Quotes About Framers

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.

The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.

The framers discerned fundamental principles.... But our acceptance of the fundamental principles has not and should not bind us to those precise, at times anachronistic, contours. We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans.

If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage.

To give meaning to the Constitution, it is necessary to give it a flexible interpretation, responsive to changing times. The framers could not have foreseen the problems and issues that face our nation today, and the Constitution should not be interpreted as if they had.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

The framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny.

Constitutional government, as designed by the framers, will survive only with a righteous people.

I suspect that the framers of the Bill of Rights have long since rolled over in their graves.

The imperative of protecting religious freedom was not just a nod in the direction of piety. It reflects the Framers' belief that religion was indispensable to sustaining our free system of government.

And that's maybe a better description of the experience of reading the Federalist Papers now, if you're reading them for guidance through a modern crisis. The predictions of the Framers of the Constitution were accurate for a time, but history diverged from their path a while back.

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 Framers feared and detested factions, a view famously expressed by Madison in Federalist No. 10.31 Probably no statement has been so often cited to explain and justify the checks against popular majorities that the Framers attempted to build into the constitution. It is supremely ironic, therefore, that more than anyone except Jefferson, it was Madison who helped to create the Republican Party in order to defeat the Federalists.

Can a constitution devised centuries ago to replace a monarchy, and based upon a citizens' militia, possibly hope to run an empire whose scope is beyond anything ever dreamed of by its framers? Or must the existence of standing armies and the influx of inconceivable wealth inevitably destroy our democratic system?

The framers of the Constitution, dealing with slavery as an incidental but troublesome circumstance, ended by extending it a kind of shamefaced recognition that included a measure of protection, but they contributed little to defining its national status.

Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "The framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.

The framers of our constitution had the sagacity to vest in Congress all implied powers: that is, powers necessary and proper to carry into effect all the delegated powers wherever vested.

Indeed, if the Framers intended unenumerated rights to be protected without a bill of rights, how can we imagine that those rights were meant to be any less secure with a bill of rights.

Neither James Madison, for whom this lecture is named, nor any of the other Framers of the Constitution, were oblivious, careless, or otherwise unaware of the words they chose for the document and its Bill of Rights.

The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.

Most of the Founders and Framers were Deists. Deism is a religion that believes in a God who really doesn't give a shit.

The framers never intended an infinitely broad Commerce Clause that would let Congress dictate individuals' purchases.

The consensus for a strong, independent Executive arose from the Framers' experience in the Revolution and under the Articles of Confederation. They had seen that the War had almost been lost and was a bumbling enterprise because of the lack of strong Executive leadership.