social equality. He said that equality before the law and in politics was sacred, but that the principle could never govern society, and that Americans all instinctively recognised it. And I believe that to try to mix the different classes would ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... same degree to a privileged class that arrogates to itself the right to oppress; nor does it stop at the half-way house of mere negative protection. It allows in its onward course the full fruition of 'EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW.' In theory, the law is the sovereign, and we seek to attach such qualities to that sovereign as are compatible with the general good of society. That theory places no man above the law, nor any man below its protection. As soon as ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... This ideal 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 education the underlying postulate of our public ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick |
