U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) picked up the endorsement of one of the leaders of the modern conservative movement on Thursday in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. ( Reuters photo )

Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) picked up Thursday the endorsement of Dr. Robert P. George, a scholar and teacher of constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law at Princeton University.

"I have known Ted for over two decades, since he was my student at Princeton," George said. "He is among the most brilliant students I have taught and one of the most principled and dedicated public servants I know. But the reason I am recommending Ted to my fellow citizens goes beyond our years of friendship—I am endorsing Ted because he understands the Constitution and has spent his entire career defending it."

George, who has been described by the New York Times as our nation's "most influential conservative Christian thinker," holds Princeton University's McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence. He also is founder and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton.

He has served the nation as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the President's Council on Bioethics, and as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is the author of a number of books, including In Defense of Natural Law, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, and Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, and co-author of What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense and Embryo: A Defense of Human Life.

"No one has been stronger than Ted in standing up for religious liberty and other fundamental constitutional freedoms," he said. "Moreover, he understands and is determined to restore the basic structural principles of the Constitution that our Founding Fathers knew were the true bulwarks protecting liberty: the separation of powers; federalism; the concept of the national government as a government of delegated and enumerated—and thus limited—powers; the understanding of courts as faithful interpreters of law who have no authority to read things into the Constitution that aren't there, or read things out of the Constitution that are."

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George is the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, and the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. He is a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute and has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.

"In order to protect religious liberty, restore the right of the people to protect innocent human life in all stages and conditions and the institution of marriage as the union of husband and wife, and preserve other key constitutional values, we need a Republican president who has both the record and the judgment to nominate judges and justices who are faithful constitutionalists," he said. "Ted Cruz will not only devote political capital to ensuring that every nominee will protect our constitutional freedoms, but he will foster a culture, from the top down, that honors the Constitution—the one thing that, despite our differences, binds us all together as Americans."

Last week, George, along with more than 30 other Catholic leaders, authored "An Appeal to our Fellow Catholics," an article in National Review Online urging Catholics and "all men and women of goodwill" to support Cruz as a "genuinely reformist candidate" and to oppose a Donald Trump candidacy, stating the GOP front-runner is "manifestly unfit" to be president of the United States.

"I am honored to have Professor George's endorsement," Cruz said. "Professor George has been a pre-eminent voice defending the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty in the 21st century. I've known Professor George over twenty-five years; he was my thesis adviser in college, and is a friend. He is an intellectual powerhouse who never cowers to liberal academia, and he speaks the truth with a clarity and conviction that moves hearts and minds.

"Professor George is a man of faith. He represents the vibrancy of thought in Christianity, and I've been grateful to fight alongside him for years in defending our God-given rights. We are delighted to have his leadership as we continue to make this election a referendum on our constitutional liberties."

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