Reports of Cases at Law Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of North Carolina: From December Term, 1853, to [June Term, 1862], Both Inclusive, Volume 3

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Page 513 - NEXT to permanency in office, nothing can contribute more to the independence of the judges than a fixed provision for their support.
Page 211 - But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.
Page 442 - ... shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or established, or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil case, before the time when such repeal shall take effect.
Page 513 - The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse ; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment ; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
Page 448 - But a confession forced from the mind by the flattery of hope, or by the torture of fear, comes in so questionable a shape when it is to be considered as the evidence of guilt, that no credit ought to be given to it; and therefore it is rejected.
Page 51 - Thus, where land was leased to A. for a year, and so from year to year...
Page 293 - the principles and rules of the common law, as now universally known and understood, are so strong against fraud in every shape, that the common law would have attained every end proposed by the statutes 13 Eliz. c. 5, and 27 Eliz. c. 4. The former of these statutes relates to creditors only : the latter to purchasers. These statutes cannot receive too liberal a construction, or be too much extended in suppression of fraud.
Page 89 - The reason is, that it would not be safe, with reference to the administration of justice in the general affairs of trust, that a trustee should be permitted to purchase; . for human infirmity will in very few instances permit a man to exert against himself that providence, which a vendor ought to exert, in order to sell to the best advantage; and which a purchaser is at liberty to exert for himself, in order to purchase at the lowest price.
Page 211 - The interpretation or construction of the constitution is as much a judicial act, and requires the exercise of the same legal discretion, as the interpretation or construction of a law. To contend that the courts of justice must obey the requisitions of an Act of the legislature when it appears to them to have been passed in violation of the constitution, would be to contend that the law was superior to the constitution, and that the judges had no right to look into it, and regard it as a paramount...
Page 74 - A seller is unquestionably liable to an action of deceit, if he fraudulently misrepresent the quality of the thing sold to be other than it is in some particulars, which the buyer has not equal means with himself of knowing ; or if he do so in such a manner as to induce the buyer to forbear making the inquiries, which for his own security and advantage he would otherwise have made.

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