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It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action.
Arthur Goldbergthere ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.
James MadisonTo be true to its constitutional role, the Supreme Court should refuse to be drawn into making public policy, and it should strike down legislation only when a clear constitutional violation exists. When judicial activists resort to various inventions and theories to impose their personal views on privacy and liberty, they jeopardize the legitimacy of the judiciary as an institution and undermine the role of the other branches of government.
Mark LevinThe entire future of marriage rests with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the man who declared in Citizens United that corporations are people with constitutional rights. I just hope he doesn't do anything rash, like declare that homosexuals are people with constitutional rights.
Stephen ColbertIn bad or corrupted natures the body will often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and unnatural condition. At all events we may firstly observe in living creatures both a despotical and a constitutional rule; for the soul rules the body with a despotical rule, whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural and expedient; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful.
AristotleThe media is fully fine and hunky-dory with the idea that they may destroy somebody, and they think that's part of the job description. But you turn around and criticize them, and that's not permitted in the vacuum in which they live. They have free rein over you, because I guess this is how they define their constitutional responsibility. And since they have constitutional recognition, somehow they've all been taught at journalism school that nobody may assail them, that nobody may criticize them.
Rush LimbaughOur federal government, which was intended to operate as a very limited constitutional republic, has instead become a virtually socialist leviathan that redistributes trillions of dollars. We can hardly be surprised when countless special interests fight for the money. The only true solution to the campaign money problem is a return to a proper constitutional government that does not control the economy. Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand.
Ron PaulReagents are regarded as acting by virtue of a constitutional affinity either for electrons or for nuclei... the terms electrophilic (electron-seeking) and nucleophilic (nucleus-seeking) are suggested... and the organic molecule, in the activation necessary for reaction, is therefore required to develop at the seat of attack either a high or low electron density as the case may be.
Christopher Kelk IngoldThe Seventeenth Amendment serves not the public's interest but the interests of the governing masterminds and their disciples. Its early proponents advanced it not because they championed 'democracy' or the individual, but because they knew it would be one of several important mechanisms for empowering the federal government and unraveling constitutional republicanism.
Mark LevinThe faith of the Latter-day Saints and the teaching that I have had since I was a child at my mother's knee, as well as from this stand, is that the Constitution of our country was written by men inspired of the Lord God Almighty. Therefore we, as Latter-day Saints, more than any other people, ought to be supporters of the Constitution, and all constitutional law.
Heber J. GrantI don't think it's a lack of will. I think it's an issue of what people view as constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment, number one, and what customers and business partners expect around the world from secure computing systems. And it's a difference of view.
Rod BeckstromAmericans have only the dimmest notion of what their constitutional freedoms are - and what it took to get them...[and] the willingness to surrender what we're supposed to be fighting for is a recurring part of our history.
Nat HentoffThe attempt to isolate economics from other disciplines-notably politics, history, philosophy, finance, constitutional theory and sociology-has fatally disabled its power to explain what is happening in the world.
Will HuttonI see no constitutional problems with the identification, staving off and defusing of outside threats.
Thomas de MaiziereElect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expendituresโ? I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it.
Walter E. WilliamsWe're looking at a president [Barack Obama] who's engaged in double-speak where he doesn't call radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Indeed, he gives a speech after the San Bernardino attack where his approach is to try to go after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens rather than to keep us safe.
Ted CruzI define the terms "founding fathers" and "founders" broadly to include an entire generation or two of Americans from many walks of life who, in the last half of the 18th century and early 19th century, articulated the rights of colonists, secured independence from Great Britain, and established new constitutional republics at both the national and state levels. This definition includes a cast of thousands who played their patriotic part at the local, state, and/or national levels. Among them were citizen soldiers, elected representatives, polemicists, and patriot preachers.
Daniel L DreisbachStrictly enforce the scale of "fixed responsibility." The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community, finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.
W. Cleon SkousenUnfortunately a Constitutional amendment that would have empowered Congress to make desecration of the United States flag illegal failed to pass by one vote.
Kenny MarchantHe [Barack Obama] might have a pen, and he might have a phone, but what he does not have is the constitutional power to run this country like a dictator.
Barack ObamaAt the constitutional level, what we of course have assured is that women have the ability to make these reproductive decisions up to the point of viability.
Barack ObamaThis 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 LincolnThe only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution.โฆ On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null.
Alexander HamiltonObama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.
Rush LimbaughThe cause of the South was the cause of constitutional government, the cause of government regulated by law, and the cause of honesty and fidelity in public servants. No nobler cause did man ever fight for!
Benjamin F. GradyAs the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of the government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authorities of the others.
James MadisonI believe strongly in the Constitutional principle of separating church and state. Our founders were right in fearing that religious freedom would be threatened in the long run by a departure from governmental neutrality in spiritual matters.
Sargent ShriverThe question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like.
Michael BadnarikThe national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjects within the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyed by the public servant.
Martin Van BurenFlag desecration is not a constitutional issue for the courts. It is a political one that belongs to the people.
Larry CraigUnder Article II, all executive power is vested in one president of the United States. The regulatory state is Congress's efforts to undermine the president's authority. And my hope is we will see a president use that constitutional authority to rein in the uncontrollable, unelected bureaucrats and to rescind regulations.
Ted CruzDuring the Suffragette revolt of 1913 I[urged] that what was needed was not the vote, but a constitutional amendment enactingthat all representative bodies shall consist of women and men in equal numbers, whether elected or nominated or coopted or registered or picked up in the street like a coroner's jury. In the case of elected bodies the only way of effecting this is by the Coupled Vote. The representative unit must not be a man or a woman but a man and a woman.
George Bernard Shaw[T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment of the others.
James MadisonHistory teaches us that the capacity of things to get worse is limitless. Roman history suggests that the short, happy life of the American republic may be coming to its end... the US will probably maintain a facade of constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it.
Chalmers JohnsonArizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent.
Ruth Bader GinsburgGiven 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. MaierI was overwhelmed by the number of calls we got from people offering to rent us houses, to take us out to dinner, to drive us around house hunting. Everyone was just indescribably kind in Havaii. Finally we moved into a house offered to us for an incredible $125 a month by a man who feels that the separation of church and state is a valid constitutional issue which should be fought for.
Madalyn Murray O'HairRemember the referendum on the Charlottetown constitutional accord? The more Canada's political and business elites threatened Canadians that the country would disappear into a black hole if the accord weren't passed, the more Canadians opposed it.
Preston ManningThe error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States ... formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities.
John C. CalhounThe people that can't win elections, outside of Barack Obama, the people on the Democrat side who cannot win elections, who do not have the votes to stop Donald Trump at all in a constitutional sense, have to now behave outside the Constitution in order to stop the duly elected president of the United States about whom they can produce no evidence that his election was fraudulent.
Rush LimbaughIf these precedents are to stand unimpeached, and to provide sanctions for the continued conduct of America affairs-the Constitution may be nullified by the President and officers who have taken the oath and are under moral obligation to uphold it....they may substitute personal and arbitrary government-the first principle of the totalitarian system against which it has been alleged that World War II was waged-while giving lip service to the principle of constitutional government.
Charles A. BeardAny new gun control is simply gonna infringe on the law-abiding ability to exercise constitutional rights. There's not a single law that could be written, that has been written, that could be passed that would stop Omar Mateen from getting a gun and shooting people up.
Rush LimbaughDemand the ballot as the undeniable right of every man who is called to the poll, and take special care that the old constitutional rule and principle, by which majorities alone shall decide in Parliamentary elections, shall not be violated.
John BrightSo far, 44 States, or 88 percent of the States, have enacted laws providing that marriage shall consist of a union between a man and a woman. Only 75 percent of the States are required to approve a constitutional amendment.
Jack KingstonPeople have their constitutional right to contribute to a campaign and if they have discretionary money that they want to contribute to a candidate, whether a Republican or a Democrat, they should be able to do so.
Brian SandovalThe moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal privileges and equal rights-that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.
Franklin D. Roosevelt