constitution

One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, and thusly, carrying our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Every ten years, [the Census Bureau] force a large number of Americans to complete an expensive "long form," which was never mentioned in the Constitution. Not only do the Census probers ask name and address, but sex, race, income, property, household furnishings, and dozens of other irrelevant and impertinent questions. For those who refuse to answer, the Census people - unlike such pollsters as Roper or Gallup - threaten federal prosecution. Head counting is part of the Constitution, but this invasion of privacy is not.

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it...  While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

When the State of Pennsylvania held its convention to consider the Constitution of the United States, Judge Wilson said of the introductory clause, "We, the people, do ordain and establish," etc.: "It is not an unmeaning flourish. The expressions declare in a practical manner the principle of this Constitution. It is ordained and established by the people themselves." This as regarded as an authoritative exposition.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth. Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail. Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost. America, in the assembly of nations, has uniformly spoken among them the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding.