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Quotes & Sayings About Constitutional Government

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Top Constitutional Government Quotes

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Madison

[I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained. — James Madison

Constitutional Government Quotes By Jim DeMint

I think people are confused about what the Tea Party is. I mean, they were a broad cross-section of Americans who came together concerned about our debt and our spending. And they're interested in constitutional, limited government. And so they're not one group of people. They're thousands of small groups all over the country. — Jim DeMint

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ted Nugent

The heartbreak of runaway corruption, abuse of power and indefensible criminality by our government and media should, must inspire all good we-the-people Americans to wake the hell up from the embarrassing curse of apathy and start demanding constitutional accountability from our elected employees. How radically non-sheep of me. — Ted Nugent

Constitutional Government Quotes By Strom Thurmond

Mr. President, passage of this bill will visit the heel of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men. Its passage will mark one of the darkest days in history — Strom Thurmond

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ilana Mercer

A balanced-budget requirement implies is that government has the constitutional right to spend as much as it takes in; that government is permitted to waste however much revenue it can extract from wealth producers, and that the bums must merely bring into balance what was stolen (taxes) with what is squandered (spending). — Ilana Mercer

Constitutional Government Quotes By Supreme Court Of Wisconsin

There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter into our civil affairs, our government soon would be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed. Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.
[Weiss v. District Board, March 18, 1890] — Supreme Court Of Wisconsin

Constitutional Government Quotes By Dennis Cardoza

In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment. — Dennis Cardoza

Constitutional Government Quotes By Robert Chandler

The political, economic, social, and cultural realities in the early twenty-first century, as compared to the late 1960s may differ in detail, but the over-all progressive-socialist-marxist goal of transforming American culture and destroying the existing form of constitutional democratic government from within remains unchanged. — Robert Chandler

Constitutional Government Quotes By Thomas Paine

A government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution. — Thomas Paine

Constitutional Government Quotes By Russell Shorto

For liberalism is a delicate thing. It encompasses so much
constitutional government, democratic elections, freedom of worship, civil rights, free trade
that we think of it as timeless and universal. But liberalism came into being in a real place and time, like a flame it has wavered in various eras, and it can be snuffed out. — Russell Shorto

Constitutional Government Quotes By Karla Perry

The strength of America is not vested in the ability of the government to remain true to Christian principles. It rests in the strength of the people to stay true to the Christian virtue that provides an adequate base for electing virtuous representatives, thereby maintaining our Constitutional Republic. — Karla Perry

Constitutional Government Quotes By Kenneth Eade

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, intact for over 200 years, guaranteed that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath of affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. After September 11th, 2001, those were just words on an old piece of paper, no longer a restriction of the Government's overreaching power to shake down its subjects. — Kenneth Eade

Constitutional Government Quotes By Clarence Thomas

I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality ... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. — Clarence Thomas

Constitutional Government Quotes By Catherynne M Valente

Even if you hadn't entirely deposed (and possibly killed) not one but two governments and destabilized all sorts of political regions you couldn't even pronounce, let alone draft up constitutional monarchies for, even if you'd been far more careful about leaving your toys strewn about everywhere when you tire yourself out with anarchy and run on home, I'd say you really are the lowest sort. — Catherynne M Valente

Constitutional Government Quotes By Joseph Sobran

I call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government. — Joseph Sobran

Constitutional Government Quotes By Alexander Hamilton

Nothing can be more evident, than that an exclusive power of regulating elections for the National Government, in the hands of the State Legislatures, would leave the existence of the Union entirely at their mercy ... It is to little purpose to say that a neglect or omission of this kind [not letting the feds have elections], would be unlikely to take place. The constitutional possibility of the thing, without an equivalent for the risk, is an unanswerable objection. — Alexander Hamilton

Constitutional Government Quotes By John Adams

The real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars ... it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government. — John Adams

Constitutional Government Quotes By Charles A. Beard

If these precedents are to stand unimpeached, and to provide sanctions for the continued conduct of America affairs-the Constitution may be nullified by the President and officers who have taken the oath and are under moral obligation to uphold it ... they may substitute personal and arbitrary government-the first principle of the totalitarian system against which it has been alleged that World War II was waged-while giving lip service to the principle of constitutional government. — Charles A. Beard

Constitutional Government Quotes By Noam Chomsky

This shriveled conception of democracy has solid roots. The founding fathers were much concerned about the hazards of democracy. In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, the main framer, James Madison, warned of these hazards. Naturally taking England as his model, he observed that "in England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place," undermining the right to property. To ward off such injustice, "our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation," arranging voting patterns and checks and balances so as "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," a prime task of decent government.19 — Noam Chomsky

Constitutional Government Quotes By David Mamet

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. — David Mamet

Constitutional Government Quotes By Tom DeLay

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution. — Tom DeLay

Constitutional Government Quotes By Peter Padfield

It is clear that the flame of True Freedom had passed with naval supremacy and constitutional, consultative government from the United Provinces to Great Britain, where it was regarded with quite as much national pride. — Peter Padfield

Constitutional Government Quotes By Kenneth Eade

The Bill of Rights wasn't enacted to give us any rights. It was enacted so the Government could not take away from us any rights that we already had. — Kenneth Eade

Constitutional Government Quotes By Larken Rose

The truth is that any form of authoritarian control - any type of "government," whether constitutional, democratic, socialist, fascist, or anything else - will result in a set of masters forcibly oppressing a group of slaves. That is what "authority" is - all it ever has been, and all it ever could be, no matter how many layers of euphemisms and pleasant rhetoric are used in an attempt to hide it. — Larken Rose

Constitutional Government Quotes By Tony Kushner

Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work. — Tony Kushner

Constitutional Government Quotes By Allen West

I think that if we get back to some basic fundamental principles, we can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about. It's getting back to a constitutional conservative government. And that is limited, but it's also effective and efficient. I think that that's what we'll be able to do. — Allen West

Constitutional Government Quotes By George W. Bush

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution. — George W. Bush

Constitutional Government Quotes By Sam Ervin

I believe in a wall between church and state so high that no one can climb over it. When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes. Every American has the constitutional right not to be taxed or have his tax money expended for the establishment of religion. For too long the issue of government aid to church related organizations has been a divisive force in our society and in the Congress. It has erected communication barriers among our religions and fostered intolerance. — Sam Ervin

Constitutional Government Quotes By Stephen Harper

The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government. — Stephen Harper

Constitutional Government Quotes By Aristotle.

There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of them is universally recognized and included among the four principal forms of government, which are said to be (1) monarchy, (2) oligarchy, (3) democracy, and (4) the so-called aristocracy or government of the best. But there is also a fifth, which retains the generic name of polity or constitutional government; — Aristotle.

Constitutional Government Quotes By Lysander Spooner

All, or nearly all, the advantage there is in fixing any constitutional limits to the power of a government, is simply to give notice to the government of the point at which it will meet with resistance. — Lysander Spooner

Constitutional Government Quotes By Arnold Kling

Constitutional provisions are not barriers to government misconduct. At best, they can be speed bumps. — Arnold Kling

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ronald Reagan

Now I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny. — Ronald Reagan

Constitutional Government Quotes By Aristotle.

The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy. — Aristotle.

Constitutional Government Quotes By Anonymous

When they are in power, whether in statehouses, Congress, or the White House, Republicans are magnetically drawn to practice political overreach along with scorched-earth tactics, be it through vote suppression, the K Street Project to force lobbying firms to hire only Republicans, or outing a covert CIA agent in their own administration to settle political scores, as happened to Valerie Plame. When they are out of power they focus single-mindedly on seizing up the wheels of government to prove to the American people that government just doesn't work - at least, when the GOP is out of power. These take-no-prisoners tactics flow naturally from an embittered, Manichaean mind-set. This mentality has grave implications for the health of our constitutional system. — Anonymous

Constitutional Government Quotes By Francis Fukuyama

Between democracy and rule of law There has always been a close historical association between the rise of democracy and the rise of liberal rule of law.32 As we saw in chapter 27, the rise of accountable government in England was inseparable from the defense of the Common Law. Extension of the rule of law to apply to wider circles of citizens has always been seen as a key component of democracy itself. This association has continued through the third-wave democratic transitions after 1975, where the collapse of Communist dictatorships led to both the rise of electoral democracy and the creation of constitutional governments protecting individuals' rights. — Francis Fukuyama

Constitutional Government Quotes By Harry Browne

I found that I was getting a warm reception for my message of freeing you from the income tax, releasing you from Social Security, ending the insane war on drugs, restoring gun rights, and reducing the federal government to just its constitutional functions. — Harry Browne

Constitutional Government Quotes By Larry P Arnn

[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. — Larry P Arnn

Constitutional Government Quotes By Kenneth Eade

Our democracy depends on an informed citizenry to survive, Your Honor. Besides the advancement of truth, science and morality in general, the freedom of the press is a backbone of democracy. It exists to keep the government transparent, and the human instruments of government honest. — Kenneth Eade

Constitutional Government Quotes By Francis Fukuyama

We are taking the time to consider the Hungarian case for a simple reason: to show that constitutional limits on a central government's power do not by themselves necessarily produce political accountability. The "freedom" sought by the Hungarian noble class was the freedom to exploit their own peasants more thoroughly, and the absence of a strong central state allowed them to do just that. Everyone understands the Chinese form of tyranny, one perpetrated by a centralized dictatorship. But tyranny can result from decentralized oligarchic domination as well. True freedom tends to emerge in the interstices of a balance of power among a society's elite actors, something that Hungary never succeeded in achieving. — Francis Fukuyama

Constitutional Government Quotes By Christina Engela

Who is an elected government in a constitutional democracy to decide it will not tolerate dissent. — Christina Engela

Constitutional Government Quotes By William O. Douglas

Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against it. But where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response. — William O. Douglas

Constitutional Government Quotes By Alan Ryan

America posed a deeply interesting question to any Frenchmen with a political curiosity to ask it. How had Americans launched a revolution that aimed at establishing a free, stable, and constitutional government and made a success of it, while the French had in forty-one years lurched from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, to the declaration of the republic, to mob rule, the Terror, the mass murder, and thence to a conservative republic, Napoleonic autocracy, the Bourbon restoration, further revolution, and the installation of an Orleanist constitutional monarchy? — Alan Ryan

Constitutional Government Quotes By Thurgood Marshall

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds. — Thurgood Marshall

Constitutional Government Quotes By Strom Thurmond

By its attempt to regulate and govern the private businesses, which are miscalled public accommodations in the bill, this proposal would inject the Government into the most sensitive areas of human contractual relations-agreements for personal services. In so doing, constitutional interpretations of long standing are being swept aside in favor of tortuous rationalizations which studiously ignore the constitutionally-forbidden imposition of involuntary servitude on citizens — Strom Thurmond

Constitutional Government Quotes By Gerry Adams

No Irish nationalist could support any treaty which institutionalizes British government claims to a part of Irish national territory. Indeed, the term - 'constitutional nationalism'- used by Mr.Mallon (SDLP) and his colleagues to describe their political philosophy is a contradiction in terms. The only constitutional nationalist in Ireland today is Sean McBride. He puts his nationalism within a framework of Irish constitutionality. Mr. Mallon, however, puts his within the framework of British constitutionality. Irish nationalism within British constitutionality is a contradiction in terms. — Gerry Adams

Constitutional Government Quotes By Fisher Ames

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention ... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often ... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country. — Fisher Ames

Constitutional Government Quotes By Rush Limbaugh

Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase. — Rush Limbaugh

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Ronald Kennedy

The South must put aside the illusion that she will one day be accepted as an equal in this Northern-dominated union. The South must put aside the illusion that the current government is the legitimate outgrowth of the original American Constitutional Republic. These illusions are used by our conquerors to bind the South to this unequal union. — James Ronald Kennedy

Constitutional Government Quotes By Edwin Meese

Constitutional interpretation is not the business of the Court only, but also properly the business of all branches of government. — Edwin Meese

Constitutional Government Quotes By Rand Paul

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean. — Rand Paul

Constitutional Government Quotes By John F. Kennedy

In a lonely grave, forgotten and unknown, lies "the man who saved a President," and who as a result may well have preserved for ourselves and posterity Constitutional government in the United States - the man who performed in 1868 what one historian has called "the most heroic act in American history, incomparably more difficult than any deed of valor upon the field of battle" - but a United States Senator whose name no one recalls: Edmund G. Ross of Kansas. The — John F. Kennedy

Constitutional Government Quotes By George Washington

If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. — George Washington

Constitutional Government Quotes By Chester A. Arthur

No higher proof exists of the strength of popular government than, though the chosen of the people be struck down, his constitutional successor is peacefully installed without shock or strain. — Chester A. Arthur

Constitutional Government Quotes By Clinton Rossiter

Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms ... one man was the government of the United States ... Lincoln was a great dictator ... This great constitutional dictator was self appointed. — Clinton Rossiter

Constitutional Government Quotes By Joe Miller

We just simply want to get back to basics, get - restore essentially the constitutional foundation of the country, and that means the federal government becoming less onerous, less involved in every - basically every item of our lives. And what that means is there does have to be some transition. — Joe Miller

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ron Paul

No matter how many pro-freedom politicians we elect to office, the only way to guarantee constitutional government is through an educated and activist public devoted to the ideals of liberty. — Ron Paul

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ezra Taft Benson

Constitutional government, as designed by the framers, will survive only with a righteous people. — Ezra Taft Benson

Constitutional Government Quotes By Thomas DiLorenzo

The founders understood that democracy would inevitably evolve into a system of legalized plunder unless the plundered were given numerous escape routes and constitutional protections such as the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, election of senators by state legislators, the electoral college, no income taxation, most governmental functions performed at the state and local levels, and myriad other constitutional limitations on the powers of the central government. — Thomas DiLorenzo

Constitutional Government Quotes By Mark Davis

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it. — Mark Davis

Constitutional Government Quotes By Matt Taibbi

The government's rationale here is beautiful in its simplicity. American criminals have constitutional rights not because they are natural-born Americans but precisely because they are criminals. Deportations, however, are not part of the criminal justice system. "Removal proceedings," wrote the circuit judge in the Gutierrez-Berdin case, "are civil, not criminal, and the exclusionary rule does not generally apply to them." So the undocumented alien who kills a room full of Rotarians with an ax has a right to counsel, a phone call, and protection against improper searches. The alien caught crossing the street on his way to work has no rights at all. Strangest — Matt Taibbi

Constitutional Government Quotes By John C. Calhoun

Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail. — John C. Calhoun

Constitutional Government Quotes By Jeffrey Rosen

Before Sept. 11, the idea that Americans would voluntarily agree to live their lives under the gaze of a network of biometric surveillance cameras, peering at them in government buildings, shopping malls, subways and stadiums, would have seemed unthinkable, a dystopian fantasy of a society that had surrendered privacy and anonymity. — Jeffrey Rosen

Constitutional Government Quotes By Anthony Kennedy

Some kinds of government regulation of private consensual homosexual behavior may face substantial constitutional challenge. — Anthony Kennedy

Constitutional Government Quotes By Paul Craig Roberts

If we add state capitalism to the Bush administration's success in eroding both the US Constitution and the power of Congress, we may be witnessing the final death of accountable constitutional government. — Paul Craig Roberts

Constitutional Government Quotes By Aristotle.

Hence, in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens — Aristotle.

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Madison

Large and permanent military establishments ... are forbidden by the principles of free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark. — James Madison

Constitutional Government Quotes By Edward Snowden

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be. — Edward Snowden

Constitutional Government Quotes By Robert M. Hutchins

America's experiment with government of the people, by the people, and for the people depends not only on constitutional structure and organization but also on the commitment, person to person, that we make to each other. — Robert M. Hutchins

Constitutional Government Quotes By A.E. Samaan

Liberty is not something a government gives you. It is a right that no government can legally take away. — A.E. Samaan

Constitutional Government Quotes By Rick Perry

Being the governor of a state is a more pivotal job in the future. I do indeed hope there's someone that says, "I'm going to go to Washington, try to get back to our constitutional roots, devolve the centralization of government back to the states." So why would you want to be up there if the action is down here in the states? — Rick Perry

Constitutional Government Quotes By Edmund Burke

By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new ... — Edmund Burke

Constitutional Government Quotes By Aristotle.

In most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all. — Aristotle.

Constitutional Government Quotes By Elmo Richardson

The United States inherited a seemingly inexhaustible fortune in natural resources, yet it has responded to its environment with a dismaying mixture of materialism and inertia. The nation was virtually founded upon a ubiquitous desire for access to land and its contents. Its amazing growth during the nineteenth century was based directly upon the exploitation - immediate, unplanned, full use of soils, minerals, forests, and rivers. Equitable access to these natural bounties rather than constitutional guarantees would be the practical basis for democracy. Subsequently, political institutions were shaped in such a way that they could facilitate the disposition of the public domain. But that expectation, as later generations ruefully observed, did not materialize. The combination of economics and government had instead produced a handful of owners and policy makers who were beyond the control of the ballot box. — Elmo Richardson

Constitutional Government Quotes By Garrett Epps

Historical tempers have cooled only slightly after the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying under oath about a sexual relationship. Many Americans still believe his actions were a threat to the very rule of law; others insist that the "offense" was more low farce than high crime, and that the zeal of Clinton's foes was partisan hypocrisy rather than constitutional passion. — Garrett Epps

Constitutional Government Quotes By Pete Stark

Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights. — Pete Stark

Constitutional Government Quotes By Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet

The people of North America, at this time, expect a revisal and reformation of the American Governments, and are better disposed to submit to it than ever they were, or perhaps ever will be again.97. This is therefore the proper and critical time to reform the American governments upon a general, constitutional, firm, and durable plan; and if it is not done now, it will probably every day grow more difficult, till at last it becomes impracticable. — Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet

Constitutional Government Quotes By Montesquieu

Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another. — Montesquieu

Constitutional Government Quotes By Steve King

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it. — Steve King

Constitutional Government Quotes By Toussaint Louverture

I have taken my flight in the region of eagles; when I alight, it must be on a rock, and that rock must be a constitutional government, of which I shall be the head so long as I shall be among men. — Toussaint Louverture

Constitutional Government Quotes By Christopher Hitchens

James Madison, the author of the First Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any law respecting an establishment of religion, was also an author of Article VI, which states unambiguously that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust." His later Detached Memoranda make it very plain that he opposed the government appointment of chaplains in the first place, either in the armed forces or at the opening ceremonies of Congress. "The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles. — Christopher Hitchens

Constitutional Government Quotes By Fred Phelps

Homosexuals now pervade and control American government at every level and branch. Thus, only those churches that support and promote the militant homosexual agenda enjoy religious freedom. Any church in America that dares to preach what the Bible says about soul-damning, nation-destroying moral filth of the vile homosexual beasts among us, loses all Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and speech rights. — Fred Phelps

Constitutional Government Quotes By Edward Lucas

The Snowdenistas' exaggeration stems from a conflation of self-criticism with self-hatred. In their eyes, democracy, the rule of law and constitutional government have been so eroded that the West carries no moral weight at all. The authorities are capable of anything, so it is sensible to assume that they do what they are capable of. Why would they stop? — Edward Lucas

Constitutional Government Quotes By John M. McHugh

This election is a critical step in that overall plan - transforming the Iraqi government into a fully constitutional one, able to secure its own borders and ensure the safety of its citizens. — John M. McHugh

Constitutional Government Quotes By Ron Paul

Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier. — Ron Paul

Constitutional Government Quotes By Benjamin Franklin

The cause of the South was the cause of constitutional government, the cause of government regulated by law, and the cause of honesty and fidelity in public servants. No nobler cause did man ever fight for! — Benjamin Franklin

Constitutional Government Quotes By Joel Miller

Like some great swelling river, the powers of the federal government have today breached their constitutional levees and spilled into countless areas of life never anticipated by the founders. — Joel Miller

Constitutional Government Quotes By Alexander Hamilton

If it were to 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 - the first growing out of the last ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton

Constitutional Government Quotes By Nathan Hill

In America, the government is accountable to the people, not the other way around," says a constitutional law scholar sympathetic to the antiwar movement on the subject of the anonymous police. — Nathan Hill

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Madison

It may be considered as an objection inherent in the principle, that as every appeal to the people would carry an implication of some defect in the government, frequent appeals would in great measure deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on every thing, and without which perhaps the wisest and freest governments would not possess the requisite stability ... a constitutional road to the decision of the people ought to be marked out and kept open, for certain great and extraordinary occasions — James Madison

Constitutional Government Quotes By Garet Garrett

Between government in the republican meaning, that is, Constitutional, representative, limited government, on the one hand, and Empire on the other hand, there is mortal enmity. Either one must forbid the other or one will destroy the other. That we know. Yet never has the choice been put to a vote of the people. — Garet Garrett

Constitutional Government Quotes By Henry Steele Commager

The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted. — Henry Steele Commager

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Madison

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived. — James Madison

Constitutional Government Quotes By Edwin Feulner

We also need to encourage Americans to become more fiscally responsible themselves. We can do this by redesigning our tax system into an expenditure tax with a single flat rate ... We have to substantially reduce the size and scope of the federal government, fundamentally increase the role of the states in choosing their own practices, and bring decision-making closer to the people, not to unelected administrators. These steps are crucial to getting our nation on a path of fiscal, political and constitutional responsibility. — Edwin Feulner

Constitutional Government Quotes By John L. Lewis

Increased interest and participation by labor in the affairs of government should make for economic and political stability in the future. Labor has a constitutional and statutory right to participate. — John L. Lewis

Constitutional Government Quotes By Sun Yat-sen

It is only after mature deliberation and thorough preparation that I have decided upon the Program of Revolution and defined the procedure of the revolution in three stages. The first is the period of military government; the second, the period of political tutelage; and the third, the period of constitutional government. — Sun Yat-sen

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Q. Wilson

Many, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political system ... The central feature of the American constitutional system - the separation of powers - exacerbates many of these problems. The governments of the US were not designed to be efficient or powerful, but to be tolerable and malleable. Those who designed these arrangements always assumed that the federal government would exercise few and limited powers. — James Q. Wilson

Constitutional Government Quotes By R. R. Reno

A recent book by University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law Brian Leiter outlines what I believe will become the theoretical consensus that does away with religious liberty in spirit if not in letter. "There is no principled reason," he writes, "for legal or constitutional regimes to single out religion for protection." . . . Evoking the principle of fairness, Leiter argues that everybody's conscience should be accorded the same legal protections. Thus he proposes to replace religious liberty with a plenary "liberty of conscience."

Leiter's argument is libertarian. He wants to get the government out of the business of deciding whose conscience is worth protecting. This mentality seems to expand freedom, but that's an illusion. In practice it will lead to diminished freedom, as is always the case with any thoroughgoing libertarianism. — R. R. Reno

Constitutional Government Quotes By James Madison

Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S. — James Madison

Constitutional Government Quotes By Dick Thornburgh

In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government. — Dick Thornburgh