Constitution Quotes

If you want to understand your government, don’t begin by reading the Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today’s statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word ‘National’.

Here’s a couple questions for you: Has the United States Congress usurped powers that were not delegated to it by the Constitution? From their ratification statements, isn’t it clear that the nation’s Founders assumed that States and the people have a right to take back powers they granted Congress in the Constitution? All but your […]

The Constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens.

This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large.

The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers’ document: it is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.

The People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will. (Ratification […]

That the Powers of Government may be resumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; that every Power, Jurisdiction and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the People of the several […]

That the powers of government may be resumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness: That the rights of the States respectively to nominate and appoint all State Officers, and every other power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by the said constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United […]

The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now. Being a grant of powers to a government, its language is general, and as changes come in social and political life it embraces in its grasp all new conditions which are within the […]

Our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and the first inaugural address of Washington… down to the present day, has, with a few aberrations . . ., ruled out of order government-sponsored endorsement of religion – even when no legal coercion is present, and indeed even when no ersatz, “peer-pressure” psycho-coercion is present – […]