Ben Nelson Quotes

Are we going to change the Constitution? I hope never. We would have to amend it. Let's uphold the Second Amendment.

The Constitutional Convention is the only vehicle through which we can get a clear-cut and unequivocal decision of the people.

Is there a man who will say that the Constitution wants no reform? Will any man be found to say that the Constitution is perfect?

I would also hope that no one would think about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy.

As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.

I believe in an evolving Constitution. A flexible Constitution leaves room for us to consider not merely how the world once was, but how it ought to be.

One of the things I learned in law school is that there's nothing wrong or undesirable or dishonorable or destructive about amending the Constitution.

I do not have, nor do I believe I have seen, a vision capacious and convincing enough to propound as an organizing principle for the next phase in the law of our Constitution.

I used to have a great fear of constitutional conventions. I have a great fear now of not having one.

A permanent constitution must be the work of quiet, leisure, much inquiry, and great deliberation.

The path to an amendment to the Constitution is a thorny one.

I get nervous every time we start tinkering with the Constitution.

They [our founding fathers] saw the need from the very outset to improve the product [the Constitution].

A flag burning Constitutional amendment would rip the fabric of the Constitution at its very center.

The Constitution is a total living document that can change quite a bit.

The Constitution is constant. There's not one elected official who has the power to change it. There is a way to amend the Constitution, and the Constitution spells out the procedures that must be taken to change it. Presidents cannot. Now, I know this is gonna shock many of you in the low-information community.

I don't believe in altering the Constitution.

Nobody wants a stalemate in constitutional development.

As you may have heard, the U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? Think about it - it was written by very smart people, it's served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we're not using it anymore.

Where has the genius of the pedistal [sic] of the laws and constitution of our boasted country fled?

In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.

We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

Every amendment which I am convinced will have the tendency to lesson the danger of civil liberty by the central government will receive my sincere approbation.

They keep such a dingdong about “supporting the Constitution.” One might imagine it was some miserable, decrepit old creature that was no longer able to totter on crutches but must be held on every side, and dragged along like a drunken loafer, on his road to the lock-up.