#constitution

Fundamental ideas are not a consequence of experience, but a result of the particular constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise. ↗

— William Whewell

#combined #consequence #constantly #constitution #exercise

It is time... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers. ↗

— Diane Wood

#constitution #debate #dynamism #end #evolution

The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment. ↗

— Polybius

#history #political-science #design

The first grand federalist design...was that of the Bible, most particularly the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament... Biblical thought is federal (from the Latin foedus, covenant) from first to last--from God's covenant with Noah establishing the biblical equivalent of what philosophers were later to term Natural Law to the Jews' reaffirmation of the Sinai covenant under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, thereby adopting the Torah as the constitution of their second commonwealth. The covenant motif is central to the biblical world view, the basis of all relationships, the mechanism for defining and allocating authority, and the foundation of the biblical political teaching. ↗

— Daniel J. Elazar

#covenant #federalism #politics #design

One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government. ↗

— Ron Paul

#founding-fathers #illegal-taxes #income-tax #politics #ron-paul

Whereas in Western countries the constitution merely had to guarantee the rights of a per-existing civil society and culture, in Russia it also had to create these. It had to educate society - and the state itself - into the values and ideas of liberal constitutionalism. ↗

— Orlando Figes

#education

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. ↗

— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#freedom-of-speech #important-yearning-constitution #liberty #freedom

And it is undeniably true that the greatest and most important right of a British subject is that he shall be governed by no laws but those to which he, either in person or by his representatives, hath given his consent; and this, I will venture to assert, is the great basis of British freedom; it is interwoven with the Constitution, and whenever this is lost, the Constitution must be destroyed. ↗

— Joseph Warren

#american-revolution #citizenship #constitution #freedom

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. ↗

— Cory Doctorow

#destructive #government #happiness #new #power

How easily men satisfy themselves that the Constitution is exactly what they wish it to be ↗

— Joseph Story

#men