Amendments 1-10 Quotes & Sayings

There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded ... 2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last ... — Thomas Jefferson

The Second Amendment is not really a right. — Rosie O'Donnell

I think it's unconstitutional on the 10th Amendment front. — Mitt Romney

Stop judging life! Look at every event as blessed. It is offering you the fastest track to get onto your highest, happiest and most successful state. Your soul is working it all out perfectly. When you accept this you will make life amendments easily and lovingly. Then the pain stops and the joyous creation begins. — Melanie

Amendments occupy a great deal of most legislators' time, particularly those lawmakers in the minority. Members of Congress do author major bills, but more commonly they make minor adjustments to the bigger bill. — Matt Taibbi

It has been pretty much downhill ever since the 13th amendment — Zach Braff

When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted? — Antonin Scalia

No one contends that the other Amendments that preserve rights of 'the people' -the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth-do not preserve individuals' rights. The same must be true of the Second. — Jed Babbin

The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. — Hugo Black

Just think - guns have a constitutional amendment protecting them and women don't. — Eleanor Smeal

Without amendments we would never even have had the Bill of Rights. — Adrian Cronauer

Traditional English, Dutch, French, and Spanish law didn't say that corporations are people. The U.S. Constitution wasn't written with that idea; corporations aren't mentioned anywhere in the document or its Amendments. For America's first century, courts all the way up to the Supreme Court repeatedly said, "No, corporations do not have the same rights as humans." In fact, the Founders were quite clear (as you can see from Hamilton's debate earlier) that only humans inherently have rights. — Thom Hartmann

There is a limitation on debate, which is unlike other bills, for 20 hours, but there is no limitation on amendments. In other words, Republicans if they wanted to, and I suspect they do, could offer literally thousands of amendments and keep Senate in session for weeks and months. — Rick Santorum

We must create the conditions for immigrants to normally integrate into our society, learn Russian and, of course, respect our culture and traditions and abide by Russian law. In this regard, I believe that the decision to make learning the Russian language compulsory and administer exams is well grounded. To do so, we will need to carry out major organisational work and introduce corresponding legislative amendments. — Vladimir Putin

Even in the United States, after all, what brought equal rights to blacks wasn't the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments passed after the Civil War, but rather the grassroots civil rights movement nearly one hundred years later. Laws matter, but typically changing the law by itself accomplishes little. — Nicholas D. Kristof

Protecting our second amendment will make America great again. — Donald Trump

I believe that nothing enjoys a higher estate in our society than the right given by the First and Fourteenth Amendments freely to practice and proclaim one's religious convictions. — Frank Murphy

It's either the Amendment or this Confederate peace. You cannot have both. — David Strathairn

Individuals for whom no orthodox cure is available surely are entitled to select a health care approach ... This right (is) specifically within,,,the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th amendments to the (US) Constitution ... To be insensitive to the very fundamental civil liberties ... ( the choice ... of the person whose body is being ravaged (by disease), is to display slight understanding of the essence of our free society and its constitutional underpinnings. — Luther L. Bohanon

A great deal of what many Americans hold dear is nowhere written on those four pages of parchment, or in any of the amendments. What has made the Constitution durable is the same as what makes it demanding: the fact that so much was left out. — Jill Lepore

To get that word, male, out of the Constitution, cost the women of this country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign; 56 state referendum campaigns; 480 legislative campaigns to get state suffrage amendments submitted; 47 state constitutional convention campaigns; 277 state party convention campaigns; 30 national party convention campaigns to get suffrage planks in the party platforms; 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses to get the federal amendment submitted, and the final ratification campaign. — Carrie Chapman Catt

We've got some people who think Shariah law oughta be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there, the Second Amendment is there, to make sure all of the rest of the amendments are followed. — Louie Gohmert

A powerful wind swept through the shtetl, making it whistle. Those studying obscure texts in dimly lit rooms looked up. Lovers making amends and promises, amendments and excuses, fell silent. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I think, from the broad political spectrum, not just the Freedom Caucus, I think there is a need for internal reform that is how we bring bills up, getting back to regular order, how we offer amendments or don't offer amendments. — Jason Chaffetz

The emerging and vital truth isn't who is more Neanderthal than whom. It's that all peoples, everywhere, enjoyed archaic human lovers whenever they could. These DNA memories are buried deeper inside us than even our ids, and they remind us that the grand saga of how humans spread across the globe will need some personal, private, all-too-human amendments and annotations - rendezvous here, elopements there, and the commingling of genes most everywhere. — Sam Kean

Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish. — Thurgood Marshall

You may perform poorly, but your "poorly" may not be as "badly" as others may say it is. Your "poorly" is "excellent" provided you make amendments on it! — Israelmore Ayivor

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation. — Hugo Black

I'm tired of being considered some kind of criminal or dangerous throwback for no other reason than that I value, exercise, and defend my rights under the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution. — L. Neil Smith

In D.C., I've passed amendments to allocate $6.3 million to keep our waterways open for business, $1 million as a down payment on our wetland restoration - our natural storm protection - and $5 million to ensure that drilling permits are reviewed thoroughly and efficiently. — Cedric Richmond

I found out that many subjects were taboo from the white man's point of view. Among the topics they did not like to discuss with Negros were the following: American white women; the Ku Klux Klan; France, and how Negro soldiers fared while there; French women; Jack Johnson; the entire northern part of the United States; the Civil War; Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Grant; General Sherman; Catholics; the Pope; Jews; the Republican Party; slavery; social equality; Communism; Socialism; the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution; or any topic calling for positive knowledge or manly self-assertion on the Part of the Negro. The most accepted topics were sex and religion. — Richard Wright

Several amendments should be made to the primary and general election laws to improve them, but such changes must in no way interfere with a full and free expression of the people's choice in naming the candidates to be voted on at general elections. — Arthur Capper

The health of the second amendment is the primary indicator of the overall health of the nation. — John Longenecker

The idea [passing the 17th amendment] benefited from a unique political and cultural atmosphere that consumed a nation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries-a progressive populism promoting simultaneously radical egalitarianism and centralized authoritarianism. — Mark Levin