Quote

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.

Hugo Black

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Hugo Black
Age: 85 †
Born: 1886
Born: February 27
Died: 1971
Died: September 25
Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Military Personnel
Politician
Ashland
Alabama
Hugo Lafayette Black
View
Views
Society
Doesn
Like
Layman
Unconstitutional
Constitutional
Likes

More quotes by Hugo Black

Image
The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.
Hugo Black
Image
The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political mistakes without being subjected to governmental penalties.
Hugo Black
Image
The United States has a system of taxation by confession
Hugo Black
Image
It would degrade our country and our judicial system to permit our courts to be bullied, insulted and humiliated and the orderly progress thwarted and obstructed by defendants brought before them charged with crimes.
Hugo Black
Image
Citizenship is no light trifle to be jeopardized any moment Congress decides to do so under the name of one of its general or implied grants of power.
Hugo Black
Image
Sex is a fact of life...and while it may lead to abuses...no words need be spoken...for people to know that the subject is one pleasantly interwoven in all human activities and involves the very substance of creation itself.
Hugo Black
Image
The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.
Hugo Black
Image
In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.
Hugo Black
Image
Laws are made to protect the trusting as well as the suspicious
Hugo Black
Image
I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.
Hugo Black
Image
[I]t is true that [the provisions of the Bill of Rights] were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century whenever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many.
Hugo Black
Image
The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
Hugo Black
Image
No higher duty, or more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution - of whatever race, creed or persuasion.
Hugo Black
Image
Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds.
Hugo Black
Image
The Establishment Clause stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its 'unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate.
Hugo Black
Image
Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.
Hugo Black
Image
The Court stands against any winds that blow as havens of refuge for those who might otherwise suffer because they are helpless, weak, outnumbered, or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice or public excitement.
Hugo Black
Image
The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.
Hugo Black
Image
The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.
Hugo Black
Image
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
Hugo Black