Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

Chapter 3

Statements by

CHIEF JUSTICES OF UNITED STATES

JOHN JAY,1 First Chief Justice of the United States

This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.

Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

JOHN MARSHALL,2 Fourth Chief Justice of the United States

When the government is drawn from the people and depends on the people for its continuance, oppressive measures will not be attempted, as they will certainly draw on their authors the resentment of those on whom they depend. On this government, thus depending on ourselves for its existence, I will rest my safety.

8

ROGER BROOKE TANEY, Fifth Chief Justice of the United States

The object and end of all government is to promote the happiness and prosperity of the community by which it is established; and it can never be assumed that the government intended to diminish its power of accomplishing the end for which it was created.

MORRISON REMICH WAITE, Seventh Chief Justice of the United States

The equality of the rights of citizens is a principle of republicanism. Every republican government is in duty bound to protect all its citizens in the enjoyment of this principle, if within its power.

1 Excerpt from paper appearing in the Federalist on "The New Constitution." 'Excerpt from speech delivered in 1788. JOHN MARSHALL by Allan B. Magruder. 'MARSHALL AND TANEY. p. 226. By Ben W. Palmer.

4 CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE. p. 168.

By Bruce R. Trimble.

5

MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, Eighth Chief Justice of the United States

To be an American was to be part and parcel of American ideas, institutions, prosperity, and progress. It was to be like-minded with the patriotic leaders who have served the cause of their native or adopted land, from Washington to Lincoln. It was to be convinced of the virtues of republican government as the bulwark of the true and genuine liberties of mankind, which would ultimately transmute suffering through ignorance into happiness through light.

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES, Eleventh Chief Justice of the United States

This flag means more than association and reward. It is the symbol of our national unity, our national endeavor, our national aspiration. It tells you of the struggle for independence, of union preserved, of liberty and union one and inseparable, of the sacrifices of brave men and women to whom the ideals and honor of this nation have been dearer than life.

It means America first; it means an undivided allegiance. It means that you cannot be saved by the valor and devotion of your ancestors; that to each generation comes its patriotic duty; and that upon your willingness to sacrifice and endure as those before you have sacrificed and endured rests the national hope.

It speaks of equal rights; of the inspiration of free institutions exemplified and vindicated; of liberty under law intelligently conceived and impartially administered. There is not a thread in it but scorns self-indulgence, weakness, and rapacity. It is eloquent of our common destiny.

HARLAN FISKE STONE," Twelfth Chief Justice of the United States

I am proud of our legal institutions and have unwavering faith that their future will be even greater than their past. In our legal system lies the assurance of protection of our lives, liberty, property, and happiness, and that of our children and children's children. No more sacred duty rests on the lawyer and layman alike than that of defending, maintaining, and improving it.

FRED M. VINSON, Thirteenth Chief Justice of the United States

We need, first of all, to reaffirm our faith in the fundamental values upon which has been based all that is worthwhile in our society. We need to revitalize our conviction that that society is best which gives the greatest practical recognition to the dignity of individual man and which affords

"Excerpt from address delivered in 1889. 132 U. S. 726.

8

6

Excerpt from speech made in 1916.

T Excerpt from LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION. By Harlan Fiske Stone.

Excerpt from address delivered before the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 22, 1947.

greatest opportunities for the development of the higher potentialities of all men. We need to develop the same high sense of personal responsibility which led the early American statesman, George Mason, to write: "The debts we owe our ancestors we should repay by handing down entire those sacred rights to which we ourselves were born." We need, finally, to devote our full intelligence and greatest efforts to the task of devising ways and means whereby those essential values can be given their most complete expression in a world of flux and change.

EARL WARREN, Fourteenth Chief Justice of the United States

Through changing times and the increasing tempo of our existence, our Constitution has provided a living, flexible framework for the continued advancement of our ideals of government. Its influence has extended far beyond the boundaries of our own country. It has become a symbol for freedom-loving peoples everywhere.

[ocr errors]

There are those among our newly naturalized citizens who have particular reason to be appreciative of American citizenship because they have come from lands where people have never known such freedoms. We who have grown to maturity enjoying freedom in the true American sense can draw a lesson from these people-a lesson that should make each and everyone of us more determined to protect the constitutional guarantee on which our freedom depends.

"Quotation while Governor of California.

Chapter 4

Statements by

FOREIGN-BORN AMERICANS1

ANGELO PATRI, native land, Italy 2

I came to America many years ago. I came from a little village across the sea. I can still see it, the hills, the brook, the mill, the monastery. I remember the steamer and the ocean, water, wind, waves for days and days and the new, strange, far away country that was to be my home.

I remember finding my way to school, an American school. That was where my life in the new country began. I sat and listened and tried to learn. My teachers said I should. I heard the teachers talk of America, of the Declaration of Independence, of Patrick Henry, of Washington and Franklin and Jefferson and Lincoln.

I thought of Washington, not as he was at Mount Vernon, but, as he was at Valley Forge, in his hut with the ragged soldiers of the war.

I thought of Lincoln as a boy in his log cabin, studying by the light of the fire.

"These are truly Americans," I said to myself, and I felt that all Americans were like them, and I made up my mind to hurry and be a man. I too wanted to belong. I too wanted to feel the strength and the great love of the children of Washington and Lincoln.

And it happened to me, as it did to thousands of foreign born, that after many years I was graduated from an American school and then from an American college. I became a teacher, an American teacher, in an American public school. I belonged. I felt the strength of children about me, and I was proud to be among them. In time I became a principal of an American public school. To it came, by and by, visitors from far and wide, from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, South America. They came searching the spirit that had made America great. Each time they came they smiled as they said, "There is something here in the life of your children that makes one think of Washington and Lincoln," and would throb "My Country "Tis of Thee I Sing."

my

heart

1 Excerpts from scripts used in broadcasts put on by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States in cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company the latter part of 1940 and the early part of 1941, and from other sources.

'Greetings to Third National Conference on Citizenship, 1948.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »