Popular quotes about Constitution! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 37
Every single person in the government swears an oath to the very same constitution, to abide by the laws in pursuance of this constitution, and they all have the responsibility to follow its plain words....If a judge makes a ruling that is contrary to the plain words of the Constitution, then it's not law, it's just his bad opinion!
Jim BabkaIn the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements. The constitution proposed in the Laws has no element of monarchy at all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy, leaning rather to oligarchy.
AristotleThere 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.
Marco RubioThe 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.
Joe BidenThe principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom....when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, ...no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.
J. Reuben ClarkIf Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.
John AdamsThe principle of the Constitution is that of a separation of legislative, Executive and Judiciary functions, except in cases specified. If this principle be not expressed in direct terms, it is clearly the spirit of the Constitution, and it ought to be so commented and acted on by every friend of free government.
Thomas JeffersonThe EU Constitution is something new in human history. Though it is not as eloquent as the French and U.S. constitutions, it is the first governing document of its kind to expand the human franchise to the level of global consciousness. The language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit.
Jeremy RifkinCongress decides who becomes a citizen and how. To automatically say the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship, no, we can't change that. Amending the Constitution, not possible, takes too long. We gotta find another way of dealing with this. No, we don't, because it's not there. You don't have to amend the Constitution.
Rush LimbaughI, sir, have always conceived - I believe those who proposed the constitution conceived,and it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, those who ratified the constitution conceived, that this is not an indefinite government deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers - but, a limited government tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms.
James MadisonImplementing parts of European constitution and leaving out others - without knowing where we're going - isn't an option. That would be detrimental to the overall balance, which is why we must embark on another comprehensive discussion of the issue once again. I would like to see Europe retain the idea of a constitution in the end, and I plan to campaign on its behalf.
Angela MerkelI understand the politics of the situation, I think that many Republican members of the senate believe that,get out the vote move. They can indicate that they're strong for their base. But the Constitution's pretty clear. The president Donald Trump has to nominate someone. The senate can choose to disapprove. There's nothing in their Constitution that says the grounds upon which they must vote. But to refuse even to meet with the individual, or to have the process go forward, that's just pure politics.
Martha MinowI am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. In my feelings I am always ready to die for the protection of the weak and oppressed in their just rights. The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground.
Joseph Smith, Jr.The number who actually consented to the Constitution of the United States, at the first, was very small. Considered as the act of the whole people, the adoption of the Constitution was the merest farce and imposture, binding upon nobody.
Lysander SpoonerWhat the framers of the Constitution tried to achieve when they wrote that Constitution back in the 1700s was an independent federal judiciary. They wanted federal judges to be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and to serve for good behavior.
Sandra Day O'ConnorIn matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.
Thomas JeffersonLiberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
Learned HandAs the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.
William E. GladstoneThe best reason to be assigned, in this case, for not having made the Constitution more free from a charge of uncertainty in its meaning, is believed to be, that it was not suspected that any such charge would ever take place; and it appears that no such charge did take place, during the early period of the Constitution, when the meaning of its authors could be best ascertained, nor until many of the contemporary lights had in the lapse of time been extinguished. How often does it happen, that a notoriety of intention diminishes the caution against its being misunderstood or doubted!
James MadisonFoolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.
Alan Dershowitz[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.
Thomas JeffersonThe constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those ... who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy. ... I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
Franklin PierceUnless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.
Benjamin RushIs the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment ... ?
James Madison[T]he Swiss people are the best practitioners of the ideals of non-aggression. The Swiss national government posts are parttime positions. Most decisions are made at the canton (state) level. Swiss per capita income is the highest in the world, showing that non-aggression pays. How did the Swiss come to adopt a relatively non-aggressive constitution in an aggressive world? In the mid-1800s, they imitated our constitution and stuck with it!
Mary RuwartThere are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.
AristotleTo their duty to God, youth should realize their duty to our country. They should love and honor the Constitution of the United States, the basic concepts and principles upon which this nation has been established. Yes, they need to develop a love for our free institutions.
Ezra Taft BensonThere exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated...It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.
John HoldrenExperience and imagination must enter into the very constitution of our thoughts involving concrete individuals.
Zeno VendlerThe Constitution is ...the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen
John AdamsThe Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was not made to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple-not the apple for the picture.
Abraham LincolnTo the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself
James MadisonThe Supreme Court is about the Constitution. It is about constitutionality. It is about the law. At its bear simplest, it's about the law. It is not about the Democrat Party agenda. Because that's what it's become. The whole judiciary has become that because that's the kind of people they have put on various courts as judges, and every liberal justice on the Supreme Court is a social justice warrior first and a judge of the law second. And if they get one more, then they will have effectively corrupted the Supreme Court.
Rush LimbaughI myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable.
Kurt VonnegutI hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.
Franklin D. RooseveltDon't sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic. The founding generation was birthed by the rabble of all walks of life that got fed up and did risky things because they were captivated by the breath of liberty. There is a looming oligarchy and it is up to the people to organize a grassroots movement and push back.
Naomi WolfYou know, the Constitution - there's nothing like it. But it doesn't necessarily give us the right to commit suicide as a country, OK? ... We're not gonna allow the people to come into our country. ... And if people want to come in, there's gonna be "Extreme vetting."
Donald TrumpWhen it comes to the Supreme Court, the American people have only two times when they have any input into how our Constitution is interpreted and who will have the privilege to do so.First, we elect a president who has the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.Second, the people, acting through their representatives in the Senate, have their say on whether the president's nominee should in fact be confirmed.
Mike DeWineThe issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy, and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal, and have done so for a very long time.... Respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.
Byron WhiteI don't like juries having the wool pulled over their eyes. I don't think that's what the Constitution is about.
Nancy GraceIf we do our job right, the Supreme Court won't be made up of men and women who are on the side of the little guy or the big guy; rather, the Supreme Court will be made up of men and women who are on the side of the law and the Constitution.
Chuck GrassleyTo 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 CattThink of all that hard work our founding fathers put in - the revolutionizing, the three-fifths compromising, having to write the entire Constitution with a quill - and yet they neglected to include the right to vote.
Mo Rocca