Thomas Jefferson on the Constitution

• "Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, they yet furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people"
• "On every question of construction (interpretation), carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifest in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the test, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
• "In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."