Quotes About Constitutional Government

#1. If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.

Siraj Wahhaj

#2. The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.

Albert Bushnell Hart

#3. Of governments there are said to be only two forms - democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is considered to be a kind of oligarchy, as being the rule of a few, and the so-called constitutional government to be really a democracy.

Aristotle.

#4. I have taken my flight in the region of eagles; when I alight, it must be on a rock, and that rock must be a constitutional government, of which I shall be the head so long as I shall be among men.

Toussaint Louverture

#5. The perversions are as follows: of royalty, tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional government, democracy.

Aristotle.

#6. The cause of the South was the cause of constitutional government, the cause of government regulated by law, and the cause of honesty and fidelity in public servants. No nobler cause did man ever fight for!

Benjamin Franklin

#7. It is a remarkable fact in the political history of man that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government which has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have all been the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances.

John C. Calhoun

#8. Constitutional government, as designed by the framers, will survive only with a righteous people.

Ezra Taft Benson

#9. The government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and major social transformations to attain the system of constitutional government and its respect for the freedoms and individual rights, we hold as fundamental today.

Thurgood Marshall

#10. Judicial review has been a part of our democracy in this constitutional government for over 200 years.

Ron Kind

#11. The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation.

Maximilien Robespierre

#12. The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate.

Elihu Root

#13. The freedom enjoyed in Western society under the rule of law and constitutional government explains both the quality of its civilization and its wealth.

Paul Johnson

#14. No matter how many pro-freedom politicians we elect to office, the only way to guarantee constitutional government is through an educated and activist public devoted to the ideals of liberty.

Ron Paul

#15. It is ... particularly true of constitutional government that its atmosphere is opinion ... It does not remain fixed in any unchanging form, but grows with the growth and is altered with the change of the nation's needs and purposes.

Woodrow Wilson

#16. Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others.

Elihu Root

#17. There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship. And I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.

Alan Keyes

#18. Hence, in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens

Aristotle.

#19. If we add state capitalism to the Bush administration's success in eroding both the US Constitution and the power of Congress, we may be witnessing the final death of accountable constitutional government.

Paul Craig Roberts

#20. You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean.

Rand Paul

#21. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be.

Edward Snowden

#22. Christians, above all people, should desire that their elected representatives submit to the Constitution, because it is constitutional government that has done more to protect Christian liberty than any governing document ever devised by man.

Chuck Baldwin

#23. The real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars ... it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government.

John Adams

#24. There's a lot of the Midwest and the West in Justice Rehnquist's approach to constitutional law. And by that I mean a recognition that people know pretty well how to govern themselves, that government that is closest to the people is apt to be more responsive to their legitimate concerns and needs.

John Roberts

#25. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

James Madison

#26. Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another.

Montesquieu

#27. The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like.

Michael Badnarik

#28. [I]n the next place, to show that unless these departments be so far connected and blended as to give to each a constitutional control over the others, the degree of separation which the maxim requires, as essential to a free government, can never in practice be duly maintained.

James Madison

#29. The Government have made it clear that the constitutional treaty will be ratified in the UK only after a referendum.

Geoff Hoon

#30. If the federal government won't secure the border, the State of Arizona will step in to complement federal efforts in a constitutional manner and protect the security of its citizens.

Jan Brewer

#31. Liberty is not something a government gives you. It is a right that no government can legally take away.

A.E. Samaan

#32. Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.

Rush Limbaugh

#33. It is clear that the flame of True Freedom had passed with naval supremacy and constitutional, consultative government from the United Provinces to Great Britain, where it was regarded with quite as much national pride.

Peter Padfield

#34. No higher proof exists of the strength of popular government than, though the chosen of the people be struck down, his constitutional successor is peacefully installed without shock or strain.

Chester A. Arthur

#35. Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.

Stephen Harper

#36. [W]e insist on the principle that no danger or crisis, foreign or domestic, will be solved by Americans surrendering more of their constitutional liberties, in the foolish hope that a bigger government will provide greater security.

Larry P Arnn

#37. Constitutional interpretation is not the business of the Court only, but also properly the business of all branches of government.

Edwin Meese

#38. Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.

Tony Kushner

#39. We just simply want to get back to basics, get - restore essentially the constitutional foundation of the country, and that means the federal government becoming less onerous, less involved in every - basically every item of our lives. And what that means is there does have to be some transition.

Joe Miller

#40. The Blair government perhaps ranks as the best the U.K. has had for 50 years. It cannot match the scale of Attlee's reforms, but has a fine record of constitutional reform and economic competence. In my own areas - science and innovation - there have been well-judged and effective changes.

Martin Rees

#41. Now judicial review, beloved by conservatives, can, of course, fulfill the excellent function of declaring government interventions and tyrannies unconstitutional. But it can also validate and legitimize the government in the eyes of the people by declaring these actions valid and constitutional.

Murray Rothbard

#42. In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed." If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological.

Stephen Holmes

#43. The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

James Madison

#44. The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

Henry Steele Commager

#45. I call the present system 'Post-Constitutional America.' As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.

Joseph Sobran

#46. The New Deal is inconsistent with the principles of limited government and with the constitutional provisions designed to secure that end.

Richard Allen Epstein

#47. The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government.

Stephen Harper

#48. A government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution.

Thomas Paine

#49. Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.

Andrew Jackson

#50. Some kinds of government regulation of private consensual homosexual behavior may face substantial constitutional challenge.

Anthony Kennedy

#51. Who is an elected government in a constitutional democracy to decide it will not tolerate dissent.

Christina Engela

#52. Large and permanent military establishments ... are forbidden by the principles of free government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a constitutional bulwark.

James Madison

#53. If we quickly cast aside our constitutional form of government, then the enemy will not be the terrorists, it will be us.

John Conyers

#54. Constitutional provisions are not barriers to government misconduct. At best, they can be speed bumps.

Arnold Kling

#55. 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.

Steve King

#56. I wish the government and the Minister of Justice would address these legal and constitutional arguments, but they refuse to. They want Canadians to go blindly into their brave new world, but it is not wise for a society to move blindly in any direction.

Stockwell Day

#57. [T]he vast regulatory structure the federal government has erected in the name of the commerce power cannot be ended overnight, in many cases, but the pretense that such programs are constitutional can be ended, even as the programs themselves are phased out over time.

Roger Pilon

#58. In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment.

Dennis Cardoza

#59. We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.

William Howard Taft

#60. Every day, IRS agents levy liens on homes, bank accounts, and businesses; they confiscate cars, furniture, boats, and other personal property without the constitutional protections of due notice, hearing, and due process. If a person forcibly resists, government agents kill him for resisting arrest.

Jacob G. Hornberger

#61. In most constitutional states the citizens rule and are ruled by turns, for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all.

Aristotle.

#62. Our democracy depends on an informed citizenry to survive, Your Honor. Besides the advancement of truth, science and morality in general, the freedom of the press is a backbone of democracy. It exists to keep the government transparent, and the human instruments of government honest.

Kenneth Eade

#63. I propose a Constitutional Amendment providing that, if any public official, elected or appointed, at any level of government, is caught lying to any member of the public for any reason, the punishment shall be death by public hanging.

L. Neil Smith

#64. Even if a government can be constitutional without being democratic, it cannot be democratic without being constitutional.

Clinton Rossiter

#65. All, or nearly all, the advantage there is in fixing any constitutional limits to the power of a government, is simply to give notice to the government of the point at which it will meet with resistance.

Lysander Spooner

#66. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Abraham Lincoln

#67. Edward Snowden isn't a traitor. He reported the crime of conspiracy to deny citizens of their constitutional rights.

David Chiles

#68. Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights.

Pete Stark

#69. America's experiment with government of the people, by the people, and for the people depends not only on constitutional structure and organization but also on the commitment, person to person, that we make to each other.

Robert M. Hutchins

#70. 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.

Mark Davis

#71. I think you may see again a rise at the federal government level for a - a call for the federal constitutional amendment, because people want to make sure that this definition of marriage remains secure, because after all, the family is the fundamental unit of government.

Michele Bachmann

#72. In time of peace there can, at all events, be no justification for the creation of a permanent debt by the Federal Government. Its limited range of constitutional duties may certainly under such circumstances be performed without such a resort.

Martin Van Buren

#73. The State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.

Emma Goldman

#74. The Bill of Rights wasn't enacted to give us any rights. It was enacted so the Government could not take away from us any rights that we already had.

Kenneth Eade

#75. Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms ... one man was the government of the United States ... Lincoln was a great dictator ... This great constitutional dictator was self appointed.

Clinton Rossiter

#76. Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.

Che Guevara

#77. Increased interest and participation by labor in the affairs of government should make for economic and political stability in the future. Labor has a constitutional and statutory right to participate.

John L. Lewis

#78. I found that I was getting a warm reception for my message of freeing you from the income tax, releasing you from Social Security, ending the insane war on drugs, restoring gun rights, and reducing the federal government to just its constitutional functions.

Harry Browne

#79. In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government.

Dick Thornburgh

#80. Cynical, hell. I'm a healthy old man with a constitutional mistrust of paternalism and government in large doses.

Harper Lee

#81. I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Tom DeLay

#82. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than any [constitutional] provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

Roger Brooke Taney

#83. As government grows beyond its constitutional boundaries, it really does devour freedom.

W. James Antle III

#84. This president [Barack Obama] is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world ... The damage he has done to America is extraordinary.

Marco Rubio

#85. It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.

David Mamet

#86. The Patriot Act has practically obliterated the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. It was supposed to be temporary, but there are so many things that the Government likes about the power that it gives, they keep renewing it.

Kenneth Eade

#87. My belief has always been ... that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual's constitutional rights

Ronald Reagan

#88. Like some great swelling river, the powers of the federal government have today breached their constitutional levees and spilled into countless areas of life never anticipated by the founders.

Joel Miller

#89. Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against it. But where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response.

William O. Douglas

#90. To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.

Martin Van Buren

#91. In America, the government is accountable to the people, not the other way around," says a constitutional law scholar sympathetic to the antiwar movement on the subject of the anonymous police.

Nathan Hill

#92. [A] mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.

James Madison

#93. It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.

Rick Scott

#94. This election is a critical step in that overall plan - transforming the Iraqi government into a fully constitutional one, able to secure its own borders and ensure the safety of its citizens.

John M. McHugh

#95. We can only undo the election if the behavior meets the constitutional standard of subverting and threatening our system of government.

Zoe Lofgren

#96. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

Thurgood Marshall

#97. The British monarchy has the political and constitutional task of subtracting from the government and governors of Britain the papal and kingly airs that in America, because we have no such institution, unfortunately adhere to the president.

Mark Helprin