Constitution (human)

“ No learning in the books, no skill in the courts, no sharpness of forensic dialectics, no cunning in splitting hairs, can impair the vigor of the constitutional principle which I announce. Whatever you enact for human rights is constitutional, and this is the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. ”

“ The authority of the laws which govern society is not found in the fact that the laws have been made by the will of the majority, or the will of the minority, or by the will of a king, or by the wills of any [236] or all of the people; but because they are founded in the constitution of human nature. ”

“ Every word employed in the Constitution is to be expounded in its plain, obvious, and common sense, unless the context furnishes some ground to control, qualify, or enlarge it. Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or juridical research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. ”

“ Such codification of the constitution is to realize, with firm stability that is objectively unchallengeable, the control of state power and the maximum guarantee of human rights intended by the constitution. ”

“ Article III of the Constitution provides for courts and judges, and fixes their jurisdiction—their power—and gives direction as to trial and penalty in certain cases.
Thus we find that the Constitution guarantees a National government (a republican form of government) , confers certain powers formerly held by the people, provides an executive to enforce the powers granted, a legislative body to make laws under which the powers may be exercised, and establishes [pg 185] courts to construe and apply the laws enacted, to the end that human rights and liberties shall be protected. ”

“ No higher duty, no more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court, than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution-of whatever race, creed or persuasion. ”

“ The clear-sighted provision in the national constitution, as in the constitutions of the different states, by which the frame of government can be moulded at will by the public voice, and so made to keep pace in progress with the public mind, is the master-stroke in constitutional law. ”

“ The Framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for retrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. ”

“ Therefore it is that the question, in reference to any measure, Is it constitutional? far from exciting ridicule, as sometimes with superficial thinkers it has done, is to be recognized as proof of our magnificent control over the wayward factions of the hour, and of our abiding trust in the hardly less than inspired wisdom of our fathers, to which we thus make our ultimate appeal. For the Constitution is the organic law of the nation, and stands for the firm foundation of our national life. ”

“ But a constitution of government, founded by the people for themselves and their posterity, and for objects of the most momentous nature, for perpetual union, for the establishment of justice, for the general welfare, and for a perpetuation of the blessings of liberty, necessarily requires, that every interpretation of its powers should have a constant reference to these objects. No interpretation of the words, in which those powers are granted, can be a sound one, which narrows down their ordinary import, so as to defeat those objects. ”

“ The constitution is this articulation or organisation of state-power. It provides for the reasonable will,—in so far as it is in the individuals only implicitly the universal will,—coming to a consciousness and an understanding of itself and being found; also for that will being put in actuality, through the action of the government and its several branches, and not left to perish, but protected both against their casual subjectivity and against that of the individuals. The constitution is existent justice,—the actuality of liberty in the development all its reasonable provisions. ”

“ It is therefore evident, that a law which tends to confer such a power, subverts our constitution as far as its effects extend; a constitution, which was originally formed as a barrier against slavery, and which one age after another has endeavoured to strengthen. ”

“ The Constitution is a declaration of general principles, mutually agreed upon, and of the method by which the will of the whole people shall be deliberately crystallized into law, and the law be impartially enforced. It is a pledge which we made with one another at the start, that, whatever happens, the lives, the liberty, and the possessions of the whole people and the rights of every individual shall be sacred, under law. ”

“ A Constitution, as we often say, will march when it images, if not the old Habits and Beliefs of the Constituted, then accurately their Rights, or better indeed their Mights;—for these two, well understood, are they not one and the same? ”

“ We should begin our proceedings by a solemn declaration of the existence of our inherent right, and by formal demand for a constitution which would recognise and conserve those rights and give effect to our claims for the particular system of Government which we may choose for ourselves. ”

“ Considering that you started free, and had to form your institutions in an enlightened age, that you had the estimable parts of our constitution to copy from, while its faults were before you to serve as beacons, I think your constitution ought to be nearer perfection than it is. ”

“ Therefore, the constitutionalist government will respect everybody's life, property, and religious belief, without other limitation than the preservation of public order and the observance of the institutions in accordance with the laws in force and the constitution of the Republic. ”

“ WHO ARE CITIZENS? But who are citizens? Why, those who possess and enjoy, or who have the right to acquire and enjoy, an equality of political and civil privileges. Only certain classes of men possess these rights. These certain classes having possessed themselves of the machinery of the Government, tread upon the Constitution and spit upon the declarations of the Supreme Court. ”

“ For our established conception of a constitution solves only the problem of pure reason: How can the Conception of Rights be realized in the sensuous world? If that constitution is, therefore, to be further determined, this can be done only by empirical facts. ”

“ Undoubtedly, as has already been said, it is a principle of public law, recognised by the Constitution itself, that birth on the soil of a country both creates the duties and confers the rights of citizenship. ”

“ The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people—a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it—it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. ”

“ He saw that the Constitution is "not the work of eternal justice, ruling through the people," but the work "of man; frail, fallen, imperfect man, following the dictates of his nature, and aspiring to be perfect." ”

“ I this day, in your presence, most solemnly ratify this promise, and I trust you will assist me in fulfilling it, by framing a wise, just, and practicable constitution, dictated by reason, not caprice; and having solely in view the general happiness, which can never be great if the constitution be not founded on solid grounds, grounds which the wisdom of ages has shown to be just, in order to give true liberty to the people, and sufficient strength to the executive power. ”

“ The essential component of every constitution is the ephorate, explained in our work. Whether this is sufficient to secure the rights of all—without the separation of the legislative and executive powers, which to me seems inadmissible, I must leave to the judgment of more competent men. ”

“ Constitutions also depend on the tripartite nature of the Soul. The rulers are analogous to Reason, the soldiers to Fight, the common folk to Desires.
Where all things are done according to Reason and the best man in the nation rules, it is a Kingdom; where more than one rule according to Reason and Fight, it is an Aristocracy; where the government is according to Desire and offices depend on money, that constitution is called a Timocracy. ”

“ That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, and that government is instituted by them for their common interest, protection, and security.
That the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are essential rights, which every government ought to respect and preserve. ”

“ A permanent constitution, rooted in the affections, expressing the will and judgment, and built upon the instincts and settled habits of thought of the people, with an independent judiciary, an elective legislature of two branches, an executive responsible to the people, and the right of trial by jury, will guarantee the liberties of a people, if it be virtuous and temperate, without luxury, and without the lust of conquest and dominion, and the follies of visionary theories of impossible perfection. ”

“ In imperfectly balanced governments, where some attempt is made to set constitutional limits to the impulses of the strongest power, but where that power is strong enough to overstep them with at least temporary impunity, it is only by doctrines of constitutional morality, recognized and sustained by opinion, that any regard at all is preserved for the checks and limitations of the constitution. ”

“ Will this new people, situated so advantageously to give the world the example of a constitution wherein man may enjoy all his rights, exercise freely his whole faculties, and be governed only by nature, by reason, and by justice, know how to form such a constitution—know how to fix it upon everlasting foundations, by guarding against all causes of division and corruption, which would sap it by degrees and overturn it? ”

“ But where a constitution asserts a certain right, or lays down a certain principle of law or procedure, it speaks for the entire people as their supreme law, and is full authority for all that is done in pursuance of its provision. ”

“ The reasoning by which it is attempted to support it is too artificial to be applied to such an instrument as the constitution,-the organic law of a great nation,-which deals only in generals, and cannot, from its nature, be expected to descend into details. ”

“ The supremacy of the constitution, in all its provisions, is at the very basis of our existence as a nation. He, whose conscience, or whose theories of political or individual right, forbid him to support and maintain it in its fullest integrity, may relieve himself from the duties of citizenship, by divesting himself of its rights. ”

“ In an atmosphere of political theorizing mingled with ambition for personal advancement, both leaders and followers were professed devotees of constitutions. No people, it was thought, could maintain a real republic and be a true democracy if they did not possess a written constitution. The longer this was, the more precise its definition of powers and liberties, the more authentic the republic and the more genuine the democracy was thought to be. ”

“ There is nothing so much talked of, and so little understood in this Country, as the Constitution. It is a Word in the Mouth of every Man; and yet when we come to discourse of the Matter, there is no Subject on which our Ideas are more confused and perplexed. Some, when they speak of the Constitution, confine their notions to the Law ”

“ Under the reign of a wise and virtuous ruler, the rights of person and property may be fully enjoyed, and the people may be in a good degree prosperous. But the requisite virtue and wisdom have seldom been found in any one man or a few men. And experience has proved that the objects of civil government may be best secured by a written constitution founded upon the will or consent of the people. ”

“ Have we, I say, that ingenuous and submissive respect for this authority, which not only reason and religion, but true policy, and every man’s proper interest requires? Our boasted Constitution itself, now so accurately defined and generally understood, Does it meet with that awful regard from us, which it justly deserves? Are we anxious, that, of its several parts, each should have its full play, without interfering with any other? ”

“ Our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent ”

“ When the Constitution of the United States was enacted, a government was formed upon the premise that people, as individuals, are endowed with the rights of life, liberty, and property, and with the right of local self-government. ”

“ As with a number of the more enlightened country gentlemen of his time, the law of the constitution was a favourite study, and it was the conclusions he drew from it that inspired him to resist any infringement of ancient rights from whatever quarter it might come. ”

“ The right of the people to assemble in a peaceable manner to consult for the common good, being a constitutional right, it can be exercised and enjoyed within the scope and the spirit of that provision of the constitution, independently of every other power of the State government. ”