Constitutional Analysis Quotes

It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.

It is necessary to establish the proposition that the [Constitution's] framers' intentions with respect to freedoms are the sole legitimate premise from which constitutional analysis may proceed.

We have to have a good look at the Constitution. Let's determine where the shortcomings are. Then we can start talking of clauses.

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it.

In 'The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,' you find a most remarkable collection of scholarly work. Over a hundred people have contributed to explaining what the Constitution says, what it means, how it has been interpreted over the years, and how it is important to people today.

We do not need a heavy theoretical thumb on the scales. What's important is how the traditional sources of law and legal interpretation - text, structure, history, canons of interpretation, precedent, and other well-established tools of the judicial craft - are prioritized, weighted, and applied.

I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself.

Every constitutional standard is engaged in difficult but important line-drawing.

The first question an Ayurvedic physician asks is not 'What disease does my patient have?' but 'Who is my patient?' By 'who,' the physician does not mean your name, but how you are constituted.

The proposed constitution, therefore, even when tested by the rules laid down by its antagonists, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal, and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them again, it is federal, not national; and finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal, nor wholly national.

Upon the whole I doubt whether the Benefits of opposition to the Constitution opposition to the Constitution will not ultimately be productive of more good than evil; it has called forth, in its defence, abilities which would not perhaps have been otherwise exerted that have thrown a new light upon the science of government, It has given the rights of man a full and fair discussion, and explained them in so clear and forcible a manner, as cannot fail to make a lasting impression.