Popular Sovereignty Quotes

• Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Government, People

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

  Walter E. Williams

  Men, Independence, Unalienable Rights

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• Popular sovereignty has to be given by a people to itself, and this is the important meaning of self-determination.

  Judith Butler

  Determination, Self, People

  Interview With Cihan Aksan, Jon Bailes, www.counterpunch.org. October 11, 2013.

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• Quite simply, there can be no popular sovereignty without a real belief in the value of government. If government does not assume and carry out public responsibilities, less accountable institutions such as the corporation will do the job in their own self-interest.

  Charles Derber

  Jobs, Real, Responsibility

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• Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

  Cory Doctorow

  Happiness, Men, Power

  Cory Doctorow (2010). “Little Brother”, p.235, Tor Teen

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• Now what is Judge Douglas Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Judging, Principles

  Abraham Lincoln, Don Edward Fehrenbacher (1977). “Abraham Lincoln, a Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings”, p.124, Stanford University Press

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• Where is democratic process or popular sovereignty for the endangered population? It cannot be "given" or "allocated" by some other power without that same power claiming the right to withdraw what it gives.

  Judith Butler

  Giving, Population, Process

  Interview with Cihan Aksan and Jon Bailes, www.counterpunch.org. October 11. 2013.

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• We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it.

  Mark Levin

  Kings, Men, Rights

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Inspiring, Women, 4th Of July

  Declaration of Sentiments, First Woman's Rights

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• In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Spiritual, Religious, Men

  Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1926.

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• Tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a... you're a... you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity.

  George W. Bush

  Mean, Sovereign, American Indian

  George W. Bush “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, George W. Bush, 2004, Book 2, July 1 to September 30, 2004”, Government Printing Office

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• Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are.

  Alexis Tsipras

  Democracy, Principles, Austerity

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• It was the French Revolution that served as the catalyst of this renovation. Its impact was to make the concept of popular sovereignty the new moral justification for the political system of historical capitalism.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Impact, Political, Historical

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.148, Verso

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• Government has the role of suiting people for freedom. People aren't made for freedom spontaneously. There's sort of a 19-year race between when people are born and when they become adults. And government has a role in making them, at the end of 19 years, suited to be upright, trustworthy repositories of popular sovereignty.

  George Will

  Race, Government, Years

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