A Quote by Stephen Johnson Field

Questions of such gravity go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end?
Here I close my opinion. I could not say less in view of questions of such gravity that go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an Act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end? The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping-stone to others, larger and
We're going to protect and honor the Constitution, and I don't have the authority to set it aside.... If I had the authority to set it aside, this would be a dangerous government, and I wouldn't respect it.
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.
Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in 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.
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.
That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.
Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
Do you people not care about this bogus government shutdown garbage? Back in 2013 Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio, Republican, suggested the End Government Shutdowns Act. So the End Government Shutdowns Act introduced by Senator Portman, the bill, you know what this would have done? Well, the Democrats shot it down. The Democrats don't want to get rid of the weapon they have by threatening a government shutdown and knowing the Republicans are gonna get blamed for it.
I have very deep concern about the legacy of the Rehnquist court and its efforts to restrict congressional authority to enact legislation by adopting a very narrow view of several provisions of the Constitution, including the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment. This trend, I believe, if continued, would restrict and could even prevent the Congress from addressing major environmental and social issues of the future.
I can't overrule gravity or turn away an approaching hurricane. I'm powerless over those things, yet this doesn't mean that I can't act with responsibility. I can pack provisions and head to my cellar as a storm approaches.
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.
During the Reagan years, government shut down eight different times under a Democrat Congress. The president and Congress worked together and got things straightened out. Under the Carter years, again a Democrat Congress, the government shut down five times.
In explaining the Constitution, James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper 45: '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. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peach, negotiation, and foreign commerce.' Has the Constitution been amended to permit Congress to tax, spend and regulate as it pleases or have Americans said, 'To hell with the Constitution'?
Labor Day, I suppose set by an Act of Congress. Everything we do nowadays is either by, or against, Acts of Congress. How Congress knew anything about Labor is beyond us.
The Constitution I uphold and defend is the one I carry in my pocket all the time, the U.S. Constitution. I don't know what Constitution that other members of Congress uphold, but it's not this one. I think the only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution, not this one.
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