It is not my belief nor is it the doctrine of my Church that the Constitution is a fully grown document. On the contrary, we believe it must grow and develop to meet the changing needs of an advancing world. We know that greed and avarice and lust for power and dominion over men are always with us, and will be until the millennium shall come. We know that these curses of men never sleep nor die, that they alter their ways of vice to evade the control of law and order. We know that sometimes they reach such size and influence that their handling may require changes not only in legislation but on rare occasion, in the Constitution itself. But all changes must be made to protect and preserve our liberties, not to take them from us. Greater freedom, not slavery, must follow every constitutional change.

So we do hold that in all that relates to its great fundamentals—in the division of powers and their full independence one from the other, in the equal administration of the laws, in the even-handed dispensing of justice, in the absence of all class and casts, in the freedom of the press and of speech and of religion—we believe that in all such matters as these our Constitution must not be changed.

Source: J. Reuben Clark
Given in 1938, Vital Speeches, 4:177
Prophets Principles And National Survival, p.87

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It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

Source: Benjamin Franklin

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Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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May [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Source: Thomas Jefferson

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