William H. Seward Quotes

Each state in the Union is honored in the order of when it ratified the Constitution and became a part of the United States. This September it is Iowa's turn. Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the union on December 28, 1846.

It took us in this country 11 years to get from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution.

The very document that protects our liberties more than anything else, the Constitution, was, of course, drafted in total secrecy.

… the admission, as a state, of California, from which we have been excluded by congressional agitation?

Towards the Constitution of the United States the great mass of our people were always as much devoted in their feelings as any people ever were towards any laws or people. They resorted to secession with a view of more securely maintaining these principles

When the Constitution was written in 1787, there was this supposition that American politics would be above party. The people who would staff the positions in government would have the interests of the country, or at least their states and congressional districts, at heart, and so they wouldn't form permanent political parties.

The Constitution did not even go into effect when Washington was inaugurated first President. The wisest men knew that it was only a figment of the imagination then.

Alexander Hamilton, of New York, a signer of the Constitution, was a member of the ratifying convention in his state and did more than any other member to wring the approval of the new instrument from delegates practically instructed by their constituents to vote against it.

The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right.

The rise of the presidency began with the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the land mass of the United States. History taught the framers that, just as Rome changed from republic to empire with conquest of new lands, territorial acquisition would lead to the centralization of political power.

Some of them, in accepting the proposed plan of government, coupled their acceptance with a recommendation of various additions to the Constitution, which they deemed essential to the preservation of the rights of the States, or of the People.

What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions.

Neither James Madison, for whom this lecture is named, nor any of the other Framers of the Constitution, were oblivious, careless, or otherwise unaware of the words they chose for the document and its Bill of Rights.

The idea that this country may acquire territories anywhere upon the earth, by conquest or treaty, and hold them as mere colonies or provinces, the people inhabiting them to enjoy only such rights as Congress accords them, is wholly inconsistent with the spirit and genius as well as with the words of the Constitution

Unity was the real key to the success of the United States. The constitution of 1787 was in many respects the imposition of a central national government upon the quarrelsome states... In a country so constituted, the weaknesses of one state were compensated for by the strengths of another.

You ask me if I am in favor of admitting a slave state to the union. Whenever it becomes necessary for us to acquire more territory for our growth and progress, I am for it.

Perpetuity is stamped upon the Constitution by the blood of our fathers. For this purpose was the principle of amendment inserted in the Constitution which all have sworn to support and in violation of which no state or states have the right to secede, much less dissolve the Union.

I consider ... the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

The Constitution of the United States [is] the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

If the debates had been public, no constitution would have ever been adopted.

The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact created them as States.

It is well known that this was one of the most delicate questions involved in the formation of the Constitution. Like every other of the same difficult character, it was disposed of in the general compromise of interests, which were the subject of deliberation and adjustment, and it is not too much to say, that the Union could never have been formed if the right of interference with this question, on the part of the General Government, had been insisted on.

The question, ‘Who are the People of the United States?’ was never directly dealt with by the Constitutional Convention. On the contrary, that most important of all issues concerning Freedom was referred to the several states, to be dealt with by each of them in their own particular manner

Although the original Constitutional Convention met behind closed doors, the founders immediately published every document associated with the drafting of the Constitution, revealed the names of everyone who had been involved in its creation, and kept nothing secret, including the minutes of the debate over its provision.