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Quote by Thurgood Marshall

“I cannot accept this invitation [to celebrate the bicentenial of the Constitution], for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever 'fixed' at the Philadelphia Convention... To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start. [Progressive]”

Quote by Thurgood Marshall

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Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall was a distinguished American lawyer and judge. He served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 to 1991, making history as the first African American to hold the position. Marshall was a leading civil rights advocate, recognized for his pivotal role in landmark Supreme Court cases that challenged racial segregation and discrimination. more

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“Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age . . . [F]or many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives. [Progressive]”

LittlesFeelingsAgeJusticeWrittenProudConstitutionOriginalsBlindPatrioticProgressiveCelebrationDocumentsForesightPilgrimageProclamationShrinesArchivesVaultsFramers
Author:Thurgood Marshall
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“While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.”

MenIdeasStatesKnownPrinciplesSacrificeEssentialsConstitutionUnionsRationalFormerLatterComponentsFederalism
Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“It becomes all therefore who are friends of a Government based on free principles to reflect, that by denying the possibility of a system partly federal and partly consolidated, and who would convert ours into one either wholly federal or wholly consolidated, in neither of which forms have individual rights, public order, and external safety, been all duly maintained, they aim a deadly blow at the last hope of true liberty on the face of the Earth.”

GovernmentEarthLastsFacesFormOrderIndividualLibertyPrinciplesRightsPossibilityAimSafetyBlowIndividual RightsFederalism
Book:1829-1836
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“This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.”

PeopleIfsStatesGovernmentFormCertainPowerfulAttentionRightsSecurityOughtBalanceLimitsImportanceProtectionPeculiarState GovernmentFederalism
Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.”

GivingStatesGovernmentPoliticalLibertyInfluencePossibilityPoliticianAdvantageInherentCalculationsState GovernmentEncroachmentFounding Fathers DemocracyLocal GovernmentFederalismStates RightsAscendancy
Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“So that the executive and legislative branches of the national government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national sovereignty, as such, has no representation.”

StatesGovernmentDependsBranchesExecutivesRepresentationSovereigntyEmanateFederalismNational SovereigntyLegislative Branch
Book:Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States Before the Adoption of the Constitution
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