Constitution Quotes - Page 25

• Thus far women have been the mere echoes of men. Our laws and constitutions, our creeds and codes, and the customs of social life are all of masculine origin. The true woman is as yet a dream of the future. A just government, a humane religion, a pure social life await her coming.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Dream, Men, Law

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ida Husted Harper, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1902). “History of Woman Suffrage ...: 1883-1900”

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• Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Real, Law, Shoes

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ellen Carol DuBois (1992). “The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan B. Anthony reader: correspondence, writings, speeches”, Northeastern Univ Pr

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• 

  My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

  Barbara Jordan

  Passion, Decision, Debate

  Statement on the Articles of Impeachment, delivered 25 July 1974, House Judiciary Committee

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• If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.

  Harry S. Truman

  Military, Political, Elements

  Harry S. Truman (1956). “Memoirs”

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• Isn't protecting our legal citizens from an invading army of illegal aliens who are using our services and taking our jobs, isn't that a basic notion of fairness? Isn't that in the Constitution? Where is the fairness to American citizens here?

  Rush Limbaugh

  Jobs, Army, Citizens

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• What's the difference between a liberal and a conservative? A liberal will interpret the constitution, a conservative will quote it!

  Rush Limbaugh

  Differences, Conservative

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• A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Libertarian Party, Assault Weapons

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• The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Stars, Boys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.299, Library of America

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• There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handguns use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution.

  Michael Gartner

  Change, Country, Military

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• The Oval Office symbolizes…the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I’m going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it’s appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President.

  Andrew Card

  Dream, Thinking, Expectations

  "Former Chief of Staff to Obama: Put Your Jacket On" by Bernie Becker, thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com. February 4, 2009.

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• Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become.

  Amy Goodman

  Power, Government, Media

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• The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers - a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Mother, Father, Rights

  Congressional Record, 91st Cong., 2d Sess, 116, pt. 21: (28028-28029), August 10, 1970.

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• The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.

  Samuel Adams

  Reality, Hands, People

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• I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing; as a wise Creator must have seen to be necessary in an animal destined to live in society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Believe, Animal

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.88, Courier Corporation

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• When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Independent, Compassion

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.85, Courier Corporation

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• The system of banking have[for]ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Progress, Citizens, Banking

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.605

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• But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Mean, Two

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.298

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• The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Law, Judging

  Thomas Jefferson, J. Jefferson Looney (2004). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815”, p.525, Princeton University Press

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• I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Enlargement, Notable, Assuming

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.3

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• I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance [as the framing of the Constitution] ... should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Moving, Government, Degrees

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• The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Rights, Practice, Justice

  The Federalist Papers, No. 78 ("The Judiciary Department"), www.congress.gov. May 28, 1788.

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• The only constitutional exception to the power of making treaties is, that it shall not change the Constitution.… On natural principles, a treaty, which should manifestly betray or sacrifice primary interests of the state, would be null.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Sacrifice, Principles, Would Be

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• There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Principles, Void, Authority

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2004). “The Federalist Papers”, p.556, Simon and Schuster

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• If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention where I had the honor to preside might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it.

  George Washington

  Religious, Rights, Honor

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1848). “pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses”, p.155

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• Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: If defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.

  George Washington

  Government, Hands, Precedent

  George Washington (1852). “The life of General Washington: first president of the United States”, p.142

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