Quotes About Constitution

In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our political system only if its terms are binding on us. To the extent we depart from the document's language and rely instead on generalities that we see written between the lines, we rob the Constitution of its binding force and give free reign to the fashions and passions of the day.

A 'living constitution' is a dead constitution, because it does not do the one and only thing a written constitution is supposed to do: provide parameters around the power of officials.

The law, in this country, is dead. The Supreme Court doesn't follow the Constitution, Congress doesn't follow the Constitution. The President doesn't even want to follow the Constitution. And yet we're the ones called radical.

Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

There is one way, only one way to solve it, and that is through legislation. It cannot be through an unconstitutional executive order that violates the Constitution. That is, it doesn't matter here what you think about immigration: here you cannot violate the nation's Constitution, period.

The Constitution says the President shall nominate, not maybe he could, maybe he can't, he shall nominate. Implicit in the Constitution is that the Senate will act on its constitutional responsibility and give its advice and consent. No one is required to vote for the nominee.

No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.

We may continue to expect the enjoyment of all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, guaranteed by the Constitution. The citizens of Illinois have done themselves honor, in throwing the mantle of the Constitution over a persecuted and afflicted people.

The primary function of a constitution was to mark out the boundaries of governmental powers-hence in England, where there was no constitution , there were no limits (save for the effect of trail by jury) to what the legislature might do.

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Our new Soviet constitution will, in my opinion, be the most democratic constitution of all those existing in the world.

The American Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity; but it can only suffice a people habitually correct in their actions, and would be utterly inadequate to the wants of a different nation. Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter in the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government.

We are friendly to our country, and when we speak of the flag of our Union, we love it, and we love the rights the Constitution guarantees to every citizen. What did the Prophet Joseph say? When the Constitution shall be tottering we shall be the people to save it from the hand of the foe.

The Constitution limits the role of government. The Constitution enumerates the freedoms of the people and enforces those freedoms against government, making sure government cannot encroach.

The Constitution empowers the people to resolve our day's most contentious issues. When judges forget this basic truth, they do a disservice to our democracy and to our constitution.

In Burma, our main goal in amending the constitution is not to phase out the military from politics. Our main point is to put the constitution in line with international standards and norms.

One of the most extraordinary examples in recent decades [of unitary visions of constitutional enterprise] is found in a book called "Takings"... Epstein makes an extremely clever but stunningly reductionist argument that the whole Constitution is really designed to protect private property... Can a constitution reflecting as diverse an array of visions and aspirations as ours really be reducible to such as sadly single-minded vision as that?

The constitution of England is not a paper constitution. It is an aggregate of institutions, many of them founded merely upon prescription, some of them fortified by muniments, but all of them the fruit and experience of an ancient and illustrious people.

Our founding fathers detested the idea of a democracy and labored long to prevent America becoming one. Once again - the word 'democracy' does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, or the constitution of any of the fifty states. Not once. Furthermore, take a look at State of the Union speeches. You won't find the 'D' word uttered once until the Wilson years.

Fifteen years after the new dispensations started in South Africa, if one looks back, there are reasons to be positive and say we have achieved what we wanted to achieve, but there are also reasons for concern. Not everything turned out exactly as I would have liked it to turn out. On the positive side, we have a good constitution, there has been no effort to really amend the constitution and change the values and the principles contained therein and in our bill of rights.

We need to reform the constitution in Chile. The current one was written and passed in 1980 during the dictatorship. Some changes were made after the return of democracy, but its origins remain illegitimate. Instead of continuing to make fixes here and there, we need to undertake fundamental changes to our constitution to make it reflect the reality of our democratic society.

Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

This revision of the Constitution will not be perfect. But at least the Constitution will not be inflexible. It will be a step towards the Social Europe which we wish.

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.

The future is not in our hands. We have no power over it. We can act only today. We have a sentence in our Constitution that says: 'We will allow the good God to make plans for the future - for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come and we have only today to make Him known, loved and served.' So we do not worry about the future.

[T]he Constitution was a product of its times. [Progressive]

We are living in a time when the very integrity of the Constitution is being threatened daily, from federal bailouts to federal assumption of control over private business.

Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.

Now, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for....When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is....Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord.

I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.

Our constitution mentions religion just twice, and both times the word 'no' are attached.

The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.

There's still plenty of people who have this deep conviction that America is a Christian country and ought to say so in its Constitution, etc. But that's not the legal basis on which we're framed. So the flourishing of religion, of religious diversity, is really built into who we are.

For Dicey, writing in 1885, and for me reading him some seventy years later, the rule of law still had a very English, or at least Anglo-Saxon, feel to it. It was later, through Hayek's masterpieces "The Constitution of Liberty" and "Law, Legislation and Liberty" that I really came to think this principle as having wider application.

[Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate.

Under the constitution, as the Danish queen I am bound to the Lutheran faith, but that does not exclude people of other faiths.

Fundamentalist Christianity is not just a threat to lesbians and gays, but to all Americans who cherish democracy and the rights and protections guaranteed us by the U.S. constitution.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

The federal government views the Constitution as its enemy.

Blacks have no rights - in fact they were three - fifths human according to the constitution to give slave owners more voting rights. So that's African Americans.

Americans worship the Constitution but do not observe it.

It must always be remembered that what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures.

If you are a friend of the Constitution as I am, I hope you will consider engaging me in the topics of my posts whether you agree or disagree with my position on a particular subject.

How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a humble foreign policy: No nation-building; don't police the world. That's conservative, it's Republican, it's pro-American - it follows the founding fathers. And, besides, it follows the Constitution.

The moral laws of the Universe are deeply embedded in the constitution of things. We do not break them - we break ourselves upon them.

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.