American Constitution Quotes

• To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Patriotic, Race, Political

  "Ceremonies Mark Constitution Day". The New York Times. Message to the National Security League in honor of Constitution Day, September 17, 1923.

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• [Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

  Patrick Henry

  Government, People, Tyranny Founding Fathers

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• Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it. Leave evils which exist in some parts of the country, but which are beyond your control, to the all-wise direction of an over-ruling Providence. Perform those duties which are present, plain and positive. Respect the laws of your country.

  Daniel Webster

  Government, Years, America

  Letter to Dr. William B. Gooch of West Dennis, Massachusetts, in 1851. The Bay State Monthly, 1898.

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• The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Struggle, Patriotic

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• The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

  Henry Clay

  America, Democracy, United States

  Henry Clay (1863). “Life and times”, p.344

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• The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

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  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

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• In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, Money, Business

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

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• Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, 4th Of July, Promise

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Business, 4th Of July

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• As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

  William E. Gladstone

  Work, Men, Historical

  North American Review, Sept./Oct. 1878

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• Two Soviets . . . were talking to each other. And one of them asked, "What's the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the United States Constitution?" And the other one said, "That's easy. The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering."

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Two, Differences

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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• Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

  James Russell Lowell

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

  The Biglow Papers, Second Series, "Ef I a song or two could make" l. 97 (1867)

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• He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.

  Samuel Adams

  Trust, Wise, Country

  "Loyalty and Sedition". Essay published in The Advertiser, 1748.

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• This 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 Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, 4th Of July

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

  Patrick Henry

  Death, Sweet, Freedom

  Speech in Virginia Convention, Richmond, Va., 23 Mar. 1775.

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• This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, People, Constitution Of The United States

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

  George Washington

  Religious, Truth, Freedom

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• It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Political, Principles, Genius

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.6, Best Books on

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

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• The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

  John Adams

  Simple, Government, America

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• The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax

  Thomas Paine

  America, Liberty, Syntax

  The Rights of Man pt. 1 (1791)

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• The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals.

  Lenny Bruce

  Government, Criminals, Politics

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• Anyone who says the American Constitution is obsolete just because social and economic conditions have changed does not understand the real genius of the Constitution. It was designed to control something which has not changed and will not change—namely, human nature.

  W. Cleon Skousen

  Change, Real, Usa

  W. Cleon Skousen “The Five Thousand Year Leap”, Verity Publishing

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• The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people.

  Frederick Douglass

  America, People, President

  "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?" by Frederick Douglass, March 26, 1860.

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