| |
| Constitutions: State & Federal |
| |
|
A written constitution was an
essential feature of the government created by the Founding Fathers. The term
"constitution" refers to the nature or manner in which a society is organized
and the principles by which governmental powers are distributed. It is the fundamental law
of a nation, and may be a single document, as in the United States, or the totality of
basic legislation, as in England. The Founders preferred a written constitution, founded
in the authority of the people, in order more surely to limit the power of the governors
and protect the rights of the governed.
|
| |
 |
| |
|
"Aware of the tendency of
power to degenerate into abuse, the worthies of our country have secured its independence
by the establishment of a Constitution and form of government for our nation, calculated
to prevent as well as to correct abuse." --Thomas Jefferson to Washington Tammany
Society, 1809. ME 16:346
|
| |
|
"It is true, we are as yet
secured against [tyrannical laws] by the spirit of the times... But is the spirit of the
people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of
protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the
times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:224
|
| |
|
"[To establish republican
government, it is necessary to] effect a constitution in which the will of the nation
shall have an organized control over the actions of its government, and its citizens a
regular protection against its oppressions." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1816.
ME 19:240
|
| |
|
"[The purpose of a written
constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which,
when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal
to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the
peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those
rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:178
|
| |
|
"No interests are dearer to
men than those which ought to be secured to them by their form of government, and none
deserve better of them than those who contribute to the amelioration of that form."
--Thomas Jefferson to M. Ruelle, 1809. ME 12:256
|
| |
|
"A permanent constitution
must be the work of quiet, leisure, much inquiry, and great deliberation." --Thomas
Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:483
|
| |
|
"Though written
constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text
to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for
the people the principles of their political creed." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph
Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325
|
| |
|
"I am persuaded no
Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and
self-government." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1809. ME 12:277
|
| |
|
"[Ours is] a constitution of
government destined to be the primitive and precious model of what is to change the
condition of man over the globe." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1824. ME
16:26
|
| |
|
|
"The authority of [the]
people [is] a necessary foundation for a constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to John
Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:28
|
| |
|
"Every... constitution
[should] lay its foundation in the authority of the nation... [If] no special authority
[is] delegated [to the legislative body] by the people to form a permanent constitution
over which their successors in legislation should have no powers of alteration,...
although... they [give] to this act the title of a constitution, yet it could be no more
than an act of legislation subject, as their other acts [are], to alteration by their
successors." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:27
|
| |
|
"I question if any Congress
(much less all successively) can have self-denial enough to go through with this
distribution [of executive business, so that Congress itself should meddle only with what
should be legislative.] The distribution, then, should be imposed on them." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME 6:9
|
| |
|
"All of the States [except]
Virginia... had... delineated [the] unceded portions of right and [the] fences against
wrong which they meant to exempt from the powers of their governors, in instruments called
declarations of rights and constitutions. And as they did this by conventions which they
appointed for the express purpose of reserving these rights and of delegating others to
their ordinary legislative, executive, and judiciary bodies, none of the reserved rights
can be touched without resorting to the people to appoint another convention for the
express purpose of permitting it. Where the constitutions then have been so formed by
conventions named for this express purpose, they are fixed and unalterable but by a
convention or other body to be specially authorized." --Thomas Jefferson to Noah
Webster, 1790. ME 8:113
|
| |
|
|
"The foundation on which all
[our State constitutions] are built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every
pre-eminence but that annexed to legal office and particularly the denial of a
pre-eminence by birth." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1784. ME 4:217,
Papers 7:106
|
| |
|
"The basis of our
constitution is in opposition to the principle of equal political rights [if it refuses]
to all but freeholders any participation in the natural right of self-government... And
even among our citizens who participate in the representative privilege, the equality of
political rights is entirely prostrated by our constitution... [if it gives] to every
citizen of [one county] as much weight in the government as to twenty-two equal citizens
in [another]... If these fundamental principles are of no importance in actual government,
then no principles are important, and it is as well to rely on the dispositions of an
administration, good or evil, as on the provisions of a constitution." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:28
|
| |
|
"The true principles of our
Constitution... are wisely opposed to all perpetuations of power, and to every practice
which may lead to hereditary establishments." --Thomas Jefferson to Messrs. Bloodgood
and Hammond, 1809. ME 12:318
|
| |
Constitutional Limitations |
|
"I consider the foundation
of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated
to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States or to the people." [10th Amendment] To take a single step
beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take
possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
--Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:146
|
| |
|
"I was in Europe when the
Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established. On receiving it,
I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision for... an express
reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union."
--Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. ME 10:325
|
| |
|
"Whensoever the General
Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no
force." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:380
|
| |
|
"[An] act of the Congress of
the United States... which assumes powers... not delegated by the Constitution, is not
law, but is altogether void and of no force." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky
Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:383
|
| |
|
"To keep in all things
within the pale of our constitutional powers... [is one of] the landmarks by which we are
to guide ourselves in all our proceedings." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Annual Message,
1802. ME 3:348
|
| |
|
"[We considered the Alien
and Sedition] acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised
declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General
Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States of all powers
whatsoever... [We] view this as seizing the rights of the States and consolidating them in
the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the States, not merely
as [to] cases made federal (casus foederis), but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made,
not with their consent, but by others against their consent... This would be to surrender
the form of government we have chosen and live under one deriving its powers from its own
will and not from our authority." --Thomas Jefferson, Draft Kentucky Resolutions,
1798. ME 17:390
|
| |
Legitimate Restrictions on
Power
|
|
"It [is] inconsistent with
the principles of civil liberty, and contrary to the natural rights of the other members
of the society, that any body of men therein should have authority to enlarge their own
powers, prerogatives or emoluments without restraint." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia
Allowance Bill, 1778. Papers 2:231
|
| |
|
"The Legislature... can
neither pass a law that my head shall be stricken from my body without trial, nor my
freehold taken from me without indemnification, and when not necessary for a public
use." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1911. ME 19:181
|
| |
|
"Laws provide against injury
from others, but not from ourselves." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776
Papers 1:546
|
| |
|
"The legitimate powers of
government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others." --Thomas Jefferson:
Notes on Virginia, 1782. ME 2:221
|
| |
|
"No man on earth has more
implicit confidence than myself in the integrity and discretion of [the confidential
officers of the government, who are the choice of the people themselves]... But is
confidence or discretion, or is strict limit, the principle of our
Constitution?" --Thomas Jefferson to Jedidiah Morse, 1822. ME 15:359
|
| |
|
"Had [the election of 1800]
terminated in the elevation of Mr. Burr, every republican would, I am sure, have
acquiesced in a moment; because, however it might have been variant from the intentions of
the voters, yet it would have been agreeable to the Constitution... But in the event of an
usurpation, I was decidedly with those who were determined not to permit it. Because that
precedent once set, would be artificially reproduced, and end soon in a dictator."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas M'Kean, 1801. ME 10:221
|
| |
|
"The Tory principle of
passive obedience [seeks to] become entirely triumphant under the new-fangled names of confidence
and responsibility." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert Livingston, 1799. ME 10:118
|
| |
|
"It would be a dangerous
delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of
our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. 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
Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may
go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him
down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft
Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:388
|
| |
|
"Let the honest advocate of
confidence read the Alien and Sedition Acts and say if the Constitution has not been wise
in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying
those limits." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:389
|
| |
|
|
"Leave no authority existing
not responsible to the people." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1816. ME
15:66
|
| |
|
"Unless the mass retains
sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be
perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the
individuals and their families selected for the trust. Whether our Constitution has hit on
the exact degree of control necessary, is yet under experiment." --Thomas Jefferson
to M. van der Kemp, 1812. ME 13:136
|
| |
|
"I sincerely wish... we
could see our government so secured as to depend less on the character of the person in
whose hands it is trusted. Bad men will sometimes get in and with such an immense
patronage may make great progress in corrupting the public mind and principles. This is a
subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied." --Thomas Jefferson to
Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237
|
| |
|
|
"Smaller objections [I have
to the new Constitution] are [the omission of] the appeals on matters of fact as well as
law, and the binding of all persons, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, by oath to
maintain that constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:390
|
| |
|
"I apprehend... that the
total abandonment of the principle of rotation in the offices of President and Senator
will end in abuse." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81
|
| |
| |
|
ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition.
|
| |
