Unconstitutional Quotes & Sayings

Be the responsibility on their heads who raise this novel and extraordinary question of reception, going to the unconstitutional abridgment, as I conceive, of the great right of petition inherent in the People of the United States. — Caleb Cushing

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional. — Hugo Black

Whether you're gay, straight, you can't tell anybody who to love and who to marry. It's unconstitutional and it's morally wrong. — Andrew Dice Clay

You know, we've been right on everything, haven't we? We told people about drones five years ago, didn't we? We told people about the NSA five years ago, didn't we? We told them about indefinite detention. We told them you can't come after the internet, that's unconstitutional. You can't do warrantless searches, that's unconstitutional. — Matt Shea

In the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights activism and new federal laws inspired the same resistance to racial progress and once again led to a spike in the use of Confederate imagery. In fact, it was in the 1950s, after racial segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, that many Southern states erected Confederate flags atop their state government buildings. — Bryan Stevenson

Progressives and Islamists are indeed on the same side. Their common disdain for Christianity explains why left-wing judges in America find any inkling of Christianity in the public square unconstitutional, while Islamist judges in the Middle East deem it executable. Their common view that life is expendable explains the left's embrace abortion-on-demand and why the Islamists don't hesitate to deploy their own children for homicide bombings. — Gary Bauer

Anything called a "program" is unconstitutional. — Joseph Sobran

In the case Stone v. Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that - under 'separation of church and state' - it was unconstitutional for a student in school to even see a copy of the Ten Commandments. — David Barton

It is unconstitutional to deny people, gay or lesbian couples, the right to marriage. Everyone has equal rights so this is the right way to go. I think it's a great celebration for America. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Prayer and dependence on God has been our history. How unfortunate it is now that an unaccountable and unelected and misguided judge from Wisconsin, Judge Barbara Crabb, has declared National Days of Prayer - established by the Congress - to be unconstitutional. — James Dobson

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

For some of us it seems like yesterday when Ike was in the White House, the U.S. Senate censured Joe McCarthy, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public school was unconstitutional. — Malcolm Forbes

I just want everyone to know that 20,000 gun laws in the United States are unconstitutional. They infringe on your right to protect your life, the lives of your loved ones, and your property. — Michael Badnarik

The mark of a single currency is not only that all other currencies must be extinguished but that the capacity of other institutions to issue currencies must also be extinguished ... In the case of the United Kingdom, that would involve Parliament binding its successors in a way that it has hitherto regarded as unconstitutional. — Norman Tebbit

I'm opposed to the death penalty not because I think it's unconstitutional per se-although I think it's been applied in ways that are unconstitutional-but it really is a moral view, and that is that the taking of life is not the way to handle even the most significant of crimes ... Who amongst anyone is not above redemption? I think we have to be careful in executing final judgment. The one thing my faith teaches me-I don't get to play God. I think you are short-cutting the whole process of redemption ... I don't want to be the person that stops that process from taking place. — Jay Sekulow

The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional. — Ted Olson

Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy - judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes - because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences. — George Will

You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional - I think differently. — Abraham Lincoln

Certain characteristics about 'Marbury v. Madison' are, I think, indisputable. Marbury was the first Supreme Court decision ever to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional. Marbury stands for the authority of the Supreme Court to have and to exercise that power. — Cliff Sloan

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black. — William O. Douglas

Legislation that names a specific private organization to defund (rather than all organizations that engage in a particular activity) is improper and arguably unconstitutional. — Justin Amash

I always worked very hard against the unconstitutional individual mandate in health care. I didn't praise it. — Michele Bachmann

I will say this: I've had more pro-life bills, I believe, I ruled unconstitutional - but I tried - than the entire total membership of Congress together. — Dan Webster

That the Bomb altered our subsequent history down to its deepest constitutional roots. It redefined the presidency, as in all respects America's "Commander in Chief" (a term that took on a new and unconstitutional meaning in this period). It fostered an anxiety of continuing crisis, so that society was pervasively militarized. It redefined the government as a National Security State, with an apparatus of secrecy and executive control. It redefined Congress, as an executor of the executive. And it redefined the Supreme Court, as a follower of the follower of the executive. Only one part of the government had the supreme power, the Bomb, and all else must defer to it, for the good of the nation, for the good of the world, for the custody of the future, in a world of perpetual emergency superseding ordinary constitutional restrictions. — Garry Wills

NATO cannot accept that the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine has not led to the subjugation of the whole Ukrainian nation. — Sergei Lavrov

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that minority set-aside programs in municipal contracts were unconstitutional. The court wondered if there were proof that people of color even want to receive municipal contracts. — Karen DeCrow

The words 'In God WE trust' are not only unconstitutional, they aren't even accurate. — Anne Nicol Gaylor

We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation. — Jon Voight

It is surely only a matter of time before some federal judge finds the Constitution unconstitutional. — Mark Steyn

Americans had become lazy and irresponsible, focused on the pursuit of sex, money, and pleasures, unwilling to sacrifice and prepare for the obvious threats all around them. What fools to think "Guns, Germs and Steel" would no longer shape human history. For decades they partied at the Coliseum, enjoying the games and government handouts, the illusion of a protected empire. Sedated with unconstitutional entitlements. Freed from responsibility by a pandering political system, a corrupt culture, and professional soldiers who kept the wolves at bay. — Drew Miller

The federal government should not be an accessory to the unconstitutional actions of the Arizona state government. By continuing to work with Arizona police departments operating under SB 1070, the Department is implicitly condoning the shameful tactics authorized by the new law. — Lucille Roybal-Allard

Invalidating laws has absolutely nothing to do with judicial activism. It depends on whether the law is unconstitutional or not. That's really the key point. — Ann Coulter

The birth control pill, to a great degree, made possible the (hetero)sexual revolution. Yet those who developed oral contraceptives did not intend their work to promote what the majority of Americans at the time called "promiscuity." Doctors generally refused to prescribe the pill to women who were not married; the Supreme Court did not rule this practice unconstitutional until 1972. — Beth Bailey

Certainly, the president is expected to safeguard the Constitution by vetoing unconstitutional acts of Congress. This is especially true because many laws can only be brought before the courts in a collateral way, if at all. — Charles A. Beard

Our national media refuses to report that even the Supreme Court did not say marriage was a human right in all cases nor did it say that the heterosexual definition violated anyone's right or that the heterosexual definition of marriage was unconstitutional. — Stockwell Day

Divide and govern " - that's the thing. Split the majority into small parties and the minority will take care of itself. Such was the philosophy of Mr. Madison. The Tammany statesman who said " Give the people what they want, but make it unconstitutional," had substantially the same philosophy, but lacked the fine choice of language that characterized Mr. Madison. — Anonymous

Now judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can, of course, fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional. — Murray Rothbard

Here is a good bill that's needed in America. If it's unconstitutional, let the U.S. Supreme Court reverse its opinion and get in line with New Hampshire and that will make it constitutional. — Meldrim Thomson Jr.

Allowing unelected judges to declare laws enacted by popularly elected legislatures unconstitutional and invalid seemed flagrantly inconsistent with free popular government. Such judicial usurpation, said Richard Dobbs Spaight, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from North Carolina, was "absurd" and "operated as an absolute negative on the proceedings of the Legislature, which no judiciary ought ever to possess." Instead of being governed by their representatives in the assembly, the people would be subject to the will of a few individuals in the court, "who united in their own persons the legislative and judiciary powers," making the courts more despotic than the Roman decemvirate or of any monarchy in Europe. — Gordon S. Wood

What we've begun to do is discuss the issue, the constitutional issues around that idea, again the privacy issue, which may not be unconstitutional but may pertain to our unique sense of privacy in the United States. — Chris Asplen

Then the Communists set up a front organization, the National Rifle Association, to encourage the wide usage of guns of all sorts, and to battle any attempt to control guns as "unconstitutional." Thus, they guaranteed that the murder rate in Unistat would always be the highest in the world. This kept the citizens in perpetual anxiety about their safety both on the streets and in their homes. The citizens then tolerated the rapid growth of the Police State, which controlled almost everything, except the sale of guns, the chief cause of crime. — Robert Anton Wilson

In 1967, in DeKalb v. DeSpain, a court (255 F.Supp. 655. N.D.Ill. 1966.) took a 4-line nursery rhyme used by a K-5 kindergarten class and declared the nursery rhyme unconstitutional. The court explained that although the word 'God' was not contained in this nursery rhyme, if someone were to hear the rhyme, he might think that it was talking about God - and that would be unconstitutional! — David Barton

We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars. — Ron Paul

After the Democrats shoved the 2700 pages of ObamaCare down our throats - and we did find out how expensive, controlling, and coercive the legislation was - a majority of Americans wanted the Supreme Court to toss it aside as unconstitutional. — Bob Beauprez

The 'anchor baby' thing needs to be fixed ... Anchor babies are an unconstitutional declaration of citizenship to those born of non-Americans. It's wrong, and it's immoral. — Russell Pearce

I'm sort of suspicious of most economic development projects, but the ones that encourage taxpayer-funded relocation bidding wars should be declared unconstitutional. — Gail Collins

No State government has the right to make war, raise armies, or conclude treaties of peace. These rights," he said, were "expressly conferred upon the Confederate Government." Far from the draft being unconstitutional, he felt that "the volunteering system . . . was extra-constitutional, if not unconstitutional. — Frank E. Vandiver

How to check these unconstitutional invasions of rights by the Federal judiciary? Not by impeachment in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines advanced by the Supreme Court are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations? — Thomas Jefferson

So far from thinking that a slaveholder is bound by the immoral and unconstitutional laws of the Southern States, we hold thathe is solemnly bound as a man, as an American, to break them, and that immediately and openly ... — Angelina Grimke

It is time for Republicans in D.C. to fight. Too often, they give up; they negotiate with themselves. They said they would get rid of the unconstitutional amnesty. They didn't do that. They said they would repeal Obamacare if we gave them the majority. They didn't do that, either. — Bobby Jindal

The DOJ has employed these investigations in communities across our nation to reform serious patterns and practices of force, biased policing and other unconstitutional practices by law enforcement, i'm asking the Department of Justice to investigate if our police department has engaged in a pattern or practice of stops, searches or arrests that violate the fourth amendment. — Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

I have no problem with anybody who wants to bear public witness to their religion, but I don't think they can do it on public property. They have to do it on private property. There's nothing unconstitutional about that. — John Shelby Spong

It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer. — Dan Barker

I believe it could very well be unconstitutional to ban people. We are a country of immigrants, but we have to know who's coming in. They need to come in legally. And we need to be sure that we have been able to have them satisfy the criteria that we set for them to come into our country. — Jan Brewer

Sex, like race, is a visible, immutable characteristic bearing no necessary relationship to ability." The analogy had special meaning in the constitutional context: In a series of cases triggered by Brown v. Board of Education, the court had said that laws that classified on the basis of race were almost always unconstitutional, or deserving "strict scrutiny." The court had said in Reed that it wasn't applying strict scrutiny, but then it seemed to do so anyway. Were laws that classified what men and women could do blatantly unconstitutional the way laws classifying by race were? RBG boldly urged the court to say they were. — Irin Carmon

Elect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expenditures? I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it. — Walter E. Williams

If candidates spend money on ads and other political speech and their opponents are rewarded with government handouts to attack them, that chills speech and is unconstitutional. Non-participating candidates certainly don't volunteer to allow their opponents to receive taxpayer subsidies to bash them. — Bradley A. Smith

To be sure, in some instances these proceedings have been unconstitutional, but we must remember that it is not the first time since a war that there have been changes in governments by such methods. — Frank B. Kellogg

I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional. — Fred Korematsu

We are not going to round up and deport 12 million people, but we're not going to hand out citizenship cards, either. There will be a process. We will see what the American people are willing to support. But it will not be unconstitutional executive orders like the ones Barack Obama has forced on us. — Marco Rubio

A Supreme Court decision that concessions of this sort were unconstitutional would have taken them off the table and actually increased the effective sovereignty of elected officials. — Michael Kinsley

George W. Bush's legacy will always be defined by the events of September
11, 2001, which provided him with something of a delayed mandate.
Without 9/11, there would have been no unconstitutional Patriot Act, no
Homeland Security Department, no decade-long occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and no open-ended "war on terror." As such, it is important to
look closely at exactly what really happened on 9/11/2001. — Donald Jeffries

The real method of popular expression in Italy in those days was not the comitia tributa, but the strike and insurrection, the righteous and necessary methods of all cheated or suppressed peoples. We have seen in our own days in Great Britain a decline in the prestige of parliamentary government and a drift towards unconstitutional methods on the part of the masses through exactly the same cause, through the incurable disposition of politicians to gerrymander the electoral machine until the community is driven to explosion. For — H.G.Wells

Son, this is the United States of America. Some would say it's unconstitutional to try to prevent psychopaths from fulfilling their potential. — Dean Koontz

Suspicionless surveillance has no place in a democracy. The next 60 days are a historic opportunity to rein in the NSA, but the only one who can end the worst of its abuses is you. Call your representatives and tell them that the unconstitutional 'bulk collection' of Americans' private records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act must end. — Edward Snowden

I am opposed to any individual taxes until we eliminate all of the unconstitutional agencies, and I suspect we wouldn't need a tax after that. — Michael Badnarik

Taken as a whole, the last four administrations represent the culmination of a century of executive abuse. With each successive president from forty-one to forty-four the disease grew worse. By the time Obama leaves office in 2017, Americans will have suffered under twenty-eight consecutive years of unconstitutional executive usurpation of power. An elected king? The British taxpayer spends around $50 million annually to support the entire royal family. With an annual budget that exceeds $1 billion for expenses, including travel, the American president supplanted the British monarch in everything but a title long ago. — Brion McClanahan

It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the Grammar of Anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us. — B.R. Ambedkar

The premise of my whole campaign has been not that people need to believe what I say to them, but they need to look at what I have done. And what I have done in the state of Nevada, I have voted over a 100 times against tax and fee increases, poor public policy, and unconstitutional bills. — Sharron Angle

The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it's invalid on its face. — Potter Stewart

By simply refusing to fund a president's unconstitutional conduct, Congress can stop him dead in his tracks - even after the courts have abdicated their responsibilities to do so. — Mike Lee

Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property 'without just compensation.' The basic model of an unconstitutional 'taking' would be if the government threw you out of your house. — Michael Kinsley

How did the American people ever reach this point where they believe that US aggression in the Middle East will make us safe when it does the opposite? How did the American people ever reach the point where they believe that fighting unconstitutional wars is required to protect our freedoms and our Constitution? Why do we allow the NSA, CIA, FBI, TSA, etc. to destroy our liberty at home, as part of the Global War on Terror, with a pretext that they are preserving our liberty? Why are the lying politicians reelected and allowed to bankrupt our country, destroy our money, and enter wars without the proper consent? Why do the American people suffer in silence and not scream "Enough is enough!"? We've had enough of the "humanitarian do-gooders" and the proponents of "American exceptionalism" who give us nothing but war, economic suffering, and less freedom. This can and must be stopped. — Ron Paul

Teachers seeking to 'teach the controversy' over Darwinian evolution in today's climate will likely be met with false warnings that it is unconstitutional to say anything negative about Darwinian evolution. Students who attempt to raise questions about Darwinism, or who try to elicit from the teacher an honest answer about the status of intelligent design theory will trigger administrators' concerns about whether they stand in Constitutional jeopardy. A chilling effect on open inquiry is being felt in several states already, including Ohio. South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. [District Court] Judge Jones's message is clear: give Darwin only praise, or else face the wrath of the judiciary. — David K. DeWolf

Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes. — Charley Reese

The real threat, as seen by the ACLU, is that religious behavior might give secular behavior a bad name, and that is, surely, unconstitutional. — William F. Buckley Jr.

[T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior ... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation. — Clarence Thomas

And what I would say now is, yes, if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional. A lot of stuff that's stupid is not unconstitutional. — Antonin Scalia

Yesterday, the Supreme Court spent over an hour listening to arguments on whether Obamacare is unconstitutional. Yeah, listening to arguments about Obamacare for an hour, or as most people call that, 'Thanksgiving Dinner.' — Jimmy Fallon

If I'm elected president, let me tell you about my first day in office. The first thing I intend to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by Barack Obama. — Ted Cruz

Racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional ... All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle. — Earl Warren

Comments that suggest that Muslims should be banned from the United States are offensive and unconstitutional. — Mike Pence

Besides the healthcare bill being unconstitutional and a great expansion of federal government, I think if it does not respect people's individual religious views and makes groups or individuals do things that are contrary to their deeply held beliefs, there is going to be a visceral negative reaction. — Bob McDonnell

In an unconstitutional partnership with the state, the church can impose the most irresistible, if covert, controls conceivable. — Madalyn Murray O'Hair

There was only really one time that I had a substantive interaction with the president [Barak Obama] directly, and that was in 2013 when we were deciding whether to file a brief in the first gay marriage case, the Perry against Hollingsworth case. That was a weighty decision about whether the United States government was going to come in and say that heightened scrutiny ought to apply and some state bans on same-sex marriage ought to be unconstitutional. And that was the one time in my tenure where I thought I ought not make this decision without talking to the president. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. — Daniel Webster

Forty four percent of Republican voters believe President [Barack] Obama was not born in the United States. They believe he is not a legal citizen of the United States.They believe his presidency is unconstitutional. — Lawrence O'Donnell

To allow same-sex couples to adopt children and then to label their families as second-class because the adoptive parents are of the same sex is cruel as well as unconstitutional. Classifying some families, and especially their children, as of lesser value should be repugnant to all those in this nation who profess to believe in "family values." — Stephen Reinhardt

I think people have no idea what's coming down the pike. This is the crown jewel of socialism. And we only have next week to stop it ... This is socialized medicine and like I said Sean this is the crown jewel of socialism ... It's unconstitutional. — Michele Bachmann

It happens every once in awhile at the federal level when the solicitor general, on behalf of the U.S., will confess error or decline to defend a law. I don't know what is going through the [Obama] administration's thought process on 'don't ask, don't tell.' It would be appropriate for them to say 'the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that.' — Ted Olson

The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it. — Robert E.Lee

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent. — Antonin Scalia

It was not until the Abraham Lincoln administration that an income tax was imposed on Americans. Its stated purpose was to finance the war, but it took until 1872 for it to be repealed. During the Grover Cleveland administration, Congress enacted the Income Tax Act of 1894. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1895. It took the Sixteenth Amendment (1913) to make permanent what the Framers feared
today's income tax. — Walter E. Williams

I found unconventional and it exactly explains your upbringing." Millie's lips curved into a grin. "Unconstitutional doesn't explain you at all, unless you've been participating in something that goes against our country's constitution. — Jen Turano

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

The structure that is currently in place, inside government, forcing government employees to pay union dues, even if they don't want to be in a union
that is fundamentally unconstitutional and it is against the American system of freedom of choice. — Bruce Rauner

The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level. — Sharron Angle

Because this law could mean so much or so little, it held potential for causing great mischief in the world of art and politics. We needed to reduce its uncertainty, and the best way to do that, I believed, was to force a court to interpret it, which would either void or narrow the law. To make it as broad a target as possible and to assure that someone would sue us, I reproduced the Helms amendment verbatim in the terms and conditions for grant recipients. It could not be ignored there, and if it was to be declared unconstitutional, it had to appear where the courts could not ignore it either. — John Frohnmayer

The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional. — Samuel Adams