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2007 August 03
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"The merit of our Constitution was,
not that it promotes democracy,
but checks it." |
"During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power..." |
"...[W]e insist on the principle that no danger or crisis, foreign or
domestic, will be solved by Americans surrendering more of their
constitutional liberties, in the foolish hope that a bigger government
will provide greater security." |
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2007 August 02
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"Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is exercised,
but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and
controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise
exercised." |
"All free constitutions are formed with two views --
to deter the governed from crime, and the governors from tyranny." |
"Here I close my opinion.
I could not say less in view of questions of such gravity
that go down to the very foundations of the government.
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." |
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2007 August 01
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"I repeat... that all power is a trust;
that we are accountable for its exercise;
that, from the people, and for the people,
all springs, and all must exist." |
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be,
first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern,
and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society;
and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for
keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." |
"Very few established institutions,
governments and constitutions...
are ever destroyed by their enemies
until they have been corrupted
and weakened by their friends." |
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2007 July 31
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"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." |
"The prime function of the criminal law is to protect our persons and
our property; these purposes are now engulfed in a mass of other
distracting, inefficiently performed, legislative duties. When the
criminal law invades the spheres of private morality and social welfare,
it exceeds its proper limits at the cost of neglecting its primary
tasks. This unwarranted extension is expensive, ineffective, and
criminogenic." |
"It must never be forgotten... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power." |
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2007 July 30
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"I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself." |
"19 terrorists in 6 weeks have been able to command 300 million North Americans to do away with the entirety of their civil liberties that took 700 years to advance from the Magna Carta onward. The terrorists have already won the political and ideological war with one terrorist act. It is mindboggling that we are that weak as a society." |
"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the people' are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years." |
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