Hugo Black Quotes

I respect, too, the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress and not the courts to write new laws. It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people's representatives.

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.

Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture.

The courts are under the Constitution, not over it.

A government of laws, not of men.

Whatever the People has last ordained shall be held as binding by law.

One single object... will merit the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation

Courts do not make the law.

Democracy demands that judges confine themselves to a narrow sphere of influence - that is why the late Alexander Bickel called the judiciary the 'Least Dangerous Branch.' In a world governed by a proper conception of their role, judges don't play at being legislators - they leave that job to our elected representatives.

In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

Conservative Supreme Court Justices have overturned many more decisions arrived at by legislative majorities then have liberal justices.

We believe that all legislative assemblies should confine themselves to constitutional principles; and that all such laws should be implicitly obeyed by every American.

Don’t bother interpreting the statute for us: we know it better than you do, for we made it.

The greatest defect in legislative history is its illegitimacy. We are governed not by legislative intention but by laws… the text should control even if the Congress intended a different result

… an empire of laws and not of men.

No law shall be enforced without the approval of the Duma [parliament].

In a nation based on the 'consent of the governed,' judges are supposed to apply the laws the people have assented to.

Courts should interpret the law but leave elected lawmakers to create it.

It's not about whether we should have a conservative or a liberal. It's about, do we have someone that has the mental acumen to understand what the laws are, and not write laws but defend the laws. That's the whole purpose of three branches of government.