Constitution Quotes

The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare, nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements.

Americans don’t need black-robed justices divining the meaning of the Constitution. The Constitution was written by our founding fathers as a document that could be understood by ordinary citizens without law degrees from Harvard or Yale Ð or even in spite of such credentials. We have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked into believing that we […]

Our Constitution was not intended to be used by… any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us.

All the foundations before mentioned, of the federal government, are by the proposed system to be established, in the most clear, strong, positive, unequivocal expressions, of which our language is capable. Magna charta, or any other law, never contained clauses more decisive and emphatic. While the people of these states have sense, they will understand […]

There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover.

The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.

If the Constitution is to be construed to mean what the majority at any given period in history wish the Constitution to mean, why a written Constitution?

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the […]

The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.