HKB
2 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: trial by jury · specification excludes generals · property, inheritance, and title · legislative power to set court procedures · language, naming, and meaning · justice as a virtue · expression of one thing exclusion · example of married woman conveying property · custom and unwritten law · criminal vs civil procedure · courts, trials, and pleading · constitutions and founding law
Usually: argument (2) · detachment (1) · skepticism (1)
Hamilton argues that alleged legal maxims about excluding generals and one expression implying the exclusion of others were misapplied, and that the Constitution’s criminal jury guarantee does not forbid juries in civil cases.
to support it by certain LEGAL MAXIMS of interpretation, which they have perverted from their true meaning, it may not be wholly useless to explore the ground they have taken. The maxims on which they rely are of this nature: “A specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals”; or, “The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.” Hence, say they, as the Constitution has established the trial by ju…
Hamilton rejects the interpretive maxim “specification excludes generals” to argue against implied civil-jury abolition, and illustrates the proper reading through examples about limiting modes of property conveyance.
particulars evidently excludes all pretension to a general legislative authority, because an affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd, as well as useless, if a general authority was intended. In like manner the judicial authority of the federal judicatures is declared by the Constitution to comprehend certain cases particularly specified. The expression of those cases marks the precise limits, beyond whic…