Constitution Quotes - Page 35

• I don't see any justification for the federal government owning land, other than the Statue of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges. But to just own land to do nothing with it I think is a disservice to the Constitution.

  Don Young

  Thinking, Government, Land

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• Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Reading, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.153, Courier Corporation

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• If the Constitution is a compact, then the States have a right to secede.

  Joseph Story

  War, States, Compact

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• If the Constitution is adopted (and it was) the Union will be in fact and in theory an association of States or a Confederacy.

  Alexander Hamilton

  War, Unions, Association

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• The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will.

  Robert E. Lee

  War, Broken, Exhausted

  Letter to his son, G. W. Custis Lee, January 23, 1861.

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• Health coverage for regular citizens isn't mandated by the Constitution, but we're obligated to provide adequate medical care for prisoners, whatever the cost.

  Jim Riley

  Health, Citizens, Cost

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• We're all collectors by nature. But if you're talking about an orderly life, there has to be a stop sign somewhere. Building a collection requires a strong constitution and the ability to resist.

  Albert Hadley

  Strong, Talking, Design

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• Truth-telling to Congress and the public is not disloyal in America: it is an expression of the higher loyalty officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereign public. It is a courageous, patriotic, and effective way to serve our country. The time to speak out is now.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Loyalty, Country, Time

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• The pest of society are the egotist, they are dull and bright, sacred and profane, course and fine. It is a disease that like the flu falls on all constitutions.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fall, Ego, Pests

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• The Irish Free State was one of dozens of new European democracies to emerge from the cauldron of the 1914-1918 war. It was one of the very few that was still democratic in 1939. This book shows how the steely determination of one man, Kevin O'Higgins, made this possible. O'Higgins faced down mutinies in both the Gardai and the Army. He dissolved the Dáil Courts which were a parallel system that might easily have undermined the conventional courts. With WT Cosgrave, he put through a constitution which reconciled the local opponents of independence with the new State.

  John Bruton

  Determination, War, Book

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• I am a man of peace. I am longing and working and praying for peace, but I will not surrender the safety and security of the British constitution. You placed me in power eighteen months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many, many years. Have I done anything to forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal to secure even justice between man and man?

  Stanley Baldwin

  Party, Men, Squares

  Speech on BBC radio on the General Strike on May 08, 1926. "Baldwin: A Biography". Book by Keith Middlemas and John Barnes, p. 415, 1969.

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• Every government is perpetually degenerating towards corruption, from which it must be rescued at certain periods by the resuscitation of its first principles, and the re-establishment of its original constitution.

  Samuel Johnson

  Government, Principles, Firsts

  Samuel Johnson (1792). “The Rambler”, p.354

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• No society can make a perpetual constitution... The earth belongs always to the living generation.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Animal, Generations, Earth

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.596, Cambridge University Press

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• Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.

  Lyman Trumbull

  Respect, Rights, Law

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• There are some historians who say that democratic republics dont last more than 200 years. Well, weve got to show that you can last more than 200 years. Weve got to continue to sustain the system, and the only way you can do it is by sustaining the constitution and by confronting lies face to face, head on, aggressively.

  Maurice Hinchey

  Lying, Years, Republic

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• Fundamental ideas are not a consequence of experience, but a result of the particular constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise.

  William Whewell

  Independent, Exercise, Ideas

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• It is in seeing ourselves whole that we can begin to see ways of working out our differences, of understanding our similarities and of finally forming the cohesive nation that can one day experience the 'domestic tranquility' so hoped for by the framers of the Constitution.

  Robert C. Maynard

  Differences, Work Out, Understanding

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• We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

  Rufus Choate

  Oracles, Temples, Common

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.345

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• I follow a set of principles; I follow the Constitution. And that's what I base my votes on. Limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty.

  Justin Amash

  Government, Liberty, Principles

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• I fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. I don't think the libertarians have it right when it comes to what the Constitution's all about. I don't think they have it right as to what our history is.

  Rick Santorum

  Party, Fighting, Thinking

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• But did the Founding Fathers ever intend for the federal government to involve itself in education, health care or retirement benefits? The answer, quite clearly, is no. The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8 - which contains the general welfare clause - seeks to restrain federal government, not expand it.

  Larry Elder

  Retirement, Father, Government

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• The ANC is more important than the Constitution.

  Jacob Zuma

  Important, Ridiculous

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• The Constitution is only there to regulate matters.

  Jacob Zuma

  Matter, Ridiculous

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• It's a rare human being who understands intellectually and emotionally the freedoms contained within our Constitution and the right of every human being to make decisions about their own lives consistent with their own conscience and without the interference of government.

  Geoffrey Fieger

  Government, Decision, Consistent

  "Reaction to the death of Jack Kevorkian". www.foxnews.com. June 3, 2011.

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• Shahidullah Shahid said there is nothing Islamic in Pakistan’s constitution. He clearly can’t read. The truth is there is nothing Islamic in the TTP.

  Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

  Islamic, Pakistan, Truth Is

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