Lyman Trumbull Quotes

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

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.

A man's mere property status, without more, cannot be used by a state to test, qualify or limit his rights as a citizen of the United States.

The Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights.., but that we shall all have them

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

The Constitution, as originally drawn, made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society.

The Constitution was made for an undefined and expanding future ... ... is not a fixed formula defined with finality at a particular time. It does not reflect, as a congealed summary, the social arrangements and beliefs of a particular epoch ... The effect of changes in men’s feelings for what is right and just is equally relevant in determining whether a discrimination denies the equal protection of the laws.

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.

The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being was equality before the law, and equality, not separation, was written into the law.

Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.

The language of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws did not change between 1896 and 1954, and it would be very hard to say that the obvious facts on which 'Plessy' was based had changed.

The way that same-sex marriage should reach the federal level is that it absolutely should be decided by the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. It's a 14th Amendment issue. There's no argument about it.

The Constitution did not mention women when it was first written, and it still doesn't.

History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

We know no document is perfect, but when we amend the Constitution, it would be to expand rights, not to take away rights from decent, loyal Americans. This great Constitution of ours should never be used to make a group of Americans permanent second-class citizens.

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.

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

We cannot accede to the proposition ... that the citizens of the several states are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular state.

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

The legislative and judicial powers are completely subordinated to the executive; the division of powers, the sovereignty of the States, the liberty of the common councils, and the rights of the citizens exist only in writing in our great charter; but, as a fact, it may almost be said that martial law constantly exists in Mexico

I can find nothing in the Constitution which … deprives of their citizenship any class of persons who were citizens of the United States at the time of its adoption, or who should be native-born citizens of any State after its adoption; nor any power enabling Congress to disfranchise persons born on the soil of any State, and entitled to citizenship of such State by its Constitution and laws. And my opinion is, that, under the Constitution of the United States, every free person born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen of that State by force of its Constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States.

I take it that any statute which is not equal to all, and which deprives any citizen of civil rights, which are secured to other citizens, is an unjust encroachment upon his liberty; and it is in fact a badge of servitude which by the Constitution is prohibited

The proposed 14th Amendment allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States, so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all.

Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights, but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall ... be without distinction based on race.