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24 Cards in this Set
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Thomas Jeffersonbasic html document
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Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the second Governor of Virginia and the 3rd President of the United States.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." |
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James Madison
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James Madison was one of the three authors of the Federalist Papers (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay), which contained many of the ideas inspiring the U.S. Constitution. He played a leading role in drafting the Constitution and became the fourth President of the United States.
"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." "Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation." "The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judicial in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." |
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Alexander Hamilton
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Alexander Hamilton was one of the three principal authors of the Federalist Papers, and served under President Washington as the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury. He also founded the Federalist Party.
"I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value." "The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right." "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself." "Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." "When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation." |
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The 2000 Presidential Election
George W. Bush (Red) and John Kerry (Blue) |
It is still possible for a candidate to lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote, as George W. Bush did in 2000. This is partly because states with small populations, such as Wyoming, hold 3 electoral votes, which is disproportionately high compared to the voting power of a person in a more populous state, such as California. These western and plains States have recently voted Republican. While this electoral system is unpopular with some Americans, it maintains a sense of "sovereignty" for each of the States, and has remained in place despite numerous efforts to remove it.
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George Washington
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George Washington was the Commander in Chief of American forces in the American Revolutionary War, and first president of the United States. In 1787, he presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." "Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." "As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." "The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves." "When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour." |
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A Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson said it best:
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"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."
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U.S. Constitution, Article I Section 9:
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The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
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Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, scientist, Renaissance man, Ambassador to France, and the only Founding Father who signed all three of the major documents of the founding of the United States: The Declaration of Independence, The Treaty of Paris and the United States Constitution.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." "A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges." "All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones." "The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." |
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Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine was born in England and died in America. He was an intellectual, scholar, and Atlantic revolutionary. He wrote Rights of Man and Common Sense.
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." "That government is best which governs least." "Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man." "I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy." "Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." "Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it." |
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an Enlightenment philosopher and his ideas about popular sovereignty and social contracts influenced the French Revolution. He was friends with Diderot and contributed to the scientific project of the Encyclopedists. His remains are in the Pantheon, in Paris.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." "To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts." "The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless." |
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Marquis de Lafayette
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Marquis de Lafayette participated in both the French and American Revolutions. He served as a Major General in the Continental Army, under George Washington, his lifelong friend. Lafayette's battles included Brandywine, Barron Hill, Monmouth, and Yorktown.
Lafayette drafted the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He argued for habeas corpus rights, religious tolerance, popular representation, jury trials, the emancipation of slaves, and freedom of the press. "Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country." "If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the clergy." "True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people... There are natural rights which an entire nation has no right to violate." "When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties." |
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Article I, Section 8, "Clause" 18:
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"The Congress shall have power …To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
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Article VI, Clause 2:
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This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding.
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The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
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"That no producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce, any article or commodity the product of any mine or quarry situated in the United States, in which within thirty days prior to the time of the removal of such product there from children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work, or any article or commodity the product of any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, situated in the United States…"
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Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)
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"The power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce does not extend to curbing the power of the states to regulate local trade."
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Justice Stone in U. S. v. Darby (1941)
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"The power of Congress over interstate commerce is not confined to the regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce or the exercise of the power of Congress over it as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the exercise of the granted power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce."
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Amendment XIII
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Section 1
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2 Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. |
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Amendment XIV
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Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 5 The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. |
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Amendment XV
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Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. |
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Abraham Lincoln
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"That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular."
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." |
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Opinion: Justice Rehnquist
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More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo-American common-law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide…
That suicide remained a grievous, though nonfelonious, wrong is confirmed by the fact that colonial and early state legislatures and courts did not retreat from prohibiting assisting suicide. Swift, in his early 19th-century treatise on the laws of Connecticut, stated that "[i]f one counsels another to commit suicide, and the other by reason of the advice kills himself, the advisor is guilty of murder as principal." As the court below recognized, Washington's assisted suicide ban implicates a number of state interests… First, Washington has an "unqualified interest in the preservation of human life." Those who attempt suicide--terminally ill or not--often suffer from depression or other mental disorders… The State's interest here goes beyond protecting the vulnerable from coercion; it extends to protecting disabled and terminally ill people from prejudice, negative and inaccurate stereotypes, and "societal indifference."… Finally, the State may fear that permitting assisted suicide will start it down the path to voluntary and perhaps even involuntary euthanasia. |
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State of Oregon's description of the Death with Dignity Act:
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The law states that, in order to participate, a patient must be: 1) 18 years of age or older, 2) a resident of Oregon, 3) capable of making and communicating health care decisions for him/herself, and 4) diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six (6) months. It is up to the attending physician to determine whether these criteria have been met.
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Proposition 215: Text of Proposed Law
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(A) To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person's health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.
(B) To ensure that patients and their primary caregivers who obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes upon the recommendation of a physician are not subject to criminal prosecution or sanction. |
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John Calvin Jones
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Note the parallel, as prostitution is banned, consensual sex can be criminalized, because the more often that people have sex for free – especially if they are married, the lower the price that prostitutes will charge.
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