Franklin Pierce Quotes

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

The Constitution is a list of things the government may not do.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce;... the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperities of the people.

We are still wrestling with a question that plagued the founding fathers: how to balance the role of the federal government with the separate powers of the states that constitute the republic.

The idea of dual sovereignty rests on the premise that the power of the states to prosecute crimes existed before the creation of the federal government, and is reserved to them by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

Specifically, the reservation of sovereignty to the people of the states in matters not governed by federal law is constitutionally defined and permanently enshrined in the 10th Amendment.

The Constitution is government's stop sign. It says, you - the three branches of government - can go so far and no farther.

For a bill to become law, it truly has to be the will of the people, and for a president to stop the will of the people and stop what you're trying to do in your state is not the role of Washington.

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 right to vote ... depends on the legislation of the various States

We cannot accede to the proposition ... that the citizens of the several states are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular state.

The doctrine of states’ rights was itself a sound and true doctrine; as a starting point of American history and constitutional law there is no other which will bear a moment’s examination ... its prostitution to the base uses of the slave power was one of those unfortunate enlargements which often perturb and mislead history

I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established. On receiving it, I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for... an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union

For the People ... I must tell you that their Liberty and Freedom consists in having the Government of those Laws, by which their Life and their Goods may be most their own; 'tis not for having a share in Government, that is nothing pertaining to 'em. A Subject and Sovereign are clean different things.

The people of every separate political community (dependent Colonies, Provinces, and Territories as well as sovereign States) have an inalienable right to govern themselves in respect to their internal polity.

[There is no] right of Congress ... to force a good thing upon a people who are unwilling to receive it. The great principle is the right of every community to judge and decide for itself whether a thing is right or wrong, whether it would be good or evil to adopt it.... Whenever you put a limitation upon the right of any people to decide what laws they want, you have destroyed the fundamental principle of self-government.

Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws and another to resist them.... The Father of His Country [George Washington] did not affix his revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did the states, when they severally ratified it, do so under the impression that a veto on the laws of the United States was reserved to them or that they could exercise it by implication.

This [the Constitution] is the authoritative language of the American people; and, if gentlemen please, of the American States.

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

The prejudices and apprehension as to the central government which prevailed when the Constitution was adopted were dispelled by the light of experience [of the Civil War.]. The public mind became satisfied that there was less danger of tyranny in the head than of anarchy and tyranny in the members

The Constitution preserves the autonomy and independence of the States; “federal supervision of their action” is in no case permissible except as to matters specifically delegated to the United States. Any interference ... except as thus permitted is an invasion of the authority of the States

States should have enormous input into the decisions that affect them.

I know that the Southern People prefer a Govt. of their own but as soon as it is demonstrated that there cannot be an independent Southern Confederacy, many then will yield obedience rather than lose their Estates.

That distinct sovereignties could exist under one government, emanating from the same people, was a phenomenon in the political world, which the wisest statesmen in Europe could not comprehend; and of its practicability many in our own country entertained the most serious doubts. Thus far the friends of liberty have had great cause of triumph in the success of the principles upon which our government rests. But all must admit that the purity and permanency of this system depend on its faithful administration. The states and the federal government have their respective orbits, within which each must revolve. If either cross the sphere of the other, the harmony of the system is destroyed, and its strength is impaired. It would be as gross usurpation on the part of the federal government, to interfere with state rights, by an exercise of powers not delegated; as it would be for a state to interpose its authority against a law of the union.