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I'm a constitutional conservative. I'm a Reagan constitutional conservative. I can think of no three better words to describe my political philosophy. And I will remain a Reagan constitutional conservative. It doesn't matter to what the elites D.C. think in the Republican or the Democratic Party
Bobby JindalWhat about your constitutional right to bear arms, you say. I would simply point out that you donโt have to exercise a constitutional right just because you have it. You have the constitutional right to run for president of the United States, but most people have too much sense to insist on exercising it.
Chelsea HandlerA majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations...is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Abraham LincolnWe live in an age where there is both more expression and more self-censorship than existed even a decade ago. Alas, laws have immunized internet carriers from many of the usual rules that govern public dialogue. Rights must always stay ahead of technology to assure that constitutional protections apply to all forms of communication.
Alan DershowitzThe Court abandoned the traditional constitutional meaning of 'religion' as a single denomination or system of worship and instead substituted a new 'modern' concept which even now remains vague and nebulous, having changed several times in recent years.
David BartonAs a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens.
Mary RobinsonThe notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left.
Robert BorkI think that if we get back to some basic fundamental principles, we can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about. It's getting back to a constitutional conservative government. And that is limited, but it's also effective and efficient. I think that that's what we'll be able to do.
Allen WestWartime always brings expansions of state power, together with erosions of moral and constitutional standards.
Joseph SobranThe Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.
Byron WhiteDifferent political views, even if they're all liberal, in the sense of supporting liberal constitutional democracy, undoubtedly have some notion of the common good in the form of the means provided to assure that people can make use of their liberties, and the like.
John RawlsA constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.
Coretta Scott KingMore attention should have been given to the fundamental transformation which took place during Queen Victoria's reign, from ruling sovereign to constitutional monarch. Again, gender mattered. If Albert had lived, it seems clear that he would have resisted that development much more tenaciously, which the gradual emasculation (and feminization) of monarchy was probably more easily accomplished when a woman was on the throne.
David CannadineNo 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.
Daniel WebsterIt is each American's constitutional right to marry the person they love, no matter what state they inhabit. No state should decide who can marry and who cannot. Thanks to the tireless work of so many, someday soon this discrimination will end and every American will be able to enjoy their equal right to marriage.
Brad PittThe State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.
Emma GoldmanOur whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.
Thurgood MarshallThis country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Abraham LincolnI call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.
Joseph SobranThis is nothing new. We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Right Act - constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation.
Stephanie CutterWhen a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
William O. Douglas... large and permanent military establishments ... are forbidden by the principles of free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.
James Madison'This is how democracy works,' Barack Obama lectured the country before giving everyone the specifics of his expansive one-man executive overreach on immigration. If you enjoy platitudinous straw men but are turned off by open debate and constitutional order, this speech was for you.
David HarsanyiCan we say that the constitutional monarchies in Spain, Belgium or England are democratic? Those with superior chambers like the House of Lords in England, that still represent the English feudal nobility in terms of positions above regional representatives, who are in the end the representatives supposedly elected by the population. Many mechanisms exist, but they are mechanisms to preserve the power of the wealthy classes, of the bourgeois classes that hold the power and rights above the rest of the society.
Alejandro Castro EspinI would set aside all these budget cuts that are going to devastate the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the N.S.A. Sequestration, cuts, are not only gutting the military, they're gutting the F.B.I. So if I were president, I would set these cuts aside. I would reinstate the N.S.A. program as robust as possible within the constitutional limits.
Rand PaulThe greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion.
Charles Evans HughesThe United States Constitutional Convention, except for three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.
Benjamin FranklinAnd the principle which distinguishes democracy from all other forms of government is that in a democracy the opposition not only is tolerated as constitutional but must be maintained because it is in fact indispensable.
Walter LippmannThe president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.
Barack ObamaI think basic disease care access and basic access to health care is a human right. If we need a constitutional amendment to put it in the Bill of Rights, then that's what we ought to do. Nobody with a conscience would leave the victim of a shark attack to bleed while we figure out whether or not they could pay for care. That tells us that at some level, health care access is a basic human right. Our system should be aligned so that our policies match our morality. Then within that system where everybody has access, we need to incentivize prevention, both for the patient and the provider.
David KatzThe traditional religious right's failure to restore public-school prayer or pass an antiabortion constitutional amendment has likely helped fuel the spread of the more extreme dominionist school.
Jon MeachamOne of the greatest disasters that happened to modern civilization was for democracy to inscribe "liberty" on its banners instead of "justice." Because "liberty" was considered the ideal it was not long until some men interpreted it as meaning "freedom from justice"; then when religion and decent government attempted to bring them back to justice, organized into "freedom groups" they protested that their constitutional and natural rights were being violated.
Fulton J. SheenThe peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.
John MarshallInternal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.
Andrew JacksonCensorship does not interfere with the constitutional rights of every American to sit alone in a dark room in the nude and cuss.
Pat PaulsenUnder our [constitutional system] - either we're going to have to rethink our Constitution, or we're going to have to rethink our process of decision-making.
Newt GingrichGiven currency by Jrgen Habermas in the late l980s, 'constitutional patriotism' has emerged as an appealing principle for post-national political allegiance. Jan-Werner Mller traces the long postwar history of the concept, takes honest account of the conservative critiques it has provoked, but proposes that it can serve as a robust norm for European Union citizenship. This is a profound meditation with real importance for contemporary political society.
Charles S. MaierMost Americans, who think Congress has a right to do anything for which they can get a majority vote, ignore the clearly written constitutional restraints on Congress.
Walter E. WilliamsThe case for freedom, the case for our constitutional principles the case for our heritage has to be made anew in each generation. The work of freedom is never done.
Anthony KennedyWe in the Congress have a moral and constitutional obligation to protect the value of the dollar and to understand why it is so important to the economy that a central bank not be given the unbelievable power of inflating a currency at will and pretending that it knows how to fine-tune an economy through this counterfeit system of money.
Ron PaulAmong the most famous of these Supreme Court cases of exercise of political power I believe are the cases of Roe V. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two 1973 cases based on false statements which created a constitutional right to abortion.
Sam BrownbackIt would be a stultification of the responsibility which the course of constitutional history has cast upon this Court to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach.
Felix FrankfurterI think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life.
Paul BremerOur amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life's work.
William J. Brennan