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Thought for the day
"Among the evils then of our situation may well be ranked the multiplicity of laws from which no State is exempt. As far as laws are necessary, to mark with precision the duties of those who are to obey them, and to take from those who are to administer them a discretion, which might be abused, their number is the price of liberty. As far as the laws exceed this limit, they are a nusance: a nusance of the most pestilent kind. Try the Codes of the several States by this test, and what a luxuriancy of legislation do they present. The short period of independency has filled as many pages as the century which preceded it. Every year, almost every session, adds a new volume. This may be the effect in part, but it can only be in part, of the situation in which the revolution has placed us. A review of the several codes will shew that every necessary and useful part of the least voluminous of them might be compressed into one tenth of the compass, and at the same time be rendered tenfold as perspicuous."
Comments
"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
Cornelius Tacitus
And given how many laws we have today, we're in trouble.
Posted by: RKV at June 12, 2007 12:45 PM
Ha!
Madison was so prescient in so many ways.
Posted by: Bill at June 13, 2007 10:51 AM