Hezekiah Niles Quotes

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it.

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

The Constitution is not about restricting the people; it is about restricting the government.

Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond the Constitution.

If the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the Nation ... be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable government, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

… while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is not a suicide pact.

God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world.

Tinkers may work, quacks may prescribe, and demagogues may deceive, but I declare to you that there is no remedy for us ... but in adhering to the Constitution.

Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed.

The Constitution nowhere mentions a specific right of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life, but the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment covers more than those freedoms explicitly named in the Bill of Rights

We have a great nation to help govern. We who are citizens of this great republic are favored children, yet we are all the time complaining; but that is one of the inalienable privileges of an American to complain about his neighbor and government-always crying for a change. But, with all of its faults, this is the best government for man on the face of the earth

Our oath is not to a politician, or to the party in power, or to the President. It is to the Constitution.

We do not expect that Congress is acquainted with our religious faith; but ... we do claim the guarantees of the Constitution and immunity from persecution on merely religious grounds.

To accuse us of being unfriendly to the Government, is to accuse us of hostility to our religion, for no item of inspiration is held more sacred with us than the Constitution under which she acts. As a religious society, we, in common with all other denominations, claim its protection.

Martial law ... destroys every guarantee of the Constitution.

We raised our right hands ... and swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. We didn't swear to support and defend the President.

The rights given in the Constitution are given to all people—the most popular and the least popular.

The New Englander is attached to his township because it is strong and independent; he has an interest in it because he shares in its management; he loves it because he has no reason to complain of his lot; he invests his ambition and his future in it; in the restricted sphere within his scope, he learns to rule society; he gets to know those formalities without which freedom can advance only through revolutions, and becoming imbued with their spirit, develops a taste for order, understands the harmony of powers, and in the end accumulates clear, practical ideas about the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides.

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

In order for the Constitution to work, you have to have law-abiding people. You have to have people willing to obey the Constitution, willing to follow the law. Obama doesn't care. He is the law.

There are rules and regulations, and we live in a country where the Constitution gives us rights and at the same time there are things that have to be restricted. Hence, I believe the law of the land should be adhered to.

It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.

This democracy of ours, which sometimes we've treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows, once it is destroyed, where or when he will find its protective warmth again.