Constitutional History Quotes

The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact created them as States.

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

Although Britain has, since 1653, had nothing approaching a single, codified constitution, it did for a very long time possess a broad cult of constitutional writing. The Petition of Right of 1628, like the Bill of Rights of 1689, was a cherished text. So, most of all, was Magna Carta.

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.

The Founders didn't mention political parties when they wrote the Constitution, and George Washington in essence warned us against them in his Farewell Address.

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.

Without amendments we would never even have had the Bill of Rights.

The current Michigan Constitution was written in 1961 and '62.

What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional?

I have three degrees in history and only one in law, but since I came back to specialize in constitutional law where history is so essentially a part and an explanation of much that exists, the two disciplines blended very well.

The Founders were far more concerned about checking Congress than the States

Is it rather stupid and dangerous to take Magna Carta so much for granted, as many of us seem to do, and to think of this attitude as 'very English?'

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

The House of Representatives, which was closer to the population, had much less power. The executive was more or less an administrator, not an emperor like today.

Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

The Framers intended the Senate to be the principle architect of foreign policy. Had original intent prevailed, we would speak of the imperial Senate, not the imperial Presidency.

Parliament itself would not exist in its present form had people not defied the law.

Americans swept away the instruments of English hereditary inequality - entails and titles of nobility - even before we had a constitution.

In 'The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,' you find a most remarkable collection of scholarly work. Over a hundred people have contributed to explaining what the Constitution says, what it means, how it has been interpreted over the years, and how it is important to people today.

America is the proud possessor of the oldest extant written constitution in the world, which was for its time - 1787 - a highly innovative and important document.

The choice of "fundamental values" by the [Supreme] Court cannot be justified. Where constitutional materials do not clearly specify the value to be preferred, there is no principled way to prefer any claimed human value to any other. The judge must stick close to the text and history, and their fair implications, and not construct any new rights.

You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.

It took two years for the thirteen states to ratify The Constitution, and the last state to ratify it did so by a mere two votes [36-34].)

The more I study it [the Constitution], the more I have come to admire it, realizing that no other document devised by the hand of man ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity.

By the time our Constitution was written, jury trials in criminal cases had been in existence in England for several centuries and carried impressive credentials traced by many back to Magna Carta.