Robert H. Jackson Quotes

Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.

Civil Rights ... include and embrace every right that pertains to the citizen.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Every citizen has, under the law, a sacred and inviolable right to personal liberty and to the possession of his goods

I think Col. North is first a U.S. citizen and he has the same rights as you yourself do, sir.

Personal liberty and personal rights are placed in the keeping of the nation, that the right to life, liberty, and property shall be guarantied to the citizen in reality ... We must make American citizenship the shield that protects every citizen, on every foot of our soil.

You have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject.

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.—let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.

There should be constitutional liberty of speech and freedom of thought, which is the elementary right of every citizen under any civilized form of Government

Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.

These are three American citizens and we really demand answers for American citizens.

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

I stand today on this floor to appeal for protection from the strong arm of the government for her loyal children, irrespective of color and race, who are citizens of the southern states, and particularly of the State of Georgia.

Defending birthright citizenship is about being on the right side of liberty. The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican Party.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens.

Secure to all … citizens a perfect equality of rights

Citizenship is no light trifle to be jeopardized at any moment Congress decides to do so under the name of its general or implied grants of power.

The right to speak freely concerning functions of the Federal Government is a privilege of immunity of every citizen of the United States which, even before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, a State was powerless to curtail.

Whatever is a privilege rather than a right, may be made dependent upon citizenship.

A State cannot … deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.

There is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual.

Citizenship is basic to all other claims which individuals make on the state, or the state makes upon them.

I desire to secure every privilege and every right to every citizen in the United States…. I understand the amendment ... to authorize Congress to establish uniform laws throughout the United States upon the subject named, the protection of life, liberty, and property. I am unwilling that Congress shall have any such power