Framers Quotes

• The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

  Billy Graham

  Patriotic, America, Constitution

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  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Strength, Wisdom, Veterans Day

  Letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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• It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Truth, Freedom

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17 (1781 - 1785)

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• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.270

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• All power is inherent in the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 4: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.404

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  The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.458, Penguin

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• It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers.

  Robert Byrd

  People, Liberty, Heritage

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• Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

  James Madison

  Ambition, Simple, Government

  James Madison, John Jay (1847). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.192

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  To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

  George Mason

  Strength, Peace, Gun

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Rights, Talking, Constitution

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• The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

  William J. Brennan

  Freedom, Rights, Government

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• 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

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• I believe that the Framers of the Constitution made their intent clear when they wrote the First Amendment. I believe they wanted to keep the new government from endorsing one religion over another, not erase the public consciousness or common faith.

  Nick Rahall

  Believe, Government, Firsts

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• The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.

  William O. Douglas

  Abuse, Society, Liberty

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• In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in the making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Independence, Slavery, Sacred

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45”, p.396, Library of America

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• Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  History, Amendments, Concern

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• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

  Noah Webster

  Army, Gun, Power

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

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• It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Majority, Politics, Might

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• It is time... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers.

  Diane Wood

  Time, Long, Focus

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• In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge.

  Robert Bork

  Law, Judging, Democracy

  Robert H. Bork (2009). “The Tempting of America”, p.318, Simon and Schuster

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• The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Independent, Paper, Constitution

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• Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right.

  Ronald Reagan

  Mistake, Abortion, Demand

  "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation". Book by Ronald Reagan, 1983.

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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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• When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man [Sir William Keith], who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.

  George Mason

  Men, Gun, America

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly chose to exclude for demonstrating an unseemly "veneration of wealth " are now de facto in force and higher than the Founding Fathers could have imagined.

  Bill Moyers

  Father, Office, Constitution

  "Moyers on Democracy". Book by Bill D. Moyers. Introduction, p. 3, 2008.

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