Constitutional Critique Quotes

To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best, which might have been imagined; but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious.

It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it. The defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out.

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Your [the American] constitution is all sail and no anchor.

This Constitution does not reflect the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of ordinary people. It does nothing for jobs or economic growth and widens further still the democratic deficit.

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it.

The Left regards the Constitution as defective and outmoded - in part because it impedes the government's ability to control institutions, like churches and families, which stand between the state and individuals.

The Constitution reflects in the most degrading and mortifying manner on the virtue, integrity, and wisdom of the state legislatures; it presupposes that the chosen few who go to Congress will have more upright hearts, and more enlightened minds, than those who are members of individual [state] legislatures.

I cannot accept this invitation [to celebrate the bicentenial of the Constitution], for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever 'fixed' at the Philadelphia Convention... To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start. [Progressive]

We Americans love our Constitution so much that we can't bear to change even the stupid parts.

The Electoral College is the ink blot on the Constitution

As a minister and public official I must desire that it [the draft Constitution] be accepted, understanding well enough the need that we have some form of definitive organization. But as a citizen having to live under such a constitution, I disapprove of it and reject it.

[I]n Great-Britain it is said that their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom; whichwould be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it. They met novel and desperate situations by establishing unheard-of and revolutionary forms of government.

I am hesitant to say this about [Barack] Obama. Obama is a bad man in terms of the Constitution.

The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now.

By the time [John Adams] came to write his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States in 1787 he had as dark a view of the American character as that of any critic in our history.

The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting - it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king. Where are your checks in this government? I would rather infinitely - and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion - have a king, lords, and commons than a government so replete with such insupportable evils.

Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable;even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?

In practice, US officials seem to know better than to indulge in the patriotic myth that our constitution is the greatest system of government ever devised.

There are … defects of the Constitution; … [one] is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency.

I find no fault with the Constitution or laws of our country, they are good enough. It is the abuse of those laws which I despise, and which God, good men and angels abhor.

I believe the two biggest mistakes made by the Founders were giving Federal judges life-time appointments and permitting them to be confirmed without the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate.

With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.

It has become … extremely fashionable to eulogize this Constitution, whether the object of the eulogist is the extension or the contraction of the powers of government … whenever its eulogium is pronounced I feel an involuntary apprehension of mischief.