Thomas Jefferson Quotes

a vile law system, calculated for expense and with a design to draw by degrees all law business into the Federal Courts. The Constitution is meant to swallow all the State Constitutions by degrees.

The health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last night clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state's sovereignty.

to negative all laws passed by the several States, contravening in the opinion of the National Legislature the articles of Union.

There simply is no greater threat to individual liberty and the viability of our great nation than the threat that comes from the continued consolidation of power in Washington, a consolidation that flies in the face of the division of power between the federal government and the states that is required by the Constitution.

I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution.

It is a fundamental principle of American law that the regulation of the local police of all the domestic affairs of a State belong to the State itself, and not to the Federal Government.

The [Federal] constitution and the laws thereof are supreme ... they control the constitution and laws of the respective states, and cannot be controlled by them.

That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the "Alien and Sedition Acts" passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power no where delegated to the federal government, and which by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government; as well as the particular organization, and positive provisions of the federal constitution; and the other of which acts, exercises in like manner, a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is leveled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right

No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

The Constitution preserves the autonomy and independence of the States; “federal supervision of their action” is in no case permissible except as to matters specifically delegated to the United States. Any interference ... except as thus permitted is an invasion of the authority of the States

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. –

How do you sell the Tenth Amendment to a community that was liberated by the federal government from state-sponsored terrorism?

No matter how many lawyers and lawsuits Obama throws at Arizona, we will have the American people and the Constitution on our side.

Nothing can be clearer than that what the Constitution intended to guard against was the exercise by the general government of the power of directly taxing persons and property within any State through a majority made up from the other States.

Conservatives who believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the plain meaning of its language and the original intent of the Framers have long been troubled by the court's decisions expanding the commerce clause to authorize Congress to regulate the most local of matters within a state's borders.

No branch of the law is of more importance to the counsellor, the statesman, or the citizen, than a thorough acquaintance with the Constitution and laws of the Federal Government, as they are administered and as they affect the rights of the people.

Nullification is the Jeffersonian idea that the states of the American Union must judge the constitutionality of the acts of their agent, the federal government, since no impartial arbiter between them exists.

The State governments are as liable to attack these invaluable privileges as the General Government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against

We are not at liberty to add one jot of power to the national government beyond what the people have granted by the constitution

The Constitution protects people from the federal government and in some cases from the states, but it doesn't apply to private companies unless there is a specific statute dealing with the issue.

Gentlemen, you are trampling on the sovereignty of this great state.... You are destroying the Constitution of this great nation.... May God have mercy on your souls.

Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to be involved with crime control to begin with.

Texans can run Texas without the federal government telling them what to do.

If the Federal Legislature should, at any time, pass a Law contrary to the Constitution of the United States, such Law would be void.

The bill is incapable of being executed …. It proceeds entirely upon the idea that the State governments will lend their aid to carry it into effect.