Constitution Quotes - Page 31

• I don't care about the Constitution

  Phil Hare

  Care, I Don't Care, Don't Care

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• In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Father, Views, Republic

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• The Constitution and the Bill of Rights we designed to get the government off the backs of the people -- all the people. Those great documents guarantee to us all the rights to personal and spiritual self-fulfillment. But that guarantee is not self-executing. As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of the change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

  William O. Douglas

  Spiritual, Twilight, Rights

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• All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Understanding, Tools

  "Reader's Digest" Magazine, June 1964.

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• One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty violates our Constitution. Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its obligation to respect dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by< emulating his murderer. Capital punishment's fatal flaw is that it treats people as objects to be toyed with and discarded. . . . One day the Court will outlaw the death penalty. Permanently.

  William J. Brennan

  Law, Punishment, People

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• The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.

  Byron White

  Law, Roots, Judging

  Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 1985.

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• The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint, upon the advice and consent of a majority of the Senate, and it plainly does not give a minority of senators any right to interfere with that process.

  John Jay Hooker

  Giving, Advice, President

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• We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.

  William Howard Taft

  Government, Law, Work Out

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• Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it ... The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.

  Learned Hand

  Freedom, Lying, Heart

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Let’s be clear about this. The rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be corrected.

  Valery Giscard d'Estaing

  Mistake, Rejection, Clear

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• Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.

  Chris Hedges

  Expression, Leader, Democracy

  Chris Hedges (2010). “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”, p.146, Nation Books

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• I rise in support of the separation of powers as established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The Constitution clearly delegates the power to deal with criminal matters, like the use of drugs, to the States.

  Dana Rohrabacher

  Father, Support, Drug

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• What is a constitution? It is a booklet with twelve or ten pages. I can tear them away and say that tomorrow we shall live under a different system. Today, the people will follow wherever I lead. All the politicians including the once mighty Mr. Bhutto will follow me with tails wagging.

  Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

  People, Tears, Twelve

  "Pakistan, a Dream Gone Sour". Book by Roedad Khan, 1997.

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• At the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.

  Joseph Story

  Religious, Encouragement, America

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• Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Heart, Paper, Written

  "Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World". Book by Margaret Thatcher, April 16, 2002.

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• Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Europe, Judging, Decision

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• Nothing that we have authorized conflicts with any law regarding privacy or any provision of the constitution.

  John Ashcroft

  Law, Privacy, Conflict

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• Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.

  Gore Vidal

  War, Machines, Ends

  "America First? America Last? America at Last?". Lowell Lecture, Harvard University, April 20, 1992.

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• He who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen . . . should share with him. . . . Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.

  Grover Cleveland

  Patriotic, Exercise, United States

  Grover Cleveland, United States. President (1885-1889 : Cleveland), United States. President (1893-1897 : Cleveland) (1968). “Grover Cleveland, 1837-1908: chronology, documents, bibliographical aids”

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• With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Country, Army, Russia

  "Gorbachev: Soviet Union 'should have been preserved'". Interview with Louise Branson, usatoday30.usatoday.com. April 5, 2006.

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• The object of a Constitution is to restrain the Government, as that of laws is to restrain individuals.

  John C. Calhoun

  Government, Law, Individual

  JOHN C. CALHOUN (1855). “REPORTS AND PUBLIC LETTERS”, p.63

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• To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws . . .

  John C. Calhoun

  America, Law, Majority

  John C. Calhoun “The Works of John C. Calhoun Volume 2”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The power given by the Constitution to the Executive to interpose his veto is a high conservative power; but in my opinion it should never be exercised except in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest haste and want of due consideration by Congress.

  Zachary Taylor

  Haste, Want, Conservative

  Zachary Taylor, S. HORN (1848). “All the Letters of Major General Z. Taylor: Anecdotes of rough and ready: Songs of Old Zach's Campaigns, etc. [Edited by] S. Horn”, p.10

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• In the discharge of duties my guide will be the Constitution, which I this day swear to preserve, protect, and defend.

  Zachary Taylor

  Guides, Duty, Protect

  John J. Farrell, Zachary Taylor, United States. President (1849-1850 : Taylor), United States. President (1850-1853 : Fillmore) (1971). “Zachary Taylor 1784-1850 [and] Millard Fillmore 1800-1874: chronology, documents, bibliographical aids”, Oceana Pubns

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• God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil ... and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution.

  Millard Fillmore

  Evil, Giving, Slavery

  Millard Fillmore (1970). “Millard Fillmore Papers”

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