1789 Constitution Quotes & Sayings

There are good people, who are in politics - in both parties - who hold this at arm's length, because if they acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable. — Al Gore

Sovereignty was not an issue in this campaign. The sovereignty numbers that were there before the campaign are still there. Sovereignty is as alive as it was. But there is work to do to convince Quebecers. — Pauline Marois

How could those who wrote the Constitution possibly understand its meaning better than those who had the experience of observing and participating in its operation? It is one thing to rail against the evils of politically unaccountable judges enlarging constitutional rights beyond the ideas and purposes of their adopters; another to explain why morally sustainable claims of equality be held captive to the extraordinary obstacles of Article V or subject to the partial and incomplete understandings of 1789 or 1868. — Jack N. Rakove

Like snowflakes in a blizzard, each of us is unique. Within each of us, there is a common desire to heal and thrive despite our injury. None of us has the power to change our past, but we each have the capacity to change how the past affects us today. — Dennis Randall

Oops! This young scientist tried to clean his friends' copper ID bracelets. But the acid was too strong and it removed part of each letter! Question: Can you add the missing lines to complete the letters and see to whom each bracelet belongs? — Tom Robinson

The money problem facing the country from 1789 to 1896 existed because Congress never exercised is authority to "coin money or regulate the value thereof" - but rather delegated that authority, sometimes by charter and sometimes by default, to the banking system. This despite the provision in the Constitution that charged Congress with the power to 'coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standards of weight and Measures.' — William Jennings Bryan

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution, which were established to protect us from unwarranted intrusion by the government into our private lives, may still technically be law but they have been judicially abolished. The Fourth Amendment was written in 1789 in direct response to the arbitrary and unchecked search powers that the British had exercised through general warrants called "writs of assistance", which played a significant part in fomenting the American Revolution. The amendment limits the sate's ability to search and seize to a specific place, time, and event approved by a magistrate. It is impossible to square the bluntness of the Fourth Amendment with the arbitrary search and seizure of all our personal communications. — Chris Hedges

Under the new government of the Constitution, beginning in 1789, all of the peacetime measures were repeated: chaplains, prayers, memorials of Thanksgiving, the Northwest Ordinance, funding for the Christian education of Indians. — M. Stanton Evans

I mean, there was a portion, of course, that I think, when I look back now, that there was a portion of what attracted me must have been the awe of him being a powerful man in this environment, not to take away from who he is as a real person. — Monica Lewinsky