Thomas Jefferson Constitution Quotations

On every question of Construction (of the Constitution) lets us carry our-selves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

I believe that justice is instinct and innate; the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing.

The foundation on which all our constitution are built is the natural equality of man

The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless.

The Constitution is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.

The construction applied . . . to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power . . . ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself.

The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

Experience has already shown that the impeachment the Constitution has provided is not even a scarecrow.

The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution.

This is perhaps the most important statement on religion ever made. It clarified the intent of the founders of the constitution irrespective of the attempts of modern day religious revisionists...

Bind them down by the chains of the Constitution where they can do no mischief.