One stands, in fact, in awe of the Constitution of the United States, though it is an idea and not quite a reality.

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.

The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves.

The fathers who contrived and passed the Consititution were wise in their generation; as time passes, we come more and more to realize their powers of divination.

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.

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.

The Constitution is more than literature, but as literature, it is primarily a work of the imagination. It imagined a country: fantastic. More fantastic still, it imagined a country full of people imagining themselves.

Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority