“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

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.

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James A. Garfield129

American politician, 20th President of the United States (i… 1831–1881

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1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

“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 (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

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.

“It must not be so; because we intend this Constitution to be the great charter of Human Liberty to the unborn millions who shall enjoy its protection, and who should never see that such an institution as slavery was ever known in our midst.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Regarding using the words "slave" or "slaver" in the U.S. Constitution (25 August 1787); as quoted in "The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question" in Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis (1894), p. 69 https://books.google.com/books?id=y3RaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA69&dq=%22We+intend+this+Constitution+to+be+the+great+charter+of+human+liberty+to+the+unborn+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI2ai6jcCsxwIVRRs-Ch38_wz2#v=onepage&q=%22We%20intend%20this%20Constitution%20to%20be%20the%20great%20charter%20of%20human%20liberty%20to%20the%20unborn%20%22&f=false <br class="br">1780s, The Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)

“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

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1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.

“The original intent of the 14th Amendment, and of the Congress and the American people who ratified it, can best be understood in the light of the change it effected in antecedent constitutional law. Taney's opinion in Dred Scott was still in effect as the Civil War came to an end. By it Negroes, whether free or slave, could not be citizens of the United States. Although the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it did not settle the question of Negro citizenship. This was however decided by the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The intent of this sentence could however be frustrated if it were possible to make distinctions within citizenship, by which some citizens would have more rights, and others less. It was to prevent this that the Amendment went on to declare that "No State shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Logic of the Colorblind Constitution (2004)

“I do not think there is any single thing more important for our people, and for those who form public opinion, than to keep our people immune, so far as they can be so kept, from the virus of either Communism or Fascism. Our constitution has been evolved… There are some people who speak wildly and loosely about sudden and fundamental changes. Look out for them, and remember that our party, full of ideas of progress to-day as any other party that exists, has always stood, in Disraeli's words, "for the maintenance of the Constitution."… any attempt at sudden constitutional changes of a fundamental nature would not be maintaining the Constitution… the whole virtue of our people… has been the way in which we have adapted ourselves, and adapted the instruments that we use to give effect to our wishes; and we have adapted ourselves without bloodshed and without hatred among ourselves. Far, far the most important thing that we have to do is to keep this country at least… secure from those strange crises that to-day are rushing round the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Bewdley Unionist Association in Worcester (10 April 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 102-104.
1937

“Mr. Lincoln simply contented himself at the outset by saying, that he was not in favor of social and political equality between the white man and the negro, and did not desire the law so changed as to make the latter voters or eligible to office. I am glad that I have at last succeeded in getting an answer out of him upon this question of negro citizenship and eligibility to office, for I have been trying to bring him to the point on it ever since this canvass commenced.”

Stephen A. Douglas (1813–1861) American politician

Fourth Lincoln-Douglass Debate http://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate4.htm (September 1858) <br class="br">1850s

“Individuals who have been wronged by unlawful racial discrimination should be made whole; but under our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual.... To pursue the concept of racial entitlement - even for the most admirable and benign of purposes - is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

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“Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.90 (1913).

“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.”

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