State Constitution Quotes

The current Michigan Constitution was written in 1961 and '62.

Inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must be trained by education with an eye to the constitution, if the virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.

I am in favor of admitting any territory into the Union of States as soon as it has fulfilled the requirements of the Constitution and shall petition for admission.

The Constitution of the State did not recognize the Christian Religion any more than it recognized …. The school board had an obligation as well as a right to keep religious partisanship out of the public schools.

When Oregon was founded as a state in 1857, its constitution explicitly banned Black people from visiting, living and owning property here.

Yes, sunny Nevada is an ideal state for solar power. As it gets cheaper, the state should use solar whenever it makes financial sense. But politicians shouldn't force you to buy it regardless of cost. It doesn't make sense to insert into the state constitution a requirement on energy use that locks Nevada into 50 percent wind and solar.

I feel that I'm sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Alabama, and those constitutions are founded upon a fundamental belief in God ... my display of the Ten Commandments and prayer before sessions are simply acknowledgments of God.

The goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with the constitution of states. This, however, is clear, that the laws must be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have unjust laws.

Just as the formation of the family is basic to the formation of the state, so the states themselves are the only units that can form the basic constitution of a viable international organization.

Some things the legislator must find ready to his hand in a state, others he must provide. And therefore we can only say: May our state be constituted in such a manner as to be blessed with the goods of which fortune disposes (for we acknowledge her power): whereas virtue and goodness in the state are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. A city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the government.

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.

It was [John's Adams] Massachusetts constitution if anything that influenced people.

I have to uphold not only the constitution of Alabama, but I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and we will uphold the law of the United States.

In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her.

In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life.

I know the constitution in Oregon was passed in 1859. Free expression of opinion.

The President, and government, will only control the militia when a part of them is in the actual service of the federal government, else, they are independent and not under the command of the president or the government. The states would control the militia, only when called out into the service of the state, and then the governor would be commander in chief where enumerated in the respective state constitution.

In this distinct and separate existence of the judicial power in a peculiar body of men, nominated indeed, but not removable at pleasure, by the crown, consists one main preservative of the public liberty; which cannot subsist long in any state unless the administration of justice be in some degree separated from the legislative and also from the executive power. Where it is joined with the legislative, the life, liberty, and property of the subject would be in the hands of arbitrary judges, whose decisions would be regulated only by their own opinions, and not by any fundamental principles of law; which, though legislators may depart from, yet judges are bound to observe. Were it joined with the executive, this union might soon be an overbalance for the legislative. For which reason, by the statute 16 Car. I, c.10, which abolished the Court of Star Chamber, effectual care is taken to remove all judicial power out of the hands of the King's privy council, who, as then was evident from recent instances, might soon be inclined to pronounce that for law which was most agreeable to the prince or his officers. Nothing, therefore, is more to be avoided, in a free constitution, than uniting the provinces of a judge and a minister of state.

It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.

We considered that the strike district was in a state of actual warfare and we acted according to the procedure of the United States Army in time of war …. during the state of insurrection which prevailed, the constitution of the state of West Virginia was suspended by the acts of those men who were burning, killing and destroying property. We believed that to perpetuate the state of West Virginia and restore the constitution we had to use extreme measures.

This article would read much better in a catechism than in a state constitution, and sound more concordant in a pulpit than in a statehouse.

A ban on same-sex marriage violates the state Constitution's equal protection clause.

Governor Ford is sworn to support the Constitution of the United States and also of this State Illinois, and these constitutions guarantee religious as well as civil liberty to all religious societies whatever.

It is (our) duty . . . to pay especial attention to the principles of government which shall be inculcated therein (at the University), and to provide that none shall be inculcated which are incompatible with those on which the Constitutions of this State, and of the United States were genuinely based, in the common opinion; and for this purpose it may be necessary to point out specially where these principles are to be found legitimately developed.