George Haven Putnam Quotes

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it.

… tough times is a strong argument with many of us to stretch the Constitution

… the most disastrous blow ever struck at the constitutional power of Congress

Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court, once in existence, cannot be abolished, because its foundation is not in an act of the legislative department of the Government, but in the Constitution of the United States.

No one supposes that the government of the United States is supreme, beyond the sphere plainly defined by the constitution: Neither does any one deny that the State is supreme within its proper sphere of action.

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our property and our liberty and our property under the Constitution.

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.

I never did begin the war with the two Houses of Parliament... They began war upon me... if anybody will look at the dates of what happened... they will see clearly that they began these unhappy troubles, not I... therefore I tell you I am the martyr of the people.

The Constitution is ... power. That is why we see political struggle over the selection of judges who will wield that power.

Civil war was taught them [Americans] that "the sacred right of insurrection" is as much out of place in a democratic state as in an aristocratic or a monarchical state; and that the government should always be clothed with ample authority to arrest and punish whoever plots its destruction.

I say that the responsibility of the judiciary is to uphold the Constitution, not rewrite it.

I consider ... the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

The President may be right in how he reads the Constitution. But he also may be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, the President, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government?

No man in the U. S. I suppose, approved of every title in the constitution.

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

Save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.

We can’t trust government to limit its powers to the Constitution.

Judgments that give an impression that we can disregard the Constitution for political expediency, or to solve what we regard as current problems, set a dangerous precedence which will make it difficult to govern in future or to make ordinary citizens to abide by the Constitution.

The Court's legitimacy arises from the source of its authority - which is, of course, the Constitution - and is best preserved by adhering to decision methods that neither expand nor contract but legitimize the power of judicial review.

The Court's primary duty, in short, is not to minimize its role or avoid friction with the political branches, but to try as best it can to get the Constitution right.

The government bodies known to you have presented me a resignation demand. Taking into account that the execution of the constitutional power of the president in the situation that has been created could pose serious danger to the stability of the country, I accept that demand and announce my resignation.

I think it is up to the judge to say what the Constitution provided, even if what it provided is not the best answer, even if you think it should be amended. If that's what it says, that's what it says.

If we’re going to do all the things that the Constitution says that legitimately we can do as a country, … we have to be able to have a Congress where people can talk together like our Founding Fathers did.

The Constitution of the United States is not a suicide pact.