Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2007-08-06 Aug 6, 2007When law enforcers are shown to have such unswerving integrity, only the most churlish among us would question the methods they use to “get their man.” Constitutional guarantees are regarded as bothersome “technicalities” that impede honest law enforcers in the performance of their duties.~ Donna Woolfolk CrossThe internal effects of a mutable policy are [...] calamitous. It poisons the blessings of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow.~ James MadisonTo declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution.~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis Aug 3, 2007The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it.~ Horatio SeymourDuring the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power...~ Edward Alsworth Ross...[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 Aug 2, 2007Who are a free people? Not those over whom government is exercised, but those who live under a government so constitutionally checked and controlled that proper provision is made against its being otherwise exercised.~ John DickensonAll free constitutions are formed with two views -- to deter the governed from crime, and the governors from tyranny.~ John Lansing, Jr.Here I close my opinion. I could not say less in view of questions of such gravity that go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an Act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end? The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war growing in intensity and bitterness.~ Justice Stephen J. Field Aug 1, 2007I repeat... that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist.~ Benjamin DisraeliThe aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.~ James MadisonVery few established institutions, governments and constitutions...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.~ Walter Lippmann Jul 31, 2007An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.~ Thomas JeffersonThe prime function of the criminal law is to protect our persons and our property; these purposes are now engulfed in a mass of other distracting, inefficiently performed, legislative duties. When the criminal law invades the spheres of private morality and social welfare, it exceeds its proper limits at the cost of neglecting its primary tasks. This unwarranted extension is expensive, ineffective, and criminogenic.~ Norval MorrisIt must never be forgotten...that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.~ Richard Henry Lee Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print