The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation (of power) first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Some men look at the constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and […]
In questions of power, let no more be said of confidence in Man, but bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.
I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand […]
In denying the right (the Supreme Court usurps) of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than (others) do, if I understand rightly (this) quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that ‘the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of […]
It (the Constitution) is a good canvas, on which some strokes only want retouching.
No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years.
The Constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.
