Benjamin Robbins Curtis Quotes

It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that the constitution of the United States did not, of itself, create or establish slavery as a new institution; or even give any authority to the state governments to establish it as a new institution. The greatest sticklers for slavery do not claim this.

The Constitution of the United States was made by white men, the citizens and representatives of twelve slaveholding and one non-slaveholding State; and it was made for white men.

The Declaration of Independence is no part of the Constitution or of any other book.

The Constitution of the United States is a pro slavery instrument, and no consistent anti slavery person should either vote or hold office under it

The appropriate relation of the exercise of constitutional power to the legitimate objects of that power is always a subject of judicial scrutiny.

People seem to be concerned about the Constitution of the United States only when it pertains to something that is of concern to them.

The Constitution of the United States [is] the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

While it is admitted that each State in which slavery exists has by the Constitution of the United States the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition with in its own boundaries; this Society shall endeavor to convince their fellow citizens that slaveholding is a heinous sin in the sight of God. and that the duty, safety and best interests of all concerned require its immediate abandonment without expatriation.

Search the Constitution and you will find no power granted to the legislative branch to make laws governing agriculture, housing, medicine, energy, private ownership or weapons, and a great deal more.

We are for abiding by the Constitution and recognize that Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 enumerates the power of establishing 'an uniform process of naturalization' to the Congress.

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Our plans protect freedom and opportunity, and our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States.

Of the powers conferred upon the General Government by the Constitution of the United States much the most important are those given to the legislative body.

Even if the Constitution of the United States had intended to recognize slavery, as a constitutional state institution, such intended recognition would have failed of effect, and been legally void, because slavery then had no constitutional existence to be recognized.

Over the course of 19 years on the Supreme Court, I learned some lessons about the Constitution of the United States.

No one familiar with the common law of England can read the Constitution of the United States without observing the great desire of the Convention which framed that instrument to make it conform as far as possible with that law.

But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.

They will sustain the constitution and laws and institutions of the United States, and be the champions of liberty and of that constitution when its integrity shall be threatened.

An act of Congress is binding upon all as much as if it were included … in the Constitution itself.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the recent decision of the Supreme Court. The grounds and methods of that decision we have exposed elsewhere; and we now turn from them to contemplate the great fact which it establishes -- the fact that Slavery is National; and that, until that remote period when different Judges, sitting in this same Court, shall reverse this wicked and false judgment, the Constitution of the United States is nothing better than the bulwark of inhumanity and oppression.

Judge Taney requests the American people to believe that the framers of the Constitution did not know their own minds. For the same Statesmen who drew up the Constitution, (which he says forbids Congress to prohibit Slavery in the Territories,) adopted the Ordinance of '87, which prohibited it in all the Territories we then had. The Ordinance was passed in July, 1787 -- the Constitution was framed in September of the same year. The same States and the same men ratified both. And one of the first acts of the first Congress under the Constitution was to reaffirm the Ordinance, and to again prohibit Slavery! Which are the best interpreters of the Constitution, the opinions of Mr. Chief Justice Taney, or the ACTS of Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Monroe, Adams, and Washington?

The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power.

Was it the intention of the framers ... to forbid the states to enact and enforce segregation statutes? If one goes to the historical materials with this specific question, the only answer is in the negative. The framers did not intend or expect then and there to outlaw segregation, which, of course, was a practice widely prevalent in the North.

I think that he was responsible for putting the flesh and bones on the Constitution.

The broad statement that the federal government can exercise no powers except those specifically enumerated in the Constitution and such implied powers as are necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers, is categorically true only in respect of our internal affairs.