Constitutional Convention Quotes

… when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected?

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such;… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution….It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

There is no reason to equivocate or lie about it. The Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890 was held for no other reason than to eliminate the nigger from politics…let the world know it just as it is.

When I found out that there was eight Presidents before George Washington, I wanted to smack somebody.

No salaries should be allowed the public Officers, but that their necessary expenses should be defrayed. This would make Men, he said, more desirous of obtaining the Esteem of their Country-men, than avaricious or eager in the pursuit of wealth.

It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the Delegates from so many different States . . . should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well founded objections.

James Madison was pessimistic about the country when he could not get accepted his proposal to allow the Congress to veto state laws.

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; Madison wrote not only the United States Constitution, or at least most of it, but also the most searching commentary on it that has ever appeared. Each of them served as president of the United States for eight years. What they had to say to each other has to command attention.

I, therefore, beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service

Why did the Articles [of Confederation] fail so completely? Most historians believe the founding fathers spent a great deal of their first constitutional convention drafting the delaration of independence and only realized on July 3rd the Articles were also due.

I used to have a great fear of constitutional conventions. I have a great fear now of not having one.

I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.

Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean.

A unity of the Executive would be necessary in order to promote dispatch; -that a plurality of Persons would never do. When I was in Holland the States general were obliged to give up their power to a French Man to direct their military operations…. However power is always increasing on the part of the Executive

The importance of this event (the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention) is every day growing in the public mind, and it will, in all probability, produce an happy era in our political existence…. Public events in the United States since the peace have given a cast to the American character, which is by no means its true countenance. Delinquencies of the States in their federal obligations; acts of their legislatures violating public Treaties and private Contracts, and an universal imbecility in the public administrations, it is true, form the great features of our political conduct; but these have resulted rather from constitutional defects, and accidental causes than the natural dispositions of the people.

Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

It we mean to found a national Govt., States must submit like individuals-the Government must be supreme—either the national, or State Government. must be so.

The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter.

If the debates had been public, no constitution would have ever been adopted.

“Treason” and “bribery” will not reach many great and dangerous offenses including attempts to subvert the Constitution.

I'm so proud of myself. I thought, 'I've got to learn about American history.' I literally took two months off and watched every documentary known to man. I really didn't know Benjamin Franklin was so cool.

No one familiar with the common law of England can read the Constitution of the United States without observing the great desire of the Convention which framed that instrument to make it conform as far as possible with that law.

United Colonies

Trust is not what the framers of the United States constitution and of this country relied on.

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