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2007 August 10
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"If it be asked,
What is the most sacred duty and
the greatest source of our security in a Republic?
The answer would be,
An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws." |
"Where there is no law there is no freedom." |
"A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law." |
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2007 August 09
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"If by the mere force of numbers a majority
should deprive a minority of any clearly written
constitutional right, it might, in a moral point
of view, justify revolution." |
"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." |
"It is precisely for the protection of the minority
that constitutional limitations exist.
Majorities need no such protection.
They can take care of themselves." |
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2007 August 08
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"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." |
"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 restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty." |
"The first duty of government is to protect the citizen from assault. Unless it does this, all the civil rights and civil liberties in the world aren't worth a dime." |
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2007 August 07
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"This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion." |
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury... nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, not be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." |
"The 4th Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion." |
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2007 August 06
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"When law enforcers are shown to have such unswerving integrity,
only the most churlish among us would question the methods they
use to "get their man." Constitutional guarantees are regarded as
bothersome "technicalities" that impede honest law enforcers
in the performance of their duties." |
"The internal effects of a mutable policy are [...] calamitous.
It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail
to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice,
if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read,
or so incoherent that they cannot be understood;
if they be repealed before they are promulgated,
or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows
what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow." |
"To declare that in the administration of criminal law
the end justifies the means -- to declare that
the Government may commit crimes in order to secure
conviction of a private criminal -- would bring
terrible retribution." |
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