The basic premise of the Constitution was a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances because man was perceived as a fallen creature and would always yearn for more power.
If government can give you rights, government can take them away from you.
The whole basis of the Constitution was a restriction of power, and the whole basis of the federalist system was that there was not one sovereign centralized power from which all authority flows.
The Ten Commandments are the divinely revealed law.
And government's only role is to secure our rights for us.
I was asked three times directly in the hearing before the board of the judiciary whether or not I would continue to acknowledge God if I were to resume my position as chief justice. And I said I would.
The First Amendment to the Constitution reflects that concept recognized in the Ten Commandments, that the duties we owe to God and the manner of discharging those duties are outside the purview of government.
The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.
The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government's prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God.
But in the long term, I think it is improper to limit your future.
No, I think that we've got a basic discrepancy here between the rule of law versus the rule of man.
If God gives you rights, no man and no government can take them away from you.
But today, government is taking those rights from us, pretending that it gives us our rights. Indeed, those rights come from God, and it was recognized throughout our history as such.
Power's not what the Constitution was about.
Well, that's the - the removal from office and removal of the Ten Commandments were two different issues.
Anytime you deny the acknowledgement of God you are undermining the entire basis for which our country exists.
It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church, and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government.
But separation of church and state was never meant to separate God and government.
They don't want to be reminded that there is an authority higher than the authority of the state.
To do my duty, I must obey God.
