In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

No doubt President Jefferson was brilliant - probably the key author of the American constitution. But the PNP and Jamaica have our own Thomas Jefferson ... former leader and Premier Norman Washington Manley. Indeed Norman Washington Manley was better - note the word

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the Judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.

The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption -- a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible.

[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law.