No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The Fourteenth Amendment has been applied broadly and unexpectedly, like a versatile patent medicine.
- In plain terms
- The Fourteenth Amendment is used in many different ways.
- What can you take from it?
- Recognize the broad impact of constitutional amendments.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why is the Fourteenth Amendment so widely used?
- Does broad usage dilute its power?
Another view
The comparison to patent medicine might trivialize the amendment's gravity.
More from William O. Douglas
Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
Permalink to quote #33 Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
Permalink to quote #35 It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.
Permalink to quote #32
Related quotes
An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.
James OtisJames Otis quote #1 In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our poli…
Alex KozinskiAlex Kozinski quote #3 The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the lan…
Byron WhiteByron White quote #5