On the record
A construction rendering the statute at once unconstitutional and absurd must be rejected.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Sumner asserts that any interpretation of a statute that is both unconstitutional and absurd should be dismissed.
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They are but leaders of the two contending factions into which the Slave Power is divided.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
It is larger than the entire profit of all the commerce and manufactures of the world.
It is a cause which, though long kept in check throughout our country, as also in Europe, now confronts the people and their rulers, demanding to be heard.
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