Dan Kohn writes: “It is shocking that there is not more of an outcry over the unlawful detainment of radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ suspect Jose Padilla.” The old bleat that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” is brought up, and that’s the hook for my comment.
Lincoln may have said it first; it fits Lincoln’s pattern – a plausible homily which, if examined closely in the light of real history rather than fairytales, proves (if anything) the opposite of the proposition in support of which it was invoked.
Lincoln seemed (in this and other comments) to think that the Constitution was handed down by the government, as kings sometimes ‘grant’ constitutions. Naturally no king could be expected to hand over his life; so if the sovereign is in danger its safety must take precedence over the terms of the ‘grant’.
But some of us, who were not born in log cabins and did not have to walk miles to borrow a book, know that the US Constitution is not a grant by the government to the people of permission to enjoy certain liberties so long as they do not inconvenience the government; it is the exact opposite: permission by the people to the government to exist so long as it keeps faithfully to its purpose: “to preserve these Rights”.
No indeed, the Constitution is not a suicide pact: the people who made it did not consent unconditionally to throw away their life, liberty and property for the convenience, or even the survival, of the entity thereby created.
This article says the phrase is more recent: