F. W. de Klerk Quotes

I wish the press were paying more attention to the erosion of the Constitution and the slippery slope that we're getting into, by giving up the right of the Congress to talk about when and how and where we go to war.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

The framers of our Constitution foresaw this state of things and provided for it by declaring the supremacy not only of itself but of the laws made in pursuance of it. The nullity of any act inconsistent with the Constitution is produced by the declaration that the Constitution is supreme law.

It would be a novel and dangerous doctrine that a legislature could change the constitution under which it held its existence.

Judges will have the expounding of those laws when they come before them; and they will no doubt stop the operation of such as shall appear repugnant to the constitution.

No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

The Constitution has a good share of deliberately open-ended guarantees, like rights to due process of law, equal protection of the law, and freedom from unreasonable searches.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

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.

Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy - judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes - because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences.

If the Federal Legislature should, at any time, pass a Law contrary to the Constitution of the United States, such Law would be void.

An act of the legislature, repugnant to the Constitution, is void.

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

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will.

What Congress and the popular sentiment approve is rarely defeated by reason of constitutional objections.

If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two [the Constitution and legislation], that which has superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.

If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned

Historically, Congress hasn't paid much attention to the confines the Constitution establishes.

I will never forget that it is the people who speak directly through the constitution they have adopted.

We are a constitutional democracy. We must deal with things properly within the framework of the law and then the constitution.

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

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 rise in support of the separation of powers as established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The Constitution clearly delegates the power to deal with criminal matters, like the use of drugs, to the States.

The constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.

I believe I am strengthening the Constitution with my case.