“[Only federalism] allows democratic control and can punish abuses of power. Only federalism can guarantee respect for national character and regional variety. ... The springtime of Europe is still before us.”

Remarks on French television. (23 January 1990), quoted in Charles Grant, Delors - Inside the House that Jacques Built (London: Nicholas Brearley, 1994), p. 135.

Writing for the court, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).
Context: Our Founders were no more willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying whenever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box than they were to let these vital matters of personal conscience depend upon the succession of monarchs. The First Amendment was added to the Constitution to stand as a guarantee that neither the power nor the prestige of the Federal Government would be used to control, support or influence the kinds of prayer the American people can say -- that the people's religions must not be subjected to the pressures of government for change each time a new political administration is elected to office. Under that Amendment's prohibition against governmental establishment of religion, as reinforced by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity.

On The Fiscal Crisis Of The 1970s. Quoted in an interview by PBS http://www.pbs.org/wnet/newyork/series/interview/dinkins.html

Source: American Constitutional Law (1978), Approaches to Constituitonal Analysis

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1993/mar/30/treaty-on-european-union in the House of Commons (30 March 1993).
1990s

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)
Context: Among the fundamental likeness between the Revolutionary Republicans and the Anarchists is the recognition that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former, and a local tyranny may thus become an instrument for general enslavement. Convinced of the supreme importance of ridding the municipalities of the institutions of tyranny, the most strenuous advocates of independence, instead of spending their efforts mainly in the general Congress, devoted themselves to their home localities, endeavoring to work out of the minds of their neighbors and fellow-colonists the institutions of entailed property, of a State-Church, of a class-divided people, even the institution of African slavery itself. Though largely unsuccessful, it is to the measure of success they did achieve that we are indebted for such liberties as we do retain, and not to the general government.

Speaking of "some [people] in Washington", and in support of his campaign plan to allow workers to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes. Campaign stop, November 2, 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/04/us/the-2000-campaign-the-vice-president-attacks-grow-sharp-as-time-dwindles.html
2000s, 2000

quoted in the article The United Nations—How Strong a World Force?, in The Watchtower magazine, September 15, 1974.
Context: You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish.

No. 69
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)