Quotes About Constitution

It was added that the "true intent and meaning" of the act was "not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.

the true idea intended to be embodied in the title—les États Unis, or los Estados Unidos—the States united. It was without any change of title—still as "United States"—without any sacrifice of individuality—without any compromise of sovereignty—that the same parties entered into a new and amended compact with one another under the present Constitution

but the Constitution, in the second section of its first article, expressly declares that it "shall be composed of members chosen by the people of the several States.

In the election of President and Vice-President the Constitution (Article II) prescribes that "each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors" for the purpose of choosing a President and Vice-President.

The power granted in the Constitution is thus expressed: "The Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." 169 It was to the Congress, not the Executive, to whom the power was delegated, and thus early was commenced a long series of usurpations of powers inconsistent with the purposes for which the Union was formed, and destructive of the fraternity it was designed to perpetuate.

The very first enactment, made on the 9th of February, 1861—the day after the adoption of the Provisional Constitution—was this: "That all the laws of the United States of America in force and in use in the Confederate States of America on the first day of November last, and not inconsistent with the Constitution of the Confederate States, be and the same are hereby continued in force until altered or repealed by the Congress

The official term of the President was fixed at six instead of four years, and it was provided that he should not be eligible for reëlection. This was in accordance with the original draft of the Constitution of 1787.

Under the Confederate Constitution, on the contrary, the African slave-trade was "hereby forbidden," positively and unconditionally, from the beginning.

Now, I ask, where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a State; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and, if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States?

Senators, we are rapidly drifting into a position in which this is to become a government of the army and navy; in which the authority of the United States is to be maintained, not by law, not by constitutional agreement between the States, but by physical force; and will you stand still and see this policy consummated?

No man is above justice," George Mason preached at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. That sentiment still rings true, yet competes with the political reality offered by then-representative Gerald Ford, who quipped in 1970 that "an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.

Ginsburg believes that the Constitution should be interpreted to root out unconscious biases that subordinate women. But as she recognized decades ago, true equality requires that men and women work together to root out unconscious bias in families and in the workplace.

Equal citizenship stature for men and women belongs in any fundamental instrument of government. It should be as basic to society as free speech and freedom of religion. And it is stated among basic rights in every post-1950 constitution in the world.

The original Constitution, as amended by the Bill of Rights, includes many themes that would apply to society as it evolves over time, freedom of speech, press, and religion, and due process of law, most notably. And equality imbued the Declaration of Independence although the stain of slavery kept that ideal out of the Constitution until 1868.

There is no right of privacy written into the Constitution. There is the Fourth Amendment, protecting people against unreasonable searches and seizures. But there is a notion, an important notion, of liberty—that we should have liberty to carry on with our lives without Big Brother Government looking over our shoulder. That idea has come from the guarantee, the due process guarantee of liberty, rather than an explicit right of privacy.

Sometimes Congress is helpful. There's a difference between a case that involves constitutional interpretation, where the Court says, "This is what the Constitution means." Well, that's what it means until the Court overrules its decision or there's a constitutional amendment. But when you're dealing with statutes like our principal employment discrimination law, Title VII, if the Court gets it wrong, Congress can fix it.

He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check.

We should entrust to the people the most fundamental decision of a democracy; namely, who should lead their country." This Republican argument, which was made so often, was political cowardice dressed up as democratic deference. Impeachment existed precisely because the Framers believed that sometimes Congress should not wait for the voters to make a change. To pass the buck to their constituents, as so many Republican senators did, was to shirk their constitutionally mandated duty.

The Framers created impeachment precisely to thwart this kind of conduct, which was, in Hamilton's words, "the abuse or violation of some public trust.

The Union as it was, the Constitution as it is,

The potent cry of white supremacy provided the final ideological glue in the Democratic coalition. Sometimes the appeal to race was oblique. The Democratic slogan, "The Union as It Is, the Constitution as It Was," had as its unstated corollary, blacks as they were—that is, as slaves. Often, it was remarkably direct. "Slavery is dead," the Cincinnati Enquirer announced at the end of the war, "the negro is not, there is the misfortune.

The [Republican] party's mainstream option was probably voiced by Massachusetts Congressman Henry L. Dawes, who admitted the medicine was extreme but asked whether any alternative existed: Am I to abandon the attempt to secure to the American citizen these rights, given to him by the Constitution? [Note: in reference to Enforcement Acts of 1870/71]

Only once before, in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review, had the Court invalidated an act of Congress on constitutional grounds. John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin R. Curtis of Massachusetts dissented; Curtis was so outraged by the decision that he resigned from the bench. Much

It's no coincidence that the Constitution didn't mention "the pursuit of happiness", which the Declaration of Independence called an inalienable right.