Not being granted, we
violate our trust by assuming them as palpably as we would by acting in
the face of a positive interdict; for the Constitution forbids us to do
whatever it does not affirmatively authorize, either by express words or
by clear implication. If the authority we desire to use does not come to
us through the Constitution, we can exercise it only by usurpation, and
usurpation is the most dangerous of political crimes. By that crime the
enemies of free government in all ages have worked out their designs
against public liberty and private right. It leads directly and
immediately to the establishment of absolute rule, for undelegated
power is always unlimited and unrestrained.
The acts of Congress in question are not only objectionable for their
assumption of ungranted power, but many of their provisions are in
conflict with the direct prohibitions of the Constitution. The
Constitution commands that a republican form of government shall be
guaranteed to all the States; that no person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law, arrested without a
judicial warrant, or punished without a fair trial before an impartial
jury; that the privilege of _habeas corpus_ shall not be denied in time
of peace, and that no bill of attainder shall be passed even against a
single individual.
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