Provision Quotes - Page 9

• The future of nations cannot be frozen . . . cannot be foreseen. If we are going to accomplish anything in our time we must approach our problem in the knowledge that there is nothing rigid or immutable in human affairs. History is a story of growth, decay and change. If no provision, no allowance is made for change by peaceful means, it will come anyway - and with violence.

  Herbert Hoover

  Peace, Future, Mean

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• Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks - drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high. Big Government is the small option: it's the guarantee of smaller freedom, smaller homes, smaller cars, smaller opportunities, smaller lives.

  Mark Steyn

  Fall, Home, Opportunity

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• It’s clearly established in terms of training, provision of bomb-making experts, training of people with respect to chemical and biological warfare capabilities, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Iraq for training and so forth.

  Dick Cheney

  Iraq, People, Training

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• There is... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Aristocracy, Ingredients

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.187, Cambridge University Press

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• I am astonished about those people who are ordered to prepare their provisions, then the start of the journey is announced, however they remain unmindful in their vain discussions and fruitless deeds.

  Hasan of Basra

  Wisdom, Islamic, Journey

  "The Life of This World Is a Transient Shade". Book by Abdul Malik Al-Qasim, January 1, 1999.

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• This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.

  George Washington

  Government, Choices, Support

  George Washington (1809). “The Patriot's Monitor: Or, Speeches and Addresses of the Late George Washington”, p.124

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• The truth is that the general genius of a government is all that can be substantially relied upon for permanent effects. Particular provisions, though not altogether useless, have far less virtue and efficacy than are commonly ascribed to them; and the want of them will never be with men of sound discernment a decisive objection to any plan which exhibits the leading characters of a good government.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Character, Men, Sound

  Alexander Hamilton (1810). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Comprising His Most Important Official Reports: An Improved Edition of the Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in 1788; and Pacificus, on the Proclamation of Neutrality, Written in 1793 ...”, p.287, New York : Williams and Whitings

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• The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the constitution that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Kings, War, Men

  Abraham Lincoln (1926). “An autobiography of Abraham Lincoln: consisting of the personal portions of his letters, speeches and conversations”

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• The money problem facing the country from 1789 to 1896 existed because Congress never exercised is authority to "coin money or regulate the value thereof" - but rather delegated that authority, sometimes by charter and sometimes by default, to the banking system. This despite the provision in the Constitution that charged Congress with the power to 'coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standards of weight and Measures.'

  William Jennings Bryan

  Country, Banking, Coins

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• My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime usually do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed only for those exceptionally rare circumstances when all other rights have failed. A free people can only afford to make this mistake once.

  Alex Kozinski

  Freedom, Mistake, Failure

  "United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit". openjurist.org. May 6, 2003.

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• To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined; but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Answers, Might, Purpose

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.322, Coventry House Publishing

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• Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever-it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Forever, Unions, Action

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.

  James Madison

  Law, Government, Federalism

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the new constitution, written in 1788, with an appendix, containing the letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the proclamation of neutrality of 1793, also the original articles of confederation and the constitution of the United States”, p.62

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• [I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Government, Causes, Framing

  Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2010). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.205, Modern Library

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• The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Government, Essence, Growth

  "Gompers v. United States, 233 U.S. 604, 610". Judicial opinion, 1914.

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• Experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly over-rated; and that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful members of the government.

  James Madison

  Powerful, Government, Defense

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2014). “The Federalist Papers”, p.242, Courier Corporation

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• In Egypt, a civil state means a modern nationalist state that is compatible with Islamist provisions.

  Ali Gomaa

  Mean, Egypt, Modern

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• It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Gratitude, Government, Law

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• To what expedient then shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government, as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.

  James Madison

  Mean, Government, Practice

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.238

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• Hitherto my observations have only aimed at a vindication of the provision in question, on the ground of theoretic propriety . . . . But there remains to be mentioned a positive advantage . . . I allude to the circumstance of uniformity in the time of elections for the House of Representatives. It is more than possible, that this uniformity may be found by experience to be of great importance to the public welfare; both as a security against the perpetuation of the same spirit in the body; and as a cure for the diseases of faction.

  Alexander Hamilton

  House, Public Opinion, Body

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• [T]he more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer . . . [taking] away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence of somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health for support in age and sickness.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Eye, Government, Giving

  Benjamin Franklin (1835). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin”, p.221

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• there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.

  James Madison

  Law, Giving, Negative

  Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2010). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.508, Modern Library

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• If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Judging, May, Body

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.145, Rowman & Littlefield

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• As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Community, Domestic Violence, Defense

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2007). “The Federalist Papers”, p.231, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• It will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue; and those which will require a state provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited; and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Federalism, Unlimited, Proportion

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.158, Coventry House Publishing

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