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Law of the land   /lɔ əv ðə lænd/   Listen
Law of the land

noun
1.
A phrase used in the Magna Carta to refer to the then established law of the kingdom (as distinct from Roman or civil law); today it refers to fundamental principles of justice commensurate with due process.






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"Law of the land" Quotes from Famous Books



... go right until the women had just as much right to vote and rule as the men. She asked us all to come up and sign our names who would promise to do all in our power to bring about that glad day when equal rights would be the law of the land. A whole lot of us went up and signed the paper. When I told Grandmother about it she said she guessed Susan B. Anthony had forgotten that St. Paul said the women should keep silence. I told her no, she didn't, for she spoke particularly about St. Paul and said ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... had invaded in great force the surrounding district, stopped all the engines, turned all the potters out of the manufactories, met with no resistance from the authorities, and issued a decree that labour was to cease until the Charter was the law of the land. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... law of the land; knew that if he accused the organ-grinder wrongfully he would be walked off to prison in his place; but Gabriel had seen the brown dog's eyes. There were no doubts in his heart, which bounded so that it seemed as if it could hardly stay ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... almost to doubt his own absolute omniscience and absolute wisdom. He was prepared half to admit that under certain circumstances a prisoner might possibly be in the right, and that all crimes alike did not necessarily deserve the hardest sentence the law of the land allowed him to allot them. Habitual criminals even began, after a while, to express a fervent hope, as assizes approached, they might be tried by old Gildersleeve: "Gilly," they said, "gave a cove a chance": he wasn't "one of these ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... too, seem to have lost all their former pride, the lower orders are afraid, and the upper classes are quite disaffected. The change has been most wonderful, nor is it quite possible to reconcile to oneself how it has been brought about. The Koran is no longer the law of the land, and therefore you can hardly say they are any longer Turks. In Salonica this day, an independent Greek was seen beating an armed ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... but words. "In a nation of blind men," we are told, "the one-eyed man is king." In a nation of undiscriminating voters the noise of the agitator is apt to drown the voice of the statesman. We have been teaching everybody to read, nobody to think; and as a consequence—the rule of numbers the law of the land, partyism in the saddle—legislation, state and Federal, becomes largely a matter of riding to hounds and horns. All this, which was true in the fifties, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... ev'ry thing you propose will be granted; but in order that you may see precedents are not wanting—there is a statute in the reign of Henry the 8th that expressly shews the then parliament passed a law that the king's proclamation should be the law of the land...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock

... and the cunning Egyptian said to himself that Caracalla was anxious to spare the father and his sons for the daughter's sake. And yet Caesar would surely wish to keep them in safety, to have some hold over the girl; so he lied with a bold face, affirming that, in obedience to the law of the land, he had removed Heron and Philip, at any rate for the moment, beyond the reach of Caesar's mercy. They had in the course of the night been placed on board a galley and were now on the way to Sardinia. But a swift vessel should presently ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and the peace of the capital was not in the least disturbed. From this time Chartism fell into contempt, and speedily died out. Of the six 'points,' all but the second and fifth have since that time become the law of the land, as the growing requirements of the nation have seemed ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... against it. This idea still lingers and the institution remains,[22] although the system has received stunning blows from the teaching of Christian ethics, the preaching of a better gospel and the improvements in the law of the land. ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... leaders must, and will in the end, adjust themselves to this overwhelming and irresistible tendency. It will make parties, and unmake parties, will make rulers, and unmake rulers, until it shall become the fixed, universal, and irreversible law of the land. For fifty years, it has made progress against all contradictions. It stemmed the current of opposition in church and State. It has removed many proscriptions. It has opened the gates of knowledge. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various

... forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relatively unimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents. The Common Law which Coke jealously upheld in the southern half of a single European island, is now the law of the land throughout the vast regions of Australasia, and of America north of the Rio Grande. The names of the plays that Shakespeare wrote are household words in the mouths of mighty nations, whose wide domains were to him more unreal than the realm of Prester John. Over half the descendants of their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... come to that, they were muscular Christians too, and could behead a man as well as another. So then and there they laid before him a written agreement or "charter," as they called it, and told him to place at the end of it the written signature of the king, which would thus make it the law of the land. ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... new abolition; a member who ventured to propose an amendment to one proposal was hooted down; and in little more than an hour the whole series of resolutions, which struck at once at the recollections and glories of the past and at the dignity of the future, was made the law of the land. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... Such a battery of heavy arguments against my unprecedented step in taking up my residence with these unfortunate young men, who, though they had not themselves openly transgressed the law of the land, yet were the offspring of unhallowed unions with the children of a felon. I cannot go through it all, but it hinted that besides their origin, there was some terrible stain on Harold, and that society could not admit them; so that if I persisted in casting in my lot with them, I should share the ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the West Indian negroes in 1833, and to shorten the period of semi-servile apprenticeship in 1838. Yorkshire was the home of the Short Time Committees, which organized the campaign against White Slavery at home. The Ten Hours Movement caused the Ten Hours Bill to become the law of the land. From Lancashire came the Anti-Corn Law League, whose story is ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... distinguished from them not only by its greater compass but also by its much higher claims. It is written with the distinct intention not to remain a private memorandum, but to obtain public authority as a book. The idea of making a definite formulated written Torah the law of the land, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... was great arrangement of details. Each tenant gave a list of the arms which he possessed and the number of horses fit for work, and as in those days, by the law of the land each man, of whatsoever his degree, was bound to keep arms in order to join the militia, should his services be required for the defense of the kingdom, the stock of arms was, with the contents of Sir Henry's armory, found to be sufficient for ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... the young man, summoning up his courage. "Miriam and I have a gift to love each other, and we are going among the world's people, to live after their fashion. And ye know that we do not transgress the law of the land; and neither ye, nor the elders themselves, have a right to ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... three companies of the militia had passed through Utica and had gone up the line of the U. & M. Their orders were to avoid killing where possible and to capture all of the hill men that they could. The railroad wished to have them tried and imprisoned by the impartial law of the land. For it was characteristic of the great power which in those days ruled the State that when it had outraged every sense of fair play and common humanity to attain its ends it was then ready to spend much money creating public opinion in favour ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... utterance, and how infinite. I would be glad to know what judge takes the pains, when a hundred of these foreigners apply just on the eve of the election, that they may qualify themselves to vote, what judge inquires whether they are men of good moral character? Yet such is the provision of the law of the land. We have assumed the authority to limit suffrage. We say that women shall not vote, which is a great mistake. [Sensation.] You are not up to that. [Laughter.] My wife is as competent to vote as I. On all moral questions, ...
— 'America for Americans!' - The Typical American, Thanksgiving Sermon • John Philip Newman

... freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or be disseised of his freehold or his liberties or his free customs [these important words added in 1217] or be outlawed or exiled or otherwise destroyed but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land." This, the right to law, is the cornerstone of personal liberty. Any government in any country on the Continent can seize a man and keep him as long as it likes; it is only Anglo-Saxons that have an absolute right not to have that happen to them, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... received among the best judges that the more a man was taxed the richer he ultimately would prove; and he concluded by saying that Popanilla need not make himself uneasy about these demands, because, if he were ruined to-morrow, being a foreigner, he was entitled by the law of the land to five thousand a-year; whereas he, the excise-man, being a native-born Vraibleusian, had no claims whatever upon the Government; therefore he hoped his honour would give ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... cowards," replied Sedgwick reprovingly. "They're the same men who fought at Bennington, but it takes away their courage to feel they're arrayed against their own neighbors and the law of the land." ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... and I would have continued it until the end of my term, if necessary, without any action by Congress. But it was far preferable that there should be action by Congress, so that we might be proceeding under a treaty which was the law of the land and not merely by a direction of the Chief Executive which would lapse when that particular executive left office. I therefore did my best to get the Senate to ratify what I had done. There was a good deal of difficulty about it. With the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... their elders? And yet those of us who live in Chicago are obliged to confess that last year there were arrested and brought into court fifteen thousand young people under the age of twenty, who had failed to keep even the common law of the land. Most of these young people had broken the law in their blundering efforts to find adventure and in response to the old impulse for self-expression. It is said indeed that practically the whole machinery of the grand jury and of the ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams

... he had informed the foreign consuls and General Otis that it had been promulgated and become the law of the land. It was not promulgated. It had not become the law of the land. It served one important purpose. It passed into the hands of the Americans and showed them the ability and the aspirations of certain individuals of the archipelago, but Mabini and his followers did not believe in its form ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... the different modes or degrees in which phenomena are connected. Yet we accept them as the best expression which we have of the correlation of forces or objects. We see that the term 'law' is a mere abstraction, under which laws of matter and of mind, the law of nature and the law of the land are included, and some of these uses of the word are confusing, because they introduce into one sphere of thought associations which belong to another; for example, order or sequence is apt to be confounded with external ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought that he would escape the gallows; and for sole penalty the seducer was sentenced to forfeit less than a year's income. How corrupt and venal was a bench that made the law of the land a nullity when a great personage ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... shore as well as at sea, was a thorough disciplinarian. Of course, he was aware that his proceedings were technically illegal; that in forcing himself into the house of the squire he was breaking the law of the land; but it seemed to him to be one of those cases where prompt action was necessary, and the law was too tardy to be of any service. He was, however, determined that the business should be done with as little violence as possible, and he had instructed the ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... the wisdom of Congress to determine whether the article of the treaty relating to extradition is to be any longer regarded as obligatory on the Government of the United States or as forming part of the supreme law of the land. Should the attitude of the British Government remain unchanged, I shall not, without an expression of the wish of Congress that I should do so, take any action either in making or granting requisitions for the surrender of fugitive criminals under ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... time had now arrived, and notwithstanding the exacting duties of his position, the care of his suffering soldiers, and his anxiety about their future, immediate and distant, he proceeded according to the law of the land to carry out the provisions of the will, and had delivered to every one of the servants, where it was possible, their manumission papers. From his letters written at this time I give a few extracts bearing on ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... Montezuma would come again as the messiah of the pueblo. The Catholic religion has been so long outwardly practiced by the people that it could not now, they think, be easily laid aside, and the old Sun religion be established, because it is looked upon as established by the law of the land, and therefore necessarily practiced. Nevertheless, the Indians will always follow and practice, as they do, both religions. If,' said the governor, 'one Indian here at this pueblo were to declare that he intended to renounce and abandon the religion ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... they lived and died, and, since the amount available was limited by the mountain wall, he who had most land was great amongst them, he who had little land was small, he who had no land was practically a slave. Their law was in its essentials a law of the land; their ambitions, their crimes, everything to do with them, were concerned with the land, upon the produce of which they existed and grew rich, some of them, by means of a system of barter. They had no coinage, their ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... everyone owns That is natural, 'neath the black flag and cross-bones. No mere paltry maker of fireworks am I, But a Rover who's free, whose sole roof is the sky. The law of the land may the petty appal. But frighten the Rover? Oh no, not at all! And ne'er to Commissions or Colonels I'll yield, Whilst there's Black Tyne to back me or Whitehall to shield. Unfurl the Black Flag! shake ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... your bed this very night, or I'd have you seized as you set your foot upon the wharf. I would appeal to our Consul-General. As far as he knows, I am as worthy of protection as you are yourself, and, failing him, I'd appeal to the law of the land." He stopped for want of breath, and then began again with the air of one who finds encouragement in the sound of his own voice. "They may not understand extradition here, Holcombe," he said, "but a thief is a thief all the world over. What you may be in New York isn't going to help ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... clear that our princes were, by the law of the land, competent to do what they would with their hereditary estates. It is perfectly true that the law was defective, and that the profusion with which mansions, abbeys, chaces, warrens, beds of ore, whole streets, whole market towns, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... a prophet," said the mother, smiling tenderly at his oracular manner, "a prophet and a king in one. Hast thou had a vision? Is thy will indeed the law of the land?" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... that would be to sanction the revolutionary doctrine that a body of men, usurping a State Government, and calling themselves the State, can absolve their fellow citizens from their allegiance to the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The rebel States are, then, still members of the Union. Otherwise, we are waging an unjust war. Otherwise we falsify and contradict the record of our Revolution, and are striving to reduce to dependence a people who are equally striving to maintain their independence. There is no justification ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... pretend to be any defence of slavery. I know not whether it was right or wrong (there are many pros and cons on the subject); but it was the law of the land, made by statesmen from the North as well as the South, long before my day, or my father's or grandfather's day; and, born under that law a slave-holder, and the descendant of slave-holders, raised in the heart of the cotton section, surrounded by negroes from my earliest infancy, "I KNOW whereof ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... of a child a year later, at Rieti in the Appenines, whither Margaret had retired, made secrecy seem more imperative; or, as Margaret said, in order to defend the child "from the stings of poverty, they were patient waiters for the restored law of the land." The Italian Revolution of 1848 was then in progress. Ossoli her husband, was a captain in the Civic Guard, on duty in Rome, and the letters which she wrote him at this period of trial, were the only fragments of her treasures recovered from ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... have received a promise. Didn't he have a promise?" To this Mrs Baggett got no reply, though she waited for one before she went on with her argument. "You knows he had; and a promise between a lady and gentleman ought to be as good as the law of the land. You stand there as dumb as grim death, and won't say a word, and yet it all depends upon you. Why is it to go about among everybody, that he's not to get a wife just because a man's come home with his ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... did any one of those States take itself out of the American Union? Was it by the ordinance of secession? I think we all agree that an ordinance of secession passed by any State of the Union is simply a nullity because it encounters the Constitution of the United States which is the supreme law of the land. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... king, his career as an English statesman strictly begins, and a wonderful career it is. Its main principle was to respect formal legality wherever he could. All William's purposes were to be carried out, as far as possible, under cover of strict adherence to the law of the land of which he had become the lawful ruler. He had sworn at his crowning to keep the laws of the land, and to rule his kingdom as well as any king that had gone before him. And assuredly he meant to keep his oath. But a foreign king, at ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... humblest citizen—standing within the jurisdiction of the Republic. Washington but echoed the words that himself and his associates had imbedded in the text of the Constitution, that "this Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land." It shall be supreme over every officer; it shall be supreme over every State; it shall be supreme over every territory; it shall be supreme upon every deck covered by your flag in every zone all round the globe. Every man within its jurisdiction, official and unofficial, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... have been greater general progress among our people themselves, a more united front to meet past and coming exigencies, and a profounder hold upon the public attention, and a deeper respect on the part of our enemies, than we now can boast of. Looking at public opinion as it is, the living law of the land, and yet a malleable, ductile entity, which can be moulded, or at least affected, by the thoughts of any masses vigorously expressed, we should have become a power on earth, of greater strength and influence than in our present ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... force of law, and got the Duke of Wellington to go there.' He seemed very well pleased at this, and said, 'Well, that is the way I governed the provinces on the Garonne in the south of France. I desired the mayors to go on administering the law of the land, and when they asked me in whose name criminal suits should be carried on (which were ordinarily in the name of the Emperor), and if they should be in the name of the King, I said no, that we were treating with the Emperor at Chatillon, and if they put forth the King ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... earnestly recommend to the several states the course of action therein suggested. But Nathan Dane and Rufus King of Massachusetts, intent upon technicalities, succeeded in preventing this. According to King, a convention was an irregular body, which had no right to propose changes in the organic law of the land, and the state legislatures could not properly confirm the acts of such a body, or take notice of them. Congress was the only source from which such proposals could properly emanate. These arguments were pleasing to the self-love ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... would be liable to prosecution for the commission of acts of a nature to "violate the law of nations." It is manifest that the question whether or not the French treaty was still in operation was of great practical importance. If it was still in force, the treaty formed part of the law of the land, and American citizens might plead immunity for acts done in pursuance of its provisions. Hamilton was for suspending the treaty since a situation had arisen which made its provisions inconsistent with a policy of neutrality. His main ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... minute, vexatious and even an impertinent perquisition; but as the duke and ambassador had to submit, I thought it best to follow his example; besides, resistance would be useless. The Englishman, who prides himself on his strict adherence to the law of the land, is curt and rude in his manner, and the English officials cannot be compared to the French, who know how to combine politeness with ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... good-bye, our hero and his friends rode off to take possession of the estate. They were well armed, for, in these days, might, not right, was the law of the land. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... Territories is a specious fallacy. Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,—that their local law be made the law of the land, and coextensive with the limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another; and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law makes property," (confounding a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the same time. Of course Bobtail would be expected to keep the secret, and thereby become a party to the fraud. He was not prepared for this issue. He did not want the confidence of any smuggler. Whatever his own views of the contraband trade, he would not break any law of the land himself, however leniently he was disposed to regard others who neglected to pay duties to the custom-house. He had always tried to be honest and upright, and he had a perfect horror of being ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic

... from her realm. Even when this project failed, they rejected with stern defiance the young Queen's proposal of restoring the old religion as a condition of her return. If they invited her to Scotland, it was in the name of the Parliament which had set up Calvinism as the law of the land. Bitter as such terms must have been Mary had no choice but to submit to them. To accept the offer of the Catholic Lords of Northern Scotland with the Earl of Huntly at their head, who proposed to welcome her in arms as a champion ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... his conduct—no occasion, when one thinks seriously of his position, to blame his conduct. There were many things in the Catholic creed of which Cecil disapproved; and when his opportunity came, he gave his effectual assistance for the abolition of them; but as long as that creed was the law of the land, as a citizen he paid the law the ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... made law for the first time in any English-speaking community, and I was more than satisfied that my personal views which I had held for so many years, ever since in South Australia, in 1895, I had prepared the first scheme for the approval of Charles Cameron Kingston, had actually become the law of the land. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... indulged. He detects incipient incendiarism in eggs and fried bacon—homicide in an Irish stew—robbery and house-breaking in a basin of mutton-broth—and an aggravated assault in a pork sausage. Upon this noble and statesmanlike theory Sir Robert has based a bill which, when it becomes the law of the land, will, we feel assured, tend effectually to keep the rebellious stomachs of the people in a state of wholesome depletion. And as we now punish those offenders who break the Queen's peace, we shall, in like manner, then inflict the law upon the hungry scoundrels ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... who took upon him to pronounce Burns a single man, as he intimates in this letter, was the Rev. Mr. Auld, of Mauchline: that the law of the land and the law of the church were at variance on the subject no one ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Hotel had ordered the kitchen garbage to be dumped in an open glade of the surrounding forest, thus providing throughout the season, a daily feast for the Bears, and their numbers have increased each year since the law of the land has made the Park a haven of refuge where no wild thing may be harmed. They have accepted man's peace-offering, and many of them have become so well known to the Hotel men that they have received names suggested ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... "Campaigners." Mr. Stacpoole thinks one great danger of the actual situation is that men who were originally "coerced" by intimidation into dishonestly refusing to pay just rents, which they were abundantly able to pay, are beginning now to think that they will be, and ought to be, relieved by the law of the land from any ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... down on the desk. "Well, how are you going to stop them? The law of the land is sitting out there in that ship. Tomorrow morning he's coming back here to install his fat little friend as governor. He has guns and soldiers on that ship to back him up. What are you going to do ...
— Image of the Gods • Alan Edward Nourse

... In other respects the Crown acquired less; for not the Crown, but the Archbishop of Canterbury was appointed to exercise the power of dispensation in things lawful, and to confirm Episcopal elections. Neither the Crown nor the Archbishop succeeded to such Papal prerogatives as were contrary to the law of the land; for neither the 26th of Henry VIII. nor the 2nd of Elizabeth annexed to the Crown all the powers of correction and reformation which had been actually claimed by the Pope, but only such as "hath heretofore been or may lawfully ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... (except running water), without any bread; and this to be their diet until they were dead. So as, upon the matter, they should die three manner of ways, by weight, by famine, and by cold. And the reason of this terrible judgment was because they refused to stand to the common law of the land."—2 Inst. 178, 179. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various

... politics. We have been so scrupulous in our efforts to keep out of political entanglements that we have sometimes failed to uphold principles of law in the validity of which we were as much concerned as any other nation. We have always recognized international law as a part of the law of the land, and we have always acknowledged the moral responsibilities that rested on us as a member of the society of nations. In fact, the Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes the binding force of the law ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... form no new connexions to strengthen the family interest, or raise its consequence. This doctrine her ladyship had repeated for years so often and so dogmatically, that she conceived it to be incontrovertible, and of as full force as any law of the land, or as any moral or religious obligation. She would as soon have suspected her niece of an intention of stealing her diamond necklace as of purloining Colambre's heart, or marrying this heir of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... drawn up by lawyers, and are based on the law of the land. A jailer, in the eye of the law, is merely a head turnkey set to guard the prisoners. For hundreds of years he had no lawful right to punish a prisoner at all; that right was first bestowed on him with clear limitations ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... exasperated, but they will get no redress, so long as the present system of English diplomacy exists. Be it in Pera or in Madrid, Petersburg or Naples, poor John Bull must always be kicked and cuffed, ill used, and treated contrary to the law of the land in which he happens to be sojourning. Is it to be supposed that any minister would give himself the trouble to mix himself up in such affairs? He might address a note to the authorities, when the facts would in all probability be denied, or some paltry excuse ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... an object of aversion and terror to the peaceful inhabitants of the land, his avocation being to challenge quiet country farmers to single combat. As the law of the land stood in Norway, a man who declined to accept a challenge, forfeited all his possessions, even to the wife of his bosom, as a poltroon unworthy of the protection of the law, and every item of his property passed into the hands of his challenger. The berserkr accordingly had the unhappy man ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... Sovereign or the Ministers: certain forms of opinion were not allowed to be published. All that is altered. You can believe what you like and advocate what you like, so long as it is not against Divine Law or the Law of the Land. Thus, if one were to preach the duty of Murder he would be very properly stopped. Therefore, when you buy a daily paper: whenever you enter a church or chapel: whenever you hear an address or a lecture remember that you are enjoying the freedom ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... him as I can no way relieve myself, and therefore humbly crave his majesty, in his princely consideration of my distressed condition, to forgive me this reservedness, proceeding from that just sense, and the rather, for that the law of the land in civil causes, as I am informed, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... combination of hurricane and snow-storm, with a very sudden and rapid fall of temperature; and when the interval between two of them was not greater than twenty years, the provisions made by the state were ample to prevent loss of life. By the law of the land, residence houses had to be built in such a manner that at least one room in each house could be warmed by a fire. Fire for purposes of warmth was never in Hili-li required, except during these storms; and all cooking was done on a peculiar stove made chiefly of gold, the fuel of which was either ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... session of Congress. The last session really did nothing which can be considered final as to these questions. The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass

... of race or religion, ancestry or gender, disability or sexual orientation, is wrong and it ought to be illegal. Therefore, I ask Congress to make the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act the law of the land. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the law of the land, all her children were supposed to be Monsieur de Montespan's. When her husband was dangerously ill, Madame de Montespan, who in some degree affected devotion, sent to ask him if he would allow her to nurse ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... of crime is left to the police, who, as a result, have attained something of the protection which droit administratif throws over police and magistrates in France and other Continental countries, by which State officials are to a large extent protected from the ordinary law of the land, are exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals, and are subject instead to official ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... with such cold-blooded discussion over human lives. They began to understand something of the things they had read concerning conditions in the Lone Star State in the early days when men's passions ran riot; when practically the only law of the land was the law of the gun. Now, conditions had changed. It was only in certain localities that lawlessness reigned in Texas, but these were bad spots, as evidenced by the presence of the Rangers, that intrepid body of men that for thirty years had been the terror of evildoers. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin

... it; and with this I make all the steps hitherto taken in this suit void and of none-effect. I forbid thee by a lawful protest, a full, fair, and binding protest, as I have a right to forbid thee by the common custom of the Thing and by the law of the land. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... before that day came another letter was brought by a messenger of Lawyer Nicholas Tresidder from Falmouth. This letter stated that as no rent had been paid since the death of Margaret Pennington, the heirs of the late Peter Quethiock claimed six years' rent, as they were entitled to do by the law of the land. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... difficult of amendment, should not be so construed as to deprive the states of the power to amend their laws so as to make them conform to the wishes of the citizens as they may deem best for the public welfare without bringing them into conflict with the supreme law of the land. Of course, it is impossible to forecast the character or extent of these changes, but in view of the fact that from the day Magna Carta was signed to the present moment, amendments to the structure of the law have been made with increasing frequency, it is impossible to suppose ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... debate. That discussion, which for half a century threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no appeal—that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are and shall continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike upon the States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States nor interfere with any of their necessary rights of local self-government, but it does fix and establish the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... Inca. They were entirely cut off from their own people and from the world at large, only the Inca and the queen having the right to enter those sacred precincts. From them the brides of the Inca were chosen, for the law of the land allowed him to have as many wives as he pleased. They lived in his various palaces throughout the country, and at his death many of them sacrificed themselves willingly that they might accompany him into his new existence. In this wonderful monarchy each successive Inca seems to have been content ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... seldom occupying the attention of the bulk of nominal Christians, and being scarcely at all the object of their study, we should expect, of course, to find them extremely unacquainted with its tenets. Those doctrines and principles indeed, which it contains in common with the law of the land, or which are sanctioned by the general standard of morals formerly described, being brought into continual notice and mention by the common occurrences of life, might continue to be recognized. But whatever she contains ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... in direct opposition to the Scripture references he had first given to prove that the gaining of wealth by usury was unlawful. He does not claim to get this answer from the Bible. He rests this answer on the law of the land and the purposes of the borrower, and says it is not worse than taking ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land." ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson

... my Lord," cried Sandford, "you are only married by your own church and conscience, not by your wife's, or by the law of the land; and let me advise you not to defer that marriage long, lest in the time you disagree, and she should refuse to become your ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... "economic freedom" (the "laissez faire" of Turgot) had been necessary in the old society where mediaeval restrictions lamed all industrial effort. But this "liberty of action" which had been the highest law of the land had led to a terrible, yea, a frightful condition. The hours in the fac-tory were limited only by the physical strength of the workers. As long as a woman could sit before her loom, without fainting from fatigue, she was supposed to work. Children of five ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... the criminal's Pecksniffan tone, his self-glorification of the part he had taken, his effronte boast of pure and lofty motives and his passionate enthusiasm for sexual morality, the trial emphasised the fact that no individual may break the law of the land in order that good may come therefrom. It also proved most convincingly the utter baselessness of the sweeping indictment against the morality of England and especially of London—a charge which "undoubtedly had an enormous influence for harm at home and cruelly prejudiced the country ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... and down to 1870, the common law of the land gave to the husband all the personal property of the wife. Only with regard to real estate were her proprietary rights safeguarded; the husband, nevertheless, had the right of administration and of use. At the bar of law, the English woman was a zero: she could perform no legal act, not even ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... congregating yourselves together for the purpose of creating a disturbance of the peace, to the great terror and annoyance of His Majesty's liege people and subjects, and to the ill example of all others; and you have, in contempt of the law of the land, been preaching to a concourse of people whom you tumultuously assembled for the purpose of instigating them to rebel against His Majesty the king and the authorities of this city ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston

... sooner or later, the chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to the ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves this question an open one for the several States to settle as they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... moral preaching, as opposed to weekly discourses on the legal technicalities of justification, sanctification, and adoption. They were also opposed to the working of the Act which, in 1712, restored lay patronage. If the Assembly enforced the law of the land in this matter (and it did), the Assembly sinned against the divine right of congregations to elect their own preachers. Men of this way of thinking were led by the Rev. Mr Ebenezer Erskine, a poet who, in 1714, addressed an Ode to George I. He ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... mails should be sifted for its safety. The question of the right of Slavery in the Territories and the Free States was taking form, and the slave-catchers claimed to hunt their prey through the Northern States, without regard to the rights of freemen or the law of the land. Taney had long been known as an astute and skilful lawyer, a man of ability and learning in his profession—as ability and learning are commonly gauged. He had been Attorney-General of Maryland, and in 1831 had been appointed Attorney-General of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... immediate self-interest of those who were to smart under the tax, Sir Robert Peel carried his great and salutary measure in triumph through both Houses, without one single material alteration, till it became the law of the land, amidst the applause of the surrounding nations; for even those, alas! too frequently bitter and jealous censors of English conduct and character, the French, "owned that the English people had exhibited a signal and glorious instance of virtue, of fortitude, of self-denial, and sagacity." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... be right for dear Derek, or any gentleman, to go against the law of the land or be mixed up with wrong-doing in any way. I haven't said anything, but I HAVE felt it very much. Because—it's all been not quite ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of it at the moment. The return of better times took the heart out of the agitation, and the progress of orderly political development gradually incorporated three of the Chartist points in the law of the land without ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... to the question, I, at the outset, reply No, and claim that, under no conditions or circumstances, is it ever allowable to destroy the life of the child in order to increase the mother's chances of living. And the day may arrive when, by the law of the land, the act will be considered criminal and punished as such. In support of this opinion, and to illustrate this position, allow me to take a purely ethical and medico-legal view of the subject, and to relate to you a parallel case, as also the decision arrived at by the Lord Chief Justice of ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... things for Stubby. Before that it had been quite simple. The policeman would come to enforce the law of the land; but he did not believe in the law of the land, so he would just kill the policeman. But it seemed a policeman wasn't just a person who enforced the laws of the land. He was also a person who played ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... consent of the Great Council of the realm. [11] By this clause the nobles compelled the king to secure their consent before imposing any taxation. The second set forth that no one was to be arrested, imprisoned, or punished in any way, except after a trial by his equals and in accordance with the law of the land. The third said simply that to no one should justice be sold, denied, or delayed. These last two clauses contained the germ of great legal principles on which the English people relied for protection against despotic kings. They form ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... congregations, and resolutely rejected by them, though neither for moral delinquencies nor heretical opinions. The Government, after a vain attempt to heal the breach and reconcile the contending parties, not only declined to interfere, but asserted the authority of the law of the land over a ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... allow a notorious gambler to break every law of the land and say you can give me no help whatever in balking what ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... land where the forty farm holdings to-day are almost identical with those fixed by Helier de Carteret in the time of Queen Elizabeth; where feudal observances which date back to the time of Rollo, Duke of Normandy, are still the law of the land; and where family names and records in some cases run back unbroken ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... rational and the most dispassionate of men. The conduct of his life was guided by a philosophy based on Combe's "Constitution of Man," and I used to feel that the law of the land was a potent instrument in shaping his paternal affections. His method of seeking a wife was so far unique that it may not be devoid of interest, even at this date. From careful study he had learned that the age at which a man should marry was twenty-five. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... largely controlled by the terms of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947. I made my attitude clear on this act in my veto message to the Congress last June. Nothing has occurred since to change my opinion of this law. As long as it remains the law of the land, however, I shall carry out my constitutional duty ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... contest with the Regent, the Protestant leaders took up the position that they were acting in strict accordance with the law of the land. With the formidable following now at their back, they might have marched on Stirling and gained a temporary advantage by their show of strength. What they actually did was to send Erskine of Dun to the Regent to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... repeated Coryston, impatiently. "My dear, what's Edward got to do with it? He's not the law of the land. Let him follow his own law if he likes. But to tear up other people's lives by the roots, in the name of some private particular species of law that you believe in and they don't, is really too much—at this time of day. You ought to stop it, ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... undoubtedly regarded the sale of a glass of beer after the closing hour as being quite as reprehensible as grand larceny or the bearing of false witness. To her every judge must be a learned, wise and honorable man because he stood for the enforcement of the law of the land, and she never questioned whether or not that law was wise or otherwise, which latter often—it must ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... was promulgated, a warm contest arose in all the States over its ratification. The instrument, upon being ratified by nine States, was to become the organic law of the land. Although it was strenuously opposed by many eminent men, among them Patrick Henry, a sufficient number of States assented in time to bring the constitution into operation the year after ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... legislature or, if it was not in session, by the governor of the state. To make sure that the restrictions on the states would not be dead letters, the federal Constitution, laws, and treaties were made the supreme law of the land, to be enforced whenever necessary by a national judiciary and executive against violations on the part of any ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... charter. The prayer was granted, and in July, 1663, the king issued a patent highly democratic in its general features and similar in every respect to the one granted to Connecticut. Benedict Arnold was chosen the first governor under the royal charter, and it continued to be the supreme law of the land for ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... wanted, though the credit of its creation belongs more to Michael Davitt and John Dillon than to him. It soon became immensely popular in Ireland, and, for a time, its orders and decrees superseded the established law of the land, with the seeming result of replacing social order and tranquillity by a condition of widespread anarchy, confusion, and lawlessness. It is only fair to say, however, that the Land League meetings did not create but only revealed the misery, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various

... the finer type, his battles were all with men. Those who did not ride behind him he rode against. He feared the saints and a priest, even as did the barons of old; but all others must acknowledge his lordship or know themselves for his enemies. To Black Dennis Nolan the law of the land was a vague thing not greatly respected. To Walter, Lord of Waltham, William the Red was a vague personage, not greatly respected. Walter, Lord of Waltham, son of Walter and grandson of Fitz Oof of Normandy; Skipper of Chance ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... common cause of the general welfare, that the flexibility of American sentiment on conviction of merit will be more apparent we cannot but believe; for conditions seem to have surmounted law and seek their own solution, since the supreme law of the land seems ineffectual and local sentiment the arbiter, ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... the terms to be employed in the answer to the President's message, and then the House relapsed into quiet, awaiting the formal announcement of the treaty. At last the treaty arrived with the addition of the suspending article, and the President proclaimed it to be the law of the land, and sent a copy to the House. Livingston, of New York, at once moved a resolution, asking the President to send in all the papers relating to the negotiation, and boldly placed the motion on the ground that the House was vested with a discretionary power as to carrying the treaty ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... regarded by this Convention as an admission that the statutes of those States, passed for the purpose of defeating the provision of the Constitution aforesaid, and the laws of Congress made to enforce the just and proper execution of this constitutional guarantee, are in violation of the supreme law of the land. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed—nor will we go upon or send upon him—save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." —MAGNA ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train

... other murderer. The Archbishop refused, and kept him in the Bishop's prison. The King, holding a solemn assembly in Westminster Hall, demanded that in future all priests found guilty before their Bishops of crimes against the law of the land should be considered priests no longer, and should be delivered over to the law of the land for punishment. The Archbishop again refused. The King required to know whether the clergy would obey the ancient customs of the country? Every priest there, but one, said, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... free man is to be taken, imprisoned, ousted of his land, outlawed, banished, or hurt in any way save by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. The King is not to sell, delay, or deny right or ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... forgotten yourself to-day. Be careful that it does not happen the third time. When the law of the land is weak, it is right the law of nature should be strong. You understand me, Asa; and you know me. As for you, Abiram, the child has done you wrong, and it is my place to see you righted. Remember; I tell you justice shall be done; it is enough. But ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper



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