“I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

1870s, Message to the Senate and House of Representatives (1870)
Context: In his first annual message to Congress the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message. I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. The change will be beneficial in proportion to the heed that is given to the urgent recommendations of Washington. If these recommendations were important then, with a population of but a few millions, how much more important now, with a population of 40,000,000, and increasing in a rapid ratio.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I repeat that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change and const…" by Ulysses S. Grant?

Ulysses S. Grant177

18th President of the United States 1822–1885

Related quotes

“It is unusual to notify the two Houses of Congress by message of the promulgation, by proclamation of the Secretary of State, of the ratification of a constitutional amendment. In view, however, of the vast importance of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, this day declared a part of that revered instrument, I deem a departure from the usual custom justifiable.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Message to the Senate and House of Representatives (1870)

“Our Constitution has raised certain barriers against too hasty change. I believe such provision is wise. I doubt if there has been any change that has ever really been desired by the people which they have not been able to secure. Stability of government is a very important asset. If amendment be made easy, both revolution and reaction, as well as orderly progress, also become easy. The nation has lost little, but has gained much, through the necessity of due deliberation. The pressing need of the present day is not to change our constitutional rights, but to observe our constitutional rights.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

“The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. NO thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)
Context: The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by proclaiming 'liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof.' The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1787. NO thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the slave from a relation which wronged and enfeebled both. It has surrendered to their own guardianship the manhood of more than 5,000,000 people, and has opened to each one of them a career of freedom and usefulness.

“We made up our minds that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution were themselves null and void.”

Benjamin Tillman (1847–1918) American politician

Speech to the U.S. Senate https://web.archive.org/web/20160228073733/http://emancipation.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/emancipation/publication/attachments/A_Republican_Text-Book_for_Colored_Voters.pdf (23 March 1900) <br class="br">1900s, 1900

“[My] approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. We "the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. Otherwise we would have adopted the British approach of an unwritten, evolving constitution. Aside from amendment according to Article V, the Constitution’s meaning cannot be updated, or changed, or altered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the President. Of course, even when strictly interpreted as I believe it should be, the Constitution remains a modern, "breathing" document as some like to call it, in the sense that the Court is constantly required to interpret how its provisions apply to the Constitutional questions of modern life. Nevertheless, strict interpretation must never surrender to the understandably attractive impulse towards creative but unwarranted alterations of first principles.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2 February 2001.
2000s

“The two-thirds rule [of the Senate], which can be changed only by constitutional amendment, will no doubt continue for a long time to come. Like monogamy, it is not completely satisfactory, but, like monogamy, it has won general if somewhat grudging acquiescence.”

Thomas A. Bailey (1902–1983) American historian

A Diplomatic History of the American People, 7th ed., p. 17

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other, and how we treat the family.”

Mike Huckabee (1955) Arkansas politician

Morning Joe
Television
MSNBC
2008-01-15, quoted in * David
Edwards
Muriel
Kane
Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'
2008-01-15
Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_Amend_Constitution_to_meet_Gods_0115.html
2011-03-01
Mike Huckabee: Amend the Constitution to God's Standards
2008-01-15
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D08Dq_iNMRk
2011-03-01

“Charlton Heston…recently was re-elected president of the NRA for the third term. And they made an exception, because their charter, their constitution, says you can only have two terms, but they changed it. Ah. So constitutions can change. Interesting. Because it is called the Second Amendment.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

The word "amendment" itself means, "We had another thought! We re-thought something!"
Be More Cynical (2000)

“You've got the Bush Administration using that event in such a disrespectful and immoral way — using the deaths of those people to try and shred our civil liberties, change our Constitution, round people up. That's not how you honor them, by using them to change our way of life as a free country.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the use of the September 11th attacks to expand governmental powers and diminish civil liberties, through "The Patriot Act". — CBS interview (June 2004) http://news4colorado.com/topstories/topstories_story_179195105.html <br class="br">2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

“Surely they knew that the very idea of the future came in an American box - complete with instructions for assembling a Constitution, a MacDonald's hamburger franchise, a row of Marriot hotels and a First Amendment.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Source: Money And Class In America (1989), Chapter 10, Envoi, p. 237

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Ulysses S. Grant177

Related quotes

Related topics