Writs Of Assistance Quotes

• I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is.

  James Otis

  Hands, Dying, Slavery

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty, is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ of assistance, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege.

  James Otis

  Men, Law, House

  Argument against the writs of assistance, Boston, Mass., Feb. 1761. Burton Stevenson, Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases (1948), traces the proverb "A man's house is his castle" back to 1567 and notes legal usages of it by Sir Edward Coke in the seventeenth century. See Coke 1; Coke 8; William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 2

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• And I take this opportunity to declare, that... I will to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, - the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book.

  James Otis

  Book, Opportunity, Hands

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• MAY it please your Honors: I was desired by one of the court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance.

  James Otis

  Book, Eugenics, Honor

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• I do not say that, when brought to the test, I shall be invincible.

  James Otis

  Tests, Invincible

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• Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul.

  James Otis

  Men, Tyrants, Soul

  "James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance". James Otis' speech (February 1761), as quoted in William Tudor "James Otis's Speech on the Writs of Assistance", books.google.com. 1906.

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• A man is accountable to no person for his doings.

  James Otis

  Men, Doings, Persons

  "James Otis's speech on the Writs of assistance" edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, Edward Channing, William Tudor, Hart, Albert Bushnell,.

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• I'd say that [Louis] Brandeis practiced a kind of a "living originalism," to use the title of Jack Balkin's great book. He said you start with the paradigm case, which in the case of the Fourth Amendment was these general warrants or writs of assistance, but you define it at a level of abstraction that you can take it into our age and make it our own.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Book, Age, Titles

  Source: www.slate.com

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