Joseph Smith Jr. Quotes

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. In my feelings I am always ready to die for the protection of the weak and oppressed in their just rights. The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground.

Liberty is the most precious gift we offer our citizens.

We must always embrace individual liberty and enforce the constitutional rights of all Americans-rich and poor, immigrant and native, black and white.

True freedom requires the rule of law and justice, and a judicial system in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others.

Today, we stand as a united country and are much closer to the ideals set forth in our Constitution that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.

It took America three-quarters of a century of agitation and four years of war to learn the meaning of the word "Liberty." God grant to teach us by easier lessons the meaning of the words, "equal rights.

We made freedom a birthright.

If our Constitution does not guarantee freedom for all, it is not a Constitution I can subscribe to. And now let me give the sentiment which has been, and ever will be, the governing passion of my soul: Liberty for each, for all, for ever.

Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

All of our freedoms – All of the time.

All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave.

Is the Jew a man? He is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, my fellow; and he shall not, if I can prevent it, be a slave! I demand for him equal rights and privileges, and a place within the pale of the Constitution!" Let all the people say, Even so, AMEN!

All honor to Jefferson—the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.

I have not come here with reference to any flag but that of freedom. If your Union does not symbolize universal emancipation, it brings no Union for me. If your Constitution does not guarantee freedom for all, it is not a Constitution I can ascribe to. If your flag is stained by the blood of a brother held in bondage, I repudiate it in the name of God. I came here to witness the unfurling of a flag under which every human being is to be recognized as entitled to his freedom. Therefore, with a clear conscience, without any compromise of principles, I accepted the invitation of the Government of the United States to be present and witness the ceremonies that have taken place today.

Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining.

Our nation was not founded because we all looked alike, or prayed alike, or descended from the same family tree. But our founders, in their genius, in this, the oldest constitutional democracy, put forth on this earth the idea that all are created equal; that we all have inalienable rights.

I was an American citizen, and I had as many rights as anyone else.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Among the chartered responsibilities of the federal government were, in those areas where appropriate - such as facilitating interstate commerce - to provide for justice and domestic tranquility, the common defense, and to secure the blessings of liberty.

I can't speak for the rest, but I think the little India all of us carry in our hearts should be good enough for us individually to take a step to help ensure that same freedom and justice that our constitution guarantees is given to all.

Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverance for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.

Human rights and rule of law are inseparably connected.

America is today the hope of all honorable men who respect the rights of their fellow men and who believe in the principle of freedom and justice.