Quotes -
"The judicial function is that of interpretation; it does not include the power of [Constitutional] amendment under the guise of interpretation."
-Justice George Sutherland, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937), Dissenting.
"I believe the Court has no power to add 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."
-Justice Hugo Black, In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970); quoted in Sidney H. Asch, The Supreme Court & It's Great Justices (1971), at p. 191.
"When struggling to find the right answer to a case, judges should adopt principles of interpretation and methods of analysis that reduce judicial discretion. Reducing discretion is the key to fostering judicial impartiality. The greater the room for judicial discretion, the greater the temptation to write one’s personal opinions into the law. This is especially important at the Supreme Court, where many of the usual limitations on judicial discretion, such as authority from a superior court or stare decisis, either do not exist, or do not exist with the same strength as with other courts."
- Justice Clarence Thomas
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents..... With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
- James Madison
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823; q.v. The Complete Jefferson at 322.
Quotes found at
en.wikipedia.org |
