Chief Magistrate Quotes

Heaven cannot support two suns, nor earth two masters, nor Asia two kings

Are you willing to let any President choose what laws to enforce and what laws to change?

He who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen . . . should share with him. . . . Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.

A committee of the Senate ought to confer with a committee of the President through a head of a department and not with the Chief Magistrate, for in the latter case a committee of that House is equal to the President.

If a great multitude of men should call one of their number King, unless this instituted Prince, appear in greater visible splendor then others, can reward those that obey and please him, and do the contrary to others; his Institution signifies little, even although he chance to have greater corporal or mental faculties, than any other of the number

A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the states [from the Union]. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it.

Although... the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a party only, but of the whole people of the United States.

They [the American Indians] have claims on the magnanimity and, I may add, on the justice of this nation which we must all fill. We should become their real benefactors; we should perform the office of their Great Father, the endearing title which they emphatically give to the Chief Magistrate of our Union.

If the Chief Magistrate of a nation may be an irreligious man, with impunity, who may not?

We need quick justice and we strong justice. Because what we have right now [The U. S. Justice system] is a joke and a laughing stock.

Can you be cruel and proud? For a great man among the commonalty, and in particular among such as we shall have to do with, will not be thought anything worth if he be not feared and dreaded, and at times renowned for his cruelty. It is thus that the Flemings wish to be governed; and among them men's lives should be no more valued, nor should they have more pity shown to them, than swallows or larks, which are caught in the proper season for the table.

In every political community there must be one supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled, authority.

… infinite wisdom had seen fit to put that people under a more excellent form of government, than any nation has ever had. God himself was their King. And they might have been long happy under a government, in which, the Ruler of the world condescended himself to execute the office of Chief-Magistrate. But such was their impiety and folly, that in many instances they greatly abused and perverted the privileges they were favoured with.

Men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the executive be under the law..

The confidence and respect shown by my countrymen in calling me to be the Chief Magistrate of a Republic holding a high rank among the nations of the earth have inspired me with feelings of the most profound gratitude.

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.

It would be as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief magistrate to the people, as it would be to refer a trial of colors to a blind man.

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.

Good government is the preservation of liberty, which in turn requires the absence of arbitrary, discretionary power in the chief magistrate.

Was any government through its chief magistrate ever more vilely prostituted?

Whatever your views are, we have a Constitution and we have a Bill of Rights, and we have a law of the land. Two thirds of Democrats in the Senate and three fourths of the Republicans. I signed it, and I am going to enforce it, and I am going to observe it. And I think anyone who is worthy of the high office of President is going to do the same thing.

The moral influence of the Chief Magistrate of the United State would be, under Heaven, the best aid we could invoke for the protection of our persecuted brethren under the Mohammedan domain.

Nothing can be imagined better, or more perfect, than the administration of a virtuous man. Besides, when a single man is master, it is more difficult for the enemy to discover his secret counsels and resolutions. When the government is in the hands of many, it is impossible but enmity and hatred must arise among them; for, as every one desires his opinion to be followed, they gradually become mutual enemies

Good Heavens! What liberties I have been taking with one of the potentates of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above allusions to President Lincoln's little peculiarities (already well known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem it proper to say a word or two, in regard to him, of unfeigned respect and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties, and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to himself to take the power out of President Lincoln's hands into his own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified such designs. But the president is teachable by events, and had now spent a year in a very arduous course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime minister.