Pertinent Quotations

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. -- Patrick Henry

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. -- William O. Douglas

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power. -- Thomas Jefferson

The greatest threat to our Constitution is our own ignorance of it. -- Jacob F. Roecker

A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue. -- Phillip E. Johnson

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure. -- Albert Einstein

Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its compartments are beautiful as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order; and its defenses are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may ever justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. -- Joseph Story

At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections. -- William O. Douglas

It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution. We are free at last, free at last. There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands. -- Antonin Scalia

I believe the Court has no power to add to or subtract from the procedures set forth by the founders...I shall not at any time surrender my belief that the document itself should be our guide, not our own concept of what is fair, decent, and right. -- Hugo L. Black

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation. -- William O. Douglas

A law can be both economic folly and constitutional. -- Antonin Scalia

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone, the most comprehensive of the rights and the right most valued by civilized men. -- Louis D. Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States, (1928)

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. -- Robert H. Jackson, American Communications Association v. Douds (1950)

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States (1928)

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections. -- Alexis de Tocqueville

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. -- William O. Douglas

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount amoung the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. -- Hugo L. Black, New York Times V US (1971)

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. -- Benjamin Franklin

The power to tax involves the power to destroy. -- John Marshall

If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an Act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end? The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war growing in intensity and bitterness. -- Stephen J. Field, Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust Co. (1898)

The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given. It will come when Americans, in the hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: "I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can. -- Barry Goldwater

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. -- Abraham Lincoln

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. -- Learned Hand