constitution

There is a higher law than the Constitution.

Letter to the committee in charge of the celebration of the centennial of the American Constitution. I have always regarded that Constitution as the most remarkable work known to me in modern times to have been produced by the human intellect, at a single stroke (so to speak), in its application to political affairs.

As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

To be engaged in opposing wrong affords, under the conditions of our mental constitution, but a slender guarantee for being right.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.

There are times when minds need to turn to simple things. Perhaps for a few of these nights all of us might do well to leave the briefcases at the office and to read again the pages of the Bible, and to re-read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. We might do well to stay home a few days and walk over the fields, or to stand in the shelter of the barn door and reflect upon the relentless and yet benevolent forces of Mother Nature. The laws of nature are relentless. They can never be disobeyed without exacting a penalty. Yet they are benevolent, for when they are understood and obeyed, nature yields up the abundance that blesses those who understand and obey.

It is incontestable that the Constitution established a system of "dual sovereignty.". . . Although the States surrendered many of their powers to the new Federal Government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty. . . . The Framers explicitly chose a Constitution that confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States. The great innovation of this design was that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other.

The Constitution protects us from our own best intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.

The Constitution does not leave to speculation who is to administer the laws enacted by Congress; the President, it says, "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". . . . The Brady Act effectively transfers this responsibility to thousands of [law enforcement officials] in the 50 States. . . . The power of the President would be subject to reduction, if Congress could act as effectively without the President as with him, by simply requiring state officers to execute its laws.

Happiness consists in activity; such as the constitution of our nature; it is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool.