Constitutional Understanding Quotes

Anybody who pretends that how you read the 10th and 11th Amendment doesn't have a fundamental impact on the things we care about is kidding themselves. They're either uninformed or they're kidding themselves.

I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.

This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.

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.

While the president is to nominate that individual [to Supreme Court], we in the Senate must provide our advice and consent. This function is not well-defined. The Constitution does not set down a road map. It does not require hearings. In fact, it does not even require questioning on your understanding of the Constitution nor the role of the Supreme Court.

What's the difference between a liberal and a conservative? A liberal will interpret the constitution, a conservative will quote it!

In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt reminded us that the Constitution is, and I quote, "a layman's document, not a lawyer's contract."

Are we to admit that the Constitution was never before rightly understood, even by those who framed it?

I tend to agree with those who say that a justice's duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks is clearly in conflict with it.

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.

The Constitution was written by 55 educated and highly intelligent men in Philadelphia in 1787, but it was written so that it could be understood by people of limited education and modest intelligence.

More students have a better knowledge of pop culture than of the Constitution.

Most people revere the Constitution but they do not know what is in it. That may be true of many members of Congress.

Can the real Constitution be restored? Probably not. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them.

Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life's work.

The Constitution needs allegiance and loyalty and renewal and understanding with each generation, or else it's not going to last.

Do judges follow the Constitution? Well, Yes and No. They follow the Constitution as they understand it.

We cannot understand the constitution of any country whatsoever by reading the text alone. To gain a thorough understanding of such constitution we have to know how the text came into existence, the conditions that prevailed at the time. In this way we can grasp the fundamental ideas and the basic reasoning underlying the constitution.

I think Donald Trump understands there's a Constitution. And that those separate but equal branches of government give us a limited government. And he believes that.

Americans have to have a link with their Constitution. They have to understand it in the context of their own time.

It is necessary for a Senator to be thoroughly acquainted with the constitution; and this is a knowledge of the most extensive nature; a matter of science, of diligence, of reflection, without which no Senator can possibly be fit for his office.

For years we have heard of the role the Elders could play in saving the Constitution from total destruction. But how can the Elders be expected to save it if they have not studied it and are not sure if it is being destroyed or what is destroying it.