[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15925]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            CONSTITUTION DAY

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Constitution starts out, ``We, the 
people.'' It's written in really large print right at the beginning of 
the document. The Constitution is a rock. It's the foundation. It is 
not some abstract concept that changes depending on the social 
philosophy of the elites and tyrants of the Judiciary.
  The Constitution says the things it says in plain, simple language. 
The Constitution is an agreement between the people and the government. 
It sets limits on what the government can do, not the other way around. 
The Constitution upholds the principle that people have God-given 
rights. Government has no rights. Government has power. And the more 
power it grabs the less rights we have.
  Thomas Jefferson warned, ``the natural progress of things is for 
liberty to yield and government to gain ground.'' A government big and 
powerful enough to control our lives is big and powerful enough to take 
away everything we have. And that's un-American. After all, the 
Constitution says, ``We, the people,'' not ``We, the subjects.''
  And that's just the way it is.

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