Bill of Rights

“ The Bill of Rights guarantees that no American shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." This promise lies at the heart of our free society and reflects our reverence for impartial justice and the rule of law. ”

“ From the beginning of our republic, therefore, they endeavored to enhance the Constitution with a bill of rights, a specific enumeration of fundamental rights that would prevail even against a future government inclined to abuse the power it has over the lives of citizens. ”

“ With the memory of tyranny fresh in their minds, the members of the First Congress of the United States proposed constitutional amendments known as the Bill of Rights, making explicit and forever protecting our Nation's cherished freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly.
But human rights have never been solely a domestic concern. Americans have always sought to share these rights with oppressed people around the world. ”

“ It is in fact our great “Bill of Rights,” being our first Charter and Declaration of those essential, natural, inherent and ineffaceable rights of mankind, which all governments must respect, defend and enforce, and which cannot be ignored or invaded by any authority, organization or government whatever. ”

“ The more the system advanced the more was I impressed with the necessity of not merely attempting to secure a few rights, but of digesting and forming a complete bill of rights, including those of states and of individuals, which should be assented to, and prefixed to the Constitution, to serve as a barrier between the general government and the respective states and their citizens ”

“ Further, I urge all Americans during the coming bicentennial year to contemplate the principles of liberty and justice enunciated in the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to draw on them as the best means to assure our Nation's continued progress. ”

“ A proposition to adopt a measure that would have supposed that we were throwing into the general government every power not expressly reserved by the people, would have been spurned at, in that house, with the greatest indignation. Even in a single government, if the powers of the people rest on the same establishment as is expressed in this Constitution, a bill of rights is by no means a necessary measure. ”

“ And all the while we were doing it, there was our Bill of Rights, our Declaration of Independence, founded on a new thing in the world, proclaiming to mankind the fairest hope yet born, that “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” and that these were now to be protected by law. ”

“ And, of course, the existence of such awesome judicial power cannot be buttressed or created by relying on the word 'procedural.' Whether labeled as 'procedural' or 'substantive,' the Bill of Rights safeguards, far from being mere 'tools with which' other unspecified 'rights could be fully vindicated,' are the very vitals of a sound constitutional legal system designed to protect and safeguard the most cherished liberties of a free people. ”

“ But I believe that faithful adherence to the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights insures a more permanent protection of individual liberty than that which can be afforded by the nebulous standards stated by the majority. ”

“ That in a government, like ours, founded by the people, and managed by the people, and especially in one of limited authority, there was no necessity of any bill of rights; for all powers not granted were reserved ”

“ Our task is to develop the common law in accordance with the spirit, purport and objects of the Bill of Rights. In this our sole duty lies to the Constitution: but those we engage with most deeply in explaining what that duty entails is the nation, whose understanding of and commitment to constitutional values is essential if the larger project of securing justice and equality under law for all is to succeed. ”

“ We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. ”

“ When the Framers wrote the Bill of Rights they enshrined in the form of constitutional guarantees those rights-in part substantive, in part procedural which experience indicated were indispensable to a free society. Some would disagree as to their importance; the debate concerning them did indeed start before their adoption and has continued to this day. Yet the constitutional conception of 'due process' must, in my view, include them all until and unless there are amendments that remove them. ”

“ They retain all basic rights, save those inevitably removed from them by law, expressly or by implication.'
[332] ⁠It must be emphasised that the entrenchment of a Bill of Rights, enforceable by a judiciary, is designed, in part, to protect those who are the marginalised, the dispossessed and the outcasts of our society. ”

“ But it is an all-important question, because the property of this country is not commensurate to the enormous demand. Our own government triumphs, with infinite superiority, when put in contrast with that paper. The want of a bill of rights will render all their laws, however oppressive, constitutional. ”

“ In the next place, (it has been urged with much earnestness,) a bill of rights is an important protection against unjust and oppressive conduct on the part of the people themselves. In a government modified, like that of the United States, (said a great statesman, [17] ) the great danger lies rather in the abuse of the community, than of the legislative body. The prescriptions in favour of liberty ought to be levelled against that quarter, where the greatest danger lies, namely, that which possesses the highest prerogative of power. ”

“ I sincerely rejoice at the acceptance of our new constitution by nine States. It is a good canvass, on which some strokes only want retouching. What these are, I think are sufficiently manifested by the general voice from north to south, which calls for a bill of rights. ”

“ To maintain the balance of our federal system, insofar as it is committed to our care, demands at once zealous regard for the guarantees of the Bill of Rights and due recognition of the powers belonging to the states. ”

“ A majority of the people of this country, under the leadership of George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and others, were determined to have spelled out in the Constitution in the form of a Bill of Rights those guaranties of personal security which are embodied in the first 10 amendments. ”

“ A history of civilization could be written around the derivation of the privileges that constitute our Bill of Rights. The emphasis would be not on rulers and governments but on the struggle mankind has waged for centuries to obtain recognition of the rights of individual men. ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. ”

“ Thus, the Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be pre-existing. ”

“ Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an Act of Parliament called the Bill of Rights. It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to Constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the People, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. ”

“ The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and, if allowed to flourish, would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our Government. ”

“ Eppes.—When I feel a decided hostility to a principle, it is not material to me in what form I meet it. Decidedly opposed to the principle of this bill, I shall vote against it in all its stages, and cannot but hope that the motion of my colleague to reject it will prevail. By this bill, we are called upon to exercise one of the most important powers vested in Congress by the Constitution of the United States. A power which suspends the personal rights of your citizens, which places their liberty wholly under the will, not of the Executive Magistrate only, but of his inferior officers. ”

“ I cannot consider the Bill of Rights to be an outworn 18th Century "strait jacket," as the Twining opinion did. Its provisions may be thought outdated abstractions by some. And it is true that they were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century wherever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. ”

“ The civil rights bill, which is above any territorial legislation or any adverse judicial decision in a Territory where our power is supreme, has guarantied to him beyond peril every civil right known under the Constitution of the United States . ”