All quotes

A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls.

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.

Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian.

The Constitution expresses more than the conviction of the people that democratic processes must be preserved at all costs.

My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will.

The war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered.

depriving individuals of the right to choose for themselves how to conduct their intimate relationships poses a far greater threat to the values most deeply rooted in our Nation's history than tolerance of nonconformity could ever do

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures

If citizens do not like a law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage its violation; their right is openly to work for its repeal.

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.

paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell

Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil.

Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

After becoming citizens they are entitled, under the Constitution and laws, to be placed on a perfect equality with native-born citizens, and in this character they should ever be kindly recognized.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.

the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation's greatest strength.

It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear.

No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours.

Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in authority.