#politics

"The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments could mean only one thing — one person, one vote."

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More by William O. Douglas

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“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

“Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.”

“The First Amendment was designed so as to permit a flowering of man and his idiosyncracies, but we have greatly diluted it. Although the Amendment says that Congress shall make ‘no law’ abridging freedom of speech and press, this has been construed to mean that Congress may make ‘some laws’ that abridge that freedom.”

“No matter what the legislature may say, a man has the right to make his speech, print his handbill, compose his newspaper, and deliver his sermon without asking anyone's permission. The contrary suggestion is abhorrent to our traditions.”

“The continuing episodes of protest and dissent in the United States have their basis in the First Amendment to the Constitution, a great safety valve that is lacking in most other nations of the world. The First Amendment creates a sanctuary around the citizen’s beliefs. His ideas, his conscience, his convictions are his own concern, not the government’s.”

“When the university does not sit apart, critical of industry, the Pentagon, and government, there is no fermentative force at work in our society. The university becomes a collection of technicians in a service station, trying to turn out better technocrats for the technological society. Then all voices become a chorus supporting the status quo; there is no challenger from the opposition warning of dangers to come.”