James Wolcott Wadsworth Quotes

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

I should prefer to see incorporated into the Constitution a guarantee of universal suffrage; as we cannot get the required two-thirds for that, I cordially support this proposition as the next best

People now do not want a constitution framed for them by their representatives—they want to pass on each section of it themselves.

No society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it.

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.

Upon you, fellow-citizens, as the representatives of the States and the people, is wisely devolved the legislative power.

Logically, in a society ostensibly grounded on representative government, it would seem reasonable that a majority of the people in a State would elect a majority of that State’s legislators.

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.

A permanent constitution must be the work of quiet, leisure, much inquiry, and great deliberation.

Our constitution is a conservative document. It's a document which is established to maintain the status quo unless a an overwhelming majority to change that status quo can be martialed.

The path to an amendment to the Constitution is a thorny one.

We demand that the House of Representatives shall again become a deliberative body, controlled by the majority of the people's Representatives and not be the Speaker ...

If the people desire changes in the highest judicial tribunal in the land, the people can speak with their power to amend their own Constitution.

I get nervous every time we start tinkering with the Constitution.

Our fundamental instrument of government [the Constitution] is an evolving document.

Frequent appeals to the people [to amend the Constitution] would in great measure deprive the government of that veneration which time bestows on everything.

It is my sincere opinion that the Constitution ought to be revised, and that the first Congress meeting under it, ought to prepare and recommend to the States for ratification, the most satisfactory provisions for all essential rights …

The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.

Constitutional reform is exasperatingly slow.

The Executive should be removed at the request of a majority of the State Legislatures

State Legislatures were better qualified to elect the Members than the people were

As the House is designed to provide a reflection of the mood of the moment, the Senate is meant to reflect the continuity of the past—to preserve the delicate balance of justice between the majority’s whims and the minority’s rights.