Popular quotes about Amendment! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 8
The time has come in our society when I see great wisdom and purpose in a United States Constitutional amendment declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman. There is nothing in that proposed amendment that requires a criminal prosecution or that directs the attorneys general to go out and round people up, but it declares a principle and it also creates a defensive barrier against those who would alter that traditional definition of marriage.
Dallin H. OaksThe Second Amendment only protects the people who want all the guns they can have. The rest of us, we've got no Second Amendment. What are we supposed to do?
Louise SlaughterThe Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.
Noam ChomskyThe 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to apply to former slaves to ensure that they are treated like all other citizens. It never did have anything to do with gay marriage. It was never intended to have anything to do with gay marriage or animal marriage or any other kind of social contract. It was specific to slavery, and after the Civli War.
Rush LimbaughThe First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.
Arlen SpecterTo get that word, male, out of the Constitution, cost the women of this country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign; 56 state referendum campaigns; 480 legislative campaigns to get state suffrage amendments submitted; 47 state constitutional convention campaigns; 277 state party convention campaigns; 30 national party convention campaigns to get suffrage planks in the party platforms; 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses to get the federal amendment submitted, and the final ratification campaign.
Carrie Chapman Catt... if you're poor and ignorant, with a child, you're a slave. Meaning that you're never going to get out of it. These women are in bondage to a kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment just didn't deal with. The old master provided food, clothing and health care to the slaves because he wanted them to get up and go to work in the morning. And so on welfare: you get food, clothing and shelter--you get survival, but you can't really do anything else. You can't control your life.
Joycelyn EldersThe First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
Hugo BlackA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.
Robert A. HeinleinIt's perfectly within [Martin Peretz] rights [to fire a journalist]. It's a private - you know, th - it's not censorship. The First Amendment doesn't come into play because it's a private magazine.
Nat HentoffAt the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.
William RehnquistReread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bears arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason,then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.
L. Neil SmithWhile that amendment failed, human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner.
Mike PenceIt is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
Sandra Day O'ConnorAnd I took a walk and I just went to prayer and I said Lord, what would you have me do in the Minnesota state senate? And just through prayer I knew that I was to introduce the marriage amendment in Minnesota.
Michele BachmannHaving not had a chance to review the tape and obviously not been in the tunnel, I will take the Wenger amendment on this one for now.
Phil CornwellI am a very strong supporter of the Second Amendment. And I am I don't know if Hillary was saying it in a sarcastic manner, but I'm very proud to have the endorsement of the NRA. And it's the earliest endorsement they've ever given to anybody who ran for president. So I'm very honored by all of that.
Donald TrumpThe 21st Amendment gives the states the right to decide what the drinking ages should be and other aspects relative to alcoholic beverages, and I support that. As a United States senator, I want to weigh in - this is not my agenda.
Pete CoorsWe are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the First Amendment is all about.
William J. ClintonThe 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen.
Donald TrumpThe First Amendment...does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Church and State....Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other - hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly....The state may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe.
William O. DouglasThe First Amendment is now being used by the secularists of our day as a cattle prod to herd conservative religious people out of the public life of the nation and into, as others have put it, a religious ghetto.
Pat SwindallWhere I stand at is on the Second Amendment where the right to bear arms is not just for hunting and fishing and things like that. But it's the right of the American people to have a means of defense against a tyrannical government. So, sometimes you got to have that back-up plan.
Big BoiOur First Amendment expresses a far different calculus for regulating speech than for regulating nonexpressive conduct and that is as it should be. The right to swing your fist should end at the tip of my nose, but your right to express your ideas should not necessarily end at the lobes of my ears.
Alan DershowitzConcerning First Amendment fetishism - A federal subsidy for a photo of a crucifix suspended in a jar of urine is fine, but religious figures on stamps are offensive.
Don FederThere's no doubt that I respect the Second Amendment, that I also believe there's an individual right to bear arms. That is not in conflict with sensible, commonsense regulation.
Hillary ClintonAsked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether.
Frank ZappaThe First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves - not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.
Robert BorkThe First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.
Penn Jillette[Asserting] important First Amendment rights ... why should [executions] be the one area that is conducted behind closed doors?... Why shouldn't executions be public?
Phil DonahueSome men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.
Thomas JeffersonDefending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.
Mark McKinnonThe First Amendment is not a blanket freedom-of-information act. The constitutional newsgathering freedom means the media can go where the public can, but enjoys no superior right of access.
George WillIt is called the First Amendment. ...Simple words marching in seried ranks. Compact, concise. To the point. Clear and pure. It's freedom's music.
Jack ValentiThe way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government.
Rush LimbaughThe Second Amendment's language and historical and philosophical background demonstrated that it was designed to guarantee individuals the possession of certain kinds of arms for three purposes: (1) crime prevention or what we would today describe as self-defense; (2) national defense; and (3) preservation of individual liberty.
Don KatesI've reported in countries where leaders not only complain about a critical press, but also try to shut it down, throwing reporters in prison or worse. I've seen my colleagues risk their lives and, with increasing frequency, lose their lives in their pursuit of the truth. We are not about to stop doing our jobs because yet another president is unhappy with what he reads or hears or sees on TV news. There is a reason the founders put freedom of the press in the very first amendment to the Constitution.
Jonathan Karl