Jon Meacham Quotes

The federal constitution is perhaps the greatest of human experiments.

Government is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution.

The Constitution lies at the core of our civil religion.

I am persuaded no Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.

Our founding fathers created a system of government of men, not of angels.

The existence of parties is not necessary to a free government.

The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.

Compromise created the Constitution.

The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

American is the first democratic nation-state.

This Republic was called into being, organized, and is upheld, by a great political doctrine.

I don't think we have very good records about what they were thinking except, as I pointed out earlier today, that they did invent our political system.

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.

In 1987, the United States celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of the constitutional convention that provided the basic rules for the American political order. This convention was one of the very few historical examples in which political rules were deliberately chosen.

Here, also, has been evolved the form of government consistent with the largest possible civil liberty.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

The Founding Fathers gladly sacrificed government that could provide speedy, effective, cohesive, and internally consistent policies. They opted for one that had a maximum number of veto points and checks and balances and protections against tyranny by particular officials or tyranny by selfish majorities.

Nobody expects democracy to be efficient--individual freedom was the primary purpose of our founders - but it should function at least a little

The American political system was created by a bunch of geniuses so that it could be run by a bunch of idiots.

The founding fathers set up this country as a republic—not a democracy.

We need a strong state but we need a democratic one.

The Constitution of the United States [is] the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

... the grand depository of the democratic principles of the Government ...

A republic is little better than a government of devils