The whole basis of the Constitution was a restriction of power, and the whole basis of the federalist system was that there was not one sovereign centralized power from which all authority flows.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had the power to issue commands to the several sovereign states, but it had no authority to govern individuals directly.
The whole frame of the Federal Constitution proves that the government which it creates was intended to be one of limited and specified powers.
In the Constitution of the American Republic there was a deliberate and very extensive and emphatic division of governmental power for the very purpose of preventing unbridled majority rule.
The Constitution was about a limitation on power.
It is not questioned that the Federal Government is one of limited powers. Its powers are such, and such only, as are expressly granted in the Constitution or are properly incident to the expressly granted powers and necessary to their execution.
Power's not what the Constitution was about.
The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
The Constitution of the United States, like all systems of government which are permanent, had its origin in the history and necessities of the people through whose instrumentality and for whose benefit it was formed.
At no time during the period intervening between the ratification of the Constitution and the inauguration of the new government were the leaders in Federalism certain that the agrarian party, which had opposed the Constitution, might not render the instrument ineffectual by securing possession of Congress.
No opposing quotes found.