Thomas Jefferson Quotes

For over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law with unparalleled success. A shift to a nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised.

A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, … are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government. The people ought, consequently, to have a particular attention to all those principles, in the choice of their officers and representatives: and they have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates an exact and constant observance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of the commonwealth.

The constitution is a sacred document in a democracy.

Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

A free and civilized society uses its constitution as a countermeasure to its self-destructive impulses.

Bind down our politicians with the chains of our Constitution.

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 Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace.

The danger to all well-established free governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believe in its existence.

Aware of the tendency of power to degenerate into abuse, the worthies of our country have secured its independence by the establishment of a Constitution and form of government for our nation, calculated to prevent as well as to correct abuse

In every government there must be somewhat fundamental, somewhat like a Magna Carta, that should be standing and unalterable...

We must be intransigent when it comes to respecting our Constitution and our laws.

The constitution is the ultimate custodian of social will and its making should be accorded all due diligence.

I repeat... that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

The courts are under the Constitution, not over it.

Our Constitution is the envy of the world.

The contention that...the Constitution is to be disregarded if it stands in the way of that which is deemed of the public advantage...is destructive of the whole theory upon which our American Commonwealths have been founded.

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

We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding ... a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adopted to the various crises of human affairs.

When a people have no sufficient value for, and attachment to, a representative constitution, they have next to no chance of retaining it.

All free constitutions are formed with two views—to deter the governed from crime, and the governors from tyranny.

Law should rule over rulers, and not rulers over the law