Barbara Boxer Quotes

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

The Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights.., but that we shall all have them

You can't put civil rights on the ballot.

The Constitution has a good share of deliberately open-ended guarantees, like rights to due process of law, equal protection of the law, and freedom from unreasonable searches.

Like a majority of Americans in recent years, I came to understand that fear of homosexuality was leading our governments - including the one I ran as Governor of Mississippi - to deny the equal rights to an entire segment of our population that are afforded all of us under the Constitution.

Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.

A privilege may not be a right, but, under the constitution of the country, I do not gather that any broad distinction is drawn between the rights and the privileges that were enjoyed and that were taken away.

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

The bill of rights applies at all times and is particularly important in times of war and national crisis.

The spirit, the intent, the purpose of our Constitution is to secure equal and exact justice for all men.

... a lynching of the Constitution.

Let us contend for all the rights guaranteed by the constitution of our native country.

Any delay in action protecting constitutional rights is justice denied.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

The Constitution is itself in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.

I desire to secure every privilege and every right to every citizen in the United States…. I understand the amendment ... to authorize Congress to establish uniform laws throughout the United States upon the subject named, the protection of life, liberty, and property. I am unwilling that Congress shall have any such power

Whatever rights as to each of these enumerated civil (not political) matters the State may confer upon one race ... shall be held by all races in equality … It secures … equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races.

Southern attempts to deny blacks equal rights were turning the Constitution into a sublime and beautiful scripture—into a horrid charter of wrong.

If we are endowed by our Creator with rights, then why shouldn't those be attainable by gays and lesbians?

Marriage equality is not a choice. It is a legal right.

Our rights to live and to love each other, those rights are greater than any other right in the Constitution, period.

I believe all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should be guaranteed the full rights to the legal benefits and responsibilities of marriage under the Constitution.

If the Constitution was a movie, the Preamble would be the trailer, the First Amendment the establishing shot, the 13th the crowd pleaser and the 14th the ultimate hero scene.

Despite our founding principles and the many ways our constitution has protected individual liberties, we do, let's admit it, have a long history of shutting people out--african americans, women, gays and lesbians, people with disabilities--and throughout our history, we have found too many ways to divide and exclude people from their ownership of the law and protection under the law.

The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I’m a U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.