It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."

I believe the Court has no power to add to or subtract from the procedures set forth by the founders....I shall not at any time surrender my belief that the document itself should be our guide, not our own concept of what is fair, decent, and right.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' view of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

Emergency does not create power.  Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved.  The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency.  Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the powerof the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.

If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government.

The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent.

I consider the foundation of the 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.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.

I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences.

What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate?

Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and constitution of his country.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.