Hugo Black Quotes About Constitution

Quotes about: Constitution

• 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.

  Hugo Black

  Friendship, Enemy, Speech

• No higher duty, or more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution - of whatever race, creed or persuasion.

  Hugo Black

  Life, Responsibility, Race

  "Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227". Writing for the court, 1940.

• The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation.

  Hugo Black

  Views, Justice, Judging

• The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.

  Hugo Black

  Rights, Government, People

• It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."

  Hugo Black

  Men, Rights, Bills

  "The Bill of Rights,"NewYork University Law Review, Apr. 1960

• From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.

  Hugo Black

  Men, Law, Justice

  "Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 18, 1963.

• Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.

  Hugo Black

  Patriotic, Wind, Judging

• Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the constitution but freedom to continue to prevent others from publishing is not.

  Hugo Black

  Mean, Justice, Constitution

  "Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. June 18, 1945.

• In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.

  Hugo Black

  Rights, Law, Practice

• What finally emerges from the 'clear and present danger' cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished...It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.

  Hugo Black

  Taken, Evil, Justice

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