With Liberty and Justice For All
It was always about a 'government for and by the People'
While one of our contributors was researching the history of absentee voting and mail-in ballots for a forthcoming WANJ piece on those topics, they came across an essay about earlier New Jersey state constitutions containing some statements which seem particularly prescient as we approach 2023 elections of our state government representatives in the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly.
We’re sharing an excerpt not only to remind you about the long history of our New Jersey patrimony (pointing at why our state flag is emblazoned with the words, ‘Liberty and Prosperity’) but also to highlight the overarching purpose of the United States’ federal government which the People of the State of New Jersey along with those of the several states helped create nearly 250 years ago. The author addresses the impetus for the original New Jersey Constitution (adopted July 2, 1776) and the Constitution of the United States which was adopted during the early years of the republic in the wake of the Revolutionary War.
"After the revolution, on the formation of the State and Federal constitutions, the motive was not just to restrict the powers of public officers, but also protect property interests and control the growing power of the democracy, and, whichever class had control of the powers of government, the effect of such provisions in favor of the ultimate right of the individual was to control the men in power so that their power should not be unlimited, and that every citizen be secure in his person and property and be assured that he was under a government of law, a government of equal and unvarying rights, rather than a government of the men to whom the exercise of the power of government had been entrusted."
- ‘Early Constitutions of New Jersey’ by Edward Q. Keasbey, Newark, N.J. as published in the New Jersey Law Review, Volume I (May, 1915)