Quotes About Constitution

The Conservative does not despise government. He despises tyranny. This is precisely why the Conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on adherence to it. An "effective" government that operates outside its constitutional limitations is a dangerous government.

T]o consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine

For Croly, the entire process of popular sovereignty exercised through representative republicanism, which led to the drafting, adoption, and ratification of the United States Constitution, was illegitimate, since it lacked direct popular voting. "In theory the fundamental Law should have been more completely the people's law .

And at the center of what is left of the American republic is the Constitution. The Constitution is the bedrock on which the nation was built. As Thomas Jefferson explained, "Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."2

These days, the law is frequently used by the statists against the individual—to exploit his labor and expropriate his property, to repress his free will and compel his conformity. Rather than securing liberty and ensuring justice through the Constitution's prescriptions and proscriptions, the statists' perversion of law has become the government's most potent weapon against its original purpose.

The time is urgent for the ruling generation and the rising generation—that is, parents and their progeny—to step up in defense of their joint interests and in opposition to their common foe—a government unmoored from its constitutional beginnings and spinning out of control.

The banishment of the Constitution and republicanism, like the disembowelment of the Declaration of Independence and individualism, has been scrupulous. There is now a vast gulf between the government the progressives have constructed and the framers' Constitution.

Judicial review involves a court overturning an act of Congress or of the executive branch on the grounds that the act in question contravenes the federal Constitution. It is founded on the principle that courts will be unbiased guardians of the clear meaning of the Constitution.

The Constitution wanted artists to have control over their works because they knew it would create incentive to create more works. That is clearly still the goal.

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.

The Bolivian government has promised to guarantee autonomy in the framework of unity, legality, and with the goal of equalizing the different regions of Bolivia. It's right there in the constitution.

The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document: it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.

A country that can put men on the moon can put women in the Constitution.

The most influential is his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.76 To this day, Story's Commentaries stands as a definitive source for understanding the Constitution from an originalist perspective. The

Congress gave the legislative bodies of the ceded territories the authority to determine which Mexican people would be given US citizenship. At this time, the states and territories had the legal right to determine citizenship eligibility requirements, a power given to them by the US Constitution.

Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under USA's constitution have proved the best. Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it.

We can finally offer an answer to the question: does Britain possess a constitution? The answer is that the traditional idea of a constitution which the British have long celebrated has become so corroded that it no longer provides a coherent account of the nature of British government

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir . . . America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned.

We have seen time gradually dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control.

Why, I can't help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them. I know I'm no better than the rest of the world; but I can't help it if I'm pleasanter . It's constitutional.

What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

Death is always terrible—no one need be ashamed to fear it. How we bear it depends much upon our constitutions. I have seen some brave men, who have smiled at the cruelest amputation, die trembling like children; while others, whose lives have been spent in avoidance of the least danger or trouble, have drawn to their last painful breath like heroes, striking at their foe to the last, robbing him of his victory, and making their death a triumph.

Believing this country to be a political and not a religious organisation ... the editor of the NATIONAL CITIZEN will use all her influence of voice and pen against 'Sabbath Laws', the uses of the 'Bible in School', and pre-eminently against an amendment which shall introduce 'God in the Constitution.

I think that we have to keep in mind that the purpose of the Bill of Rights was to forever put our right to control our own destiny beyond the reach of majority rule,