The Palladium

"I mean...to let you know how deeply I am impressed with a sense of the importance of Amendments, that the good people may clearly see the distinction-for there is a distinction, between the federal powers vested in Congress and the sovereign authority belonging to the several states, which is the Palladium of the private and personal rights of the citizens."

Samuel Adams

Original Intent

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."

James Wilson

The Legitimate Constitution

"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful, exercise of it's powers...What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were taken in its modern sense."

James Madison