Constitution Quotes - Page 20

• A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

  John Marshall

  Government, Law, Tyranny

  John Marshall (2005). “The Political and Economic Doctrines of John Marshall”, p.337, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• I may finally call attention to the probability that the association of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation during the reducing division as indicated above may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity.

  Walter Sutton

  Science, Law, Attention

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• The equal protection standard of the constitution has one clear and central meaning - it absolutely prohibits invidious [repugnant] discrimination by government...Under our Constitution, any official action that treats a person differently on account of his race or ethnic origin is inherently [by nature] suspect and presumptively [probably] invalid...Under the Constitution we have, one practice in which government may never engage in the practice of racism - not even "temporarily" and not even as an "experiment."

  Potter Stewart

  Race, Government, Practice

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• And when you tell me that somebody's skin color or gender is going to determine their prospects in this world, that is turning the clock back hundreds of years. Back to a time before this nation declared that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator; not by their ancestry, not by their skin color, not by their gender, not by Congress, not by the Constitution, and not by the laws

  Alan Keyes

  Men, Skin Color, Years

  "Preparing Our Country for the 21st Century: The Official Transcript of the United We Stand America Conference". Book by United We Stand America Inc., November, 1995.

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• Also in the new constitution, we want to lower the voting age from 20 years to 18 years and also gradually implement a voluntary military service in replacement of the current compulsory military service.

  Chen Shui-bian

  Military, Voting Age, Years

  BBC Interview, news.bbc.co.uk. March 30, 2004.

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• Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress.

  Dick Thornburgh

  Government, Self, Law

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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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• The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Running, Long, Swim

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.365, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• As a matter of law the states recognized no constraints on their legislative scope other than those that were self-imposed. Even where particular state constitutions paid ideological lip service to constraints deriving from religious or natural law doctrines, they reserved to some constitutionally-defined body or person the right to interpret these doctrines.

  Immanuel Wallerstein

  Religious, Self, Law

  Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1995). “Capistalist Civilisation”, p.51, Verso

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• The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable; but Christian society, just as human society, is subject to perpetual evolution.

  Pope Pius X

  Christian, Church, Evolution

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• The Constitution of the United States of America clearly affirms the right of every American citizen to bear arms. And as Americans, we will not give up a single right guaranteed under the Constitution.

  Malcolm X

  Giving Up, Gun, America

  Malcolm X (1992). “By any means necessary”, Pathfinder Pr

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• The tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality...

  George Washington

  Party, Character, Eye

  George Washington's Inaugural Address, www.archives.gov. April 30, 1789.

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• The moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Feelings, Religion, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.296, Cambridge University Press

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• Next Monday the Convention in Virginia will assemble; we have still good hopes of its adoption here: though by no great plurality of votes. South Carolina has probably decided favourably before this time. The plot thickens fast. A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come.

  George Washington

  Monday, Fate, America

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• [A]s it must be admitted that the remedy under the Constitution lies where it has been marked out by the Constitution; and that no appeal can be consistently made from that remedy by those who were and still profess to be parties to it, but the appeal to the parties themselves having an authority above the Constitution or to the law of nature & of nature's God.

  James Madison

  Lying, Party, Law

  James Madison (1853). “Selections from the Private Correspondence of James Madison: From 1813 to 1836”, p.406

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• Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?

  James Madison

  Mean, Doctrine, Might

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust.

  James Madison

  Views, Giving, Special

  James Madison (1819). “The Writings of James Madison: 1808-1819”, p.387

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• On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.

  James Madison

  Forever, Judicial Power, Might

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• I, sir, have always conceived - I believe those who proposed the constitution conceived,and it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, those who ratified the constitution conceived, that this is not an indefinite government deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers - but, a limited government tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms.

  James Madison

  Believe, Government, Term

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.32, University of Virginia Press

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• [T]he foundation of a great Empire is laid, and I please myself with a persuasion, that Providence will not leave its work imperfect.

  George Washington

  Foundation, Empires, Imperfect

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1847). “pt. III. Private letters from the time Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Army to that of his inauguration as president of the United States: December, 1783-April, 1789”, p.184

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• I join cordially in admiring and revering the Constitution of the United States, the result of the collected wisdom of our country. That wisdom has committed to us the important task of proving by example that a government, if organized in all its parts on the Representative principle unadulterated by the infusion of spurious elements, if founded, not in the fears & follies of man, but on his reason, on his sense of right, on the predominance of the social over his dissocial passions, may be so free as to restrain him in no moral right, and so firm as to protect him from every moral wrong.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Passion, Men

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• It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.

  James Madison

  Self, Germs, Unnecessary

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1852). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution: Written in 1788”, p.219

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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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• Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Exercise, Assumption, Authority

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1831). “The Federalist on the New Constitution”, p.98

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• The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular, to the state legislatures.

  James Madison

  Combination, Legislature, States

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.47

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