Political Quotes

“we are, in some ways, an unprecedented country. No nation, no democracy has achieved the power that we have. In fact, in history, no country, democracy or otherwise, has had the great economy and the great power of the United States. But no other country has had a constitution like ours, a short constitution, a simple constitution, an understandable constitution. Since the Bill of Rights, it has only been amended 17 times. In one of those cases, it was amended for prohibition and then to repeal prohibition. I mention this because I think there is a definite connection between the greatness of the United States, the fact that we maintain our democratic principles and, notwithstanding our enormous power, a respect for Government and a respect for our Constitution based on the knowledge of that Government and that Constitution and not because a dictator and army tell us we have to. But that has meant that the men and women who have occupied these seats that we only temporarily occupy, the men and women who have occupied the seats in the other body that were only temporarily occupied, were wise enough--even though there were hundreds and hundreds of proposals over 200 years--were wise enough not to amend the Constitution willy-nilly, especially for those things that can be taken care of legislatively. As the President said last night, it only requires our vote and his signature for a balanced budget, not a constitutional amendment.”