Wendy E. Long Quotes

We are a constitutional democracy. We must deal with things properly within the framework of the law and then the constitution.

The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.

The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.

Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy - judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes - because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences.

… courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws

We believe that all legislative assemblies should confine themselves to constitutional principles; and that all such laws should be implicitly obeyed by every American.

The constitution is the ultimate custodian of social will and its making should be accorded all due diligence.

There are loads of countries that have nice written constitutions like ours. But there aren't loads of countries where they're followed.

The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.

It is unfortunate that people believe that in order to democratise something you have to get politicians out of the system.

We are a nation of laws with respect and recognition of the rule of law. We are not an imperialist government with a monarch abiding by the rule of one man.

Voting is the foundational act that breathes life into the principle of the consent of the governed.

They say that our sovereign is above his laws to his pleasure, and he may make it and break it as he pleases, without any distinction. The contrary is true, or else he should not have sworn to keep it.

I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life.

In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge.

We have to worry about protecting the Constitution.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

Any government is free to the people under it where the laws rule and the people are a party to the laws.

The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of government could not be conducted by democratic standards without it.

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

The deputies of the people should not and cannot be the people's representatives, they can only be its servants.... The moment that people give power to their representatives, they abdicate their liberty.

The federal constitution is perhaps the greatest of human experiments.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

Are the governors such exceptionally gifted men as to enable them … to represent the masses and act in the interests of all men better than all men would be able to act for themselves?

The Supreme Court has acted as the final barricade against the assaults of democratic majorities.