Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2006-11-06 Nov 6, 2006If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.~ James MadisonExperience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.~ Justice Louis D. BrandeisThe tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.~ Voltaire Nov 3, 2006That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.~ Sir William BlackstoneThe contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive power.~ Daniel WebsterTo maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws ...~ John C. Calhoun Nov 2, 2006Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.~ Henry Steele CommagerThose in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.~ Justice William O. DouglasThe trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.~ Thomas Paine Nov 1, 2006The end cannot justify the means for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.~ Aldous HuxleyCan any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?~ Alexander HamiltonI would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.~ Cato the Younger Oct 31, 2006Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.~ Justice Charles Evans HughesThe welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.~ Albert CamusThose who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.~ Benjamin Franklin Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print