Legal Validity Quotes

A good law is one that holds, whether you recognize it or not; a bad law is one that cannot, however much you ordain it.

A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

The law is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the due process clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.

The agreement of the parties cannot make that good which the law maketh void.

Laws made in Alaska, which is known for its lawlessness, are as valid as laws made in Pennsylvania, which invented laws.

It goes without saying that a law to be valid must be clear enough to make its commands understandable.

THIS law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.

Invalidating laws has absolutely nothing to do with judicial activism. It depends on whether the law is unconstitutional or not. That's really the key point.

Law is vulnerable to the winds of intellectual or moral fashion, which it then validates as the commands of our most basic concept.

A marriage, valid by the law of the place where it was contracted, and not in fraud of the law of any other place, is valid everywhere; and that no technical domicile at the place of the contract is necessary to make it so

An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.

When a party shall make bond or conveyance, what he has named by word-of-mouth that shall hold good

All constitutional acts of power, whether in the executive or judicial department, have as much legal validity and obligation as if they proceeded from the legislature.

We are oblig'd therefore, by promises proceeding from fear, except the Civill Law forbid them, by vertue whereof, that which is promised becomes unlawfull.

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional -- I think differently. But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.

Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing--suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning?

Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.

Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.

Whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which out seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in doubtful case. ... But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.

Have you ever found any logical reason why mutual promises are sufficient consideration for one another (like the two lean horses of a Calcutta hack who can only just stand together)? I have not.

The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.

There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law.