#constitution

The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment. ↗

— Polybius

#history #political-science #design

The first grand federalist design...was that of the Bible, most particularly the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament... Biblical thought is federal (from the Latin foedus, covenant) from first to last--from God's covenant with Noah establishing the biblical equivalent of what philosophers were later to term Natural Law to the Jews' reaffirmation of the Sinai covenant under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, thereby adopting the Torah as the constitution of their second commonwealth. The covenant motif is central to the biblical world view, the basis of all relationships, the mechanism for defining and allocating authority, and the foundation of the biblical political teaching. ↗

— Daniel J. Elazar

#covenant #federalism #politics #design

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. ↗

— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#freedom-of-speech #important-yearning-constitution #liberty #freedom

And it is undeniably true that the greatest and most important right of a British subject is that he shall be governed by no laws but those to which he, either in person or by his representatives, hath given his consent; and this, I will venture to assert, is the great basis of British freedom; it is interwoven with the Constitution, and whenever this is lost, the Constitution must be destroyed. ↗

— Joseph Warren

#american-revolution #citizenship #constitution #freedom

How easily men satisfy themselves that the Constitution is exactly what they wish it to be ↗

— Joseph Story

#men

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#liberty #patriot #patriotism #rights #unalienable-rights

Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards. ↗

— Aeschines

#assured #citizen #citizens #constitution #democracy

I follow a set of principles, I follow the Constitution. And that's what I base my votes on. Limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty. ↗

— Justin Amash

#constitution #economic #economic freedom #follow #freedom

Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them. ↗

— B. R. Ambedkar

#constitution #denies #different #embodied #equality

My role isn't to be politically smart. My role is to do what's right under the constitution. And if that's politically unpopular, so be it. ↗

— Rose Bird

#politically #right #role #smart #under