Quotes about Uniform Laws

Belva Lockwood

I shall recommend … uniform laws … for all of the States, and especially for marriage, divorce, and the limitations of contracts, and such a regulation of the laws of descent and distribution of estates as will make the wife equal with the husband in authority and right, and an equal partner in the common business.

At the time, in many states married women could not control their own inheritance, could not sign a contract, owned no part of a family business that a women might have founded and worked in her entire life, could not be an executor of a will—even if it were her husband’s.

Kimberly Guilfoyle

I think we need to update the existing laws to create uniformity across the states so that all people with mental illness who find themselves in the criminal justice system for committing horrific crimes will be treated exactly the same.

Marquis de Lafayette

Laws must be clear, precise, and uniform for all citizens.

Belva Lockwood

We recommend a uniform system of laws for the several states.

Giles Waldo Hotchkiss

I desire to secure every privilege and every right to every citizen in the United States…. I understand the amendment ... to authorize Congress to establish uniform laws throughout the United States upon the subject named, the protection of life, liberty, and property. I am unwilling that Congress shall have any such power

What was to become the 14th Amendment was being discussed. Several of the most radical Republicans drafted language that would allow Congress to make any law regarding life, liberty or property, so that they could be sure that the States would not make their laws in a discriminatory manner. However, Hotchkiss and the majority wanted to be sure the laws were not discriminatory but they didn’t want Congress to have the power to make any law regarding life, liberty and property for every state. The current version of the 14th Amendment just prohibited discrimination in laws, not empowering the Federal Government to override the state governments in most important areas.

Levi Woodbury

Laws fixed, certain, and uniform, are said to be the distinguishing traits of civilized from savage communities. In these last, seldom are any laws, unless it be the arbitrary and uncertain will of the strongest.

Voltaire

Let all the laws be clear, uniform and precise for interpreting laws is almost always to corrupt them.

Belva Lockwood

If elected, I shall recommend … a uniform system of laws as far as practical for all of the States…

Lockwood was one of the first American politicians to advocate some uniformity in State laws such as we now have with the Uniform Commercial Code and various model laws together with much more Federal preemption.

Uniform Laws Quotes