Thoughts from the Father of the Constitution:
“Hitherto charters have been written grants of privileges by governments to the people. Here they are written grants of power by the people to their governments.”
“All power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people.”
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate…protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”
“In a just and free government…rights of both property and of persons ought to be effectively guarded.”
“True liberty…the Constitution…is its palladium.”
“I am dogmatically attached to the Constitution in every clause, syllable, and letter.”
“The meaning of the Constitution should be fixed and known.”
“The legitimate meanings of [the Constitution] must be derived from the text itself.”
“The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”
“Equal laws, protecting equal rights.”
“The real measure of the powers meant to be granted to Congress by the Constitution is to be sought in the specifications…not…with a latitude that, under the name or means for carrying into execution a limited government, would transform it into a government without limits.”
“With respect to the words, ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution…not contemplated by the creators.”
“I cannot…lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
“If Congress can employ money indefinitely…the powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”
“There is no maxim…more liable to be misapplied…than…that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong…nothing can be more false…it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil and enslave the minority…re-establishing…force as the measure of right.”
“Laws are unconstitutional which infringe on the rights of the community …government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.”
James Madison
