“Let reverence for the law be breathed by every mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, seminaries, and colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books and almanacs; let it be preached from pulpits, and proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice; let it become the political religion of the nation.”—Abraham Lincoln.
“The Constitution, which may at first be confounded with the Federal Constitutions which have preceded it, rests in truth upon a wholly novel theory—a great discovery in modern political science. In all the Confederations which have preceded the American Constitution of 1787, the Allied States ... agreed to obey the injunctions of a federal government; but they reserved to themselves the right of ordaining and enforcing the laws of the Union....” (The American government, he explains, claims directly the allegiance of every citizen, and acts upon each directly through its own courts and officers.) “This difference has produced the most momentous consequences.”—Tocqueville's Democracy in America.
“It will be the wonder and admiration of all future generations and the model of all future constitutions.”—William Pitt, after reading the Constitution of the United States.
“The Constitution of the United States is by far the most important production of its kind in human history. It created, without historic precedent, a federal-national government It combined national strength with individual liberty in a degree so remarkable as to attract the world's admiration. Never before in the history of man had a government struck so fine a balance between liberty and union, between state rights national sovereignty. The world had labored for ages to solve this greatest of all governmental problems, but it had labored in vain. Greece in her mad clamor for liberty had forgotten the need of the strength that union brings, and she perished. Rome fostered union, nationality, for its strength, until it became a tyrant and strangled the child liberty. It was left for our own Revolutionary fathers to strike the balance between these opposing forces to join them in a perpetual wedlock in such a way as to secure the benefits of both. They selected the best things that had been tried and proved. Hence their great success, hence the fact that 132 years after its signing, this same Constitution is still the supreme law of the land and more deeply imbedded in the American heart than ever.”—Henry William Elson.
“The Constitution is not an arbitrary, unchangeable document, but can be adapted to meet new conditions whenever the people decide. It should be upheld because under its wise provisions the United States has developed into a great nation of happy and prosperous people; because it contains sacred guarantees of protection for the individual; and because it affords freedom and opportunity for every citizen, whether native-born or naturalized. American citizenship securely rests upon its firm foundation.”—Henry Litchfield West.
“The Federal Constitution, the whole of it, is nothing but a code of the people's liberties, political and civil. The Constitution is not a mass of rules, but the very substance of our freedom, not obsolete; but in every part alive; more needful now than ever, and as fitted to our needs.”—Stimson's The American Constitution.
“No other country in the world possesses the guarantees of individual liberty and inherent rights that are accorded by the Constitution of the United States.”—David Jayne Hill's The People's Government.
“We need not view with apprehension or even regret the gradual adaptation of the Constitution to the ever-changing needs from generation to generation of the most progressive nation in the world. The Constitution is not a static institution. It is neither, on the one hand, a sandy beach, which is quickly destroyed by the erosion of the waves, nor, on the other hand, is it a Gibralter rock which wholly resists the ceaseless washing of time and circumstances. Its strength lies in its adaptability to slow and progressive change. While the necessity of change may be recognised in the non-essentials, yet the Constitution was based upon certain fundamental principles which were not thus changeable. These times should not wither nor custom stale. While the great compact apparently dealt only with very concrete and practical details of government in the very simplest language, and carefully avoided anything that savored of visionary doctrinarism, yet, behind these simply but wonderfully phrased delegations of power, was a broad and accurate political philosophy, which constitutes the true doctrine of American Government. Its principles are of eternal verity. They are founded upon the inalienable rights of man. They are not the thing of the day or temporary circumstance. If they are destroyed, then the spirit of our government is gone, even if the form survive.”—James M. Beck.
“The Constitution remains the surest and safest foundation for a free government that the wit of man has yet devised.”—Nicholas Murray Butler.
“I believe there is no finer form of government than the one under which we live, and that I ought to be willing to live or die, as God decrees, that it may not perish from the earth through treachery within or through assault without.”—Thomas R. Marshall.