Roger B. Taney Quotes

The Constitution preserves the autonomy and independence of the States; “federal supervision of their action” is in no case permissible except as to matters specifically delegated to the United States. Any interference ... except as thus permitted is an invasion of the authority of the States

Specifically, the reservation of sovereignty to the people of the states in matters not governed by federal law is constitutionally defined and permanently enshrined in the 10th Amendment.

No one supposes that the government of the United States is supreme, beyond the sphere plainly defined by the constitution: Neither does any one deny that the State is supreme within its proper sphere of action.

The original Constitution was devoted primarily to the mechanisms of democratic choice.... [It] provided wide powers to the representative assemblies and ruled only a few subjects off limits by the Constitution.

The whole frame of the Federal Constitution proves that the government which it creates was intended to be one of limited and specified powers.

In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several states, a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.

I think the federal government should be doing only what the Constitution says it should be. We don't have authority under the federal Constitution to have a big federal criminal justice system.

The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible union disposed of indestructible States.

The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.

The whole basis of the Constitution was a restriction of power, and the whole basis of the federalist system was that there was not one sovereign centralized power from which all authority flows.

We are not at liberty to add one jot of power to the national government beyond what the people have granted by the constitution

It we mean to found a national Govt., States must submit like individuals-the Government must be supreme—either the national, or State Government. must be so.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. –

The Constitution of the United States is not a suicide pact.

There was a fear among the original framers that the federal government would be so strong that they might destroy the state militias.

There simply is no greater threat to individual liberty and the viability of our great nation than the threat that comes from the continued consolidation of power in Washington, a consolidation that flies in the face of the division of power between the federal government and the states that is required by the Constitution.

It is not questioned that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. Its powers are such, and such only, as are expressly granted in the Constitution or are properly incident to the expressly granted powers and necessary to their execution.

The powers of the federal government ... result from the compact to which the states are parties, [and are] limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact.

Today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States' Rights. The 10th Amendment is not a 'general assumption' but a rule of law. States rights mean that states have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in areas reserved to them.

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.

For states' rights advocates, the Constitution is like a contract that is openly violated by one party with impunity. On paper, the states remain sovereign powers, while in reality the federal government appears able to dictate everything from the ingredients of school lunches to speed limits. Congress now routinely collects taxes in order to return the money to the states with conditions on their conforming to federal demands.

The Constitution of the United States allows us to change; I don't have a problem with that.

The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected.

The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.