The Constitution is not a suicide pact The Constitution is not a suicide pact "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is a phrase in American political and legal discourse. The phrase expresses the belief that constitutional restrictions on governmental power must be balanced against the need for survival of the state and its people. It is most often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, as a response to charges that he was violating the United States Constitution by suspending "habeas corpus" during the American Civil War. Although the phrase echoes statements made by Lincoln, and although versions of the sentiment have been advanced at various times in American
Constitution of Mexico and protection of workers' rights. Unlike the congresses that produced the 1824 Mexican Constitution and the 1857 Constitution over a lengthy period, the Constituent Congress produced the final draft in a matter of a few months, between November 1916 and February 1917. The constitution was "a means to confer legitimacy on a shaky regime." One interpretation of the speed with which the document was drafted and Carranza's acceptance of some provisions that were radical "suggests that what Carranza and his colleagues chiefly wanted was "a" Constitution, the hypothetical contents of which could be later reviewed, rewritten and ignored (all of