Constitutional Balance Quotes

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

In effect, Hillary Clinton would be abolishing the lawmaking powers of Congress in order to write her own laws from the Oval Office. And you see what bad judgment she has. She has seriously bad judgment.

Our constitutional system is defined by a balance between the public's need for transparency and the government's need to have a zone of secrecy around decision making. Both are important, yet they are mutually exclusive.

No merely legislative body could control a single, concentrated Executive ….

If there is one certain truth to be collected from the history of all ages, it is this: that the people's rights and liberties, and the democratic mixture in a constitution, can never be preserved without a strong executive, or, in other words without separating the executive power from the legislature.

Organs of military command and political organs should try not to interfere on their respective spheres.

It's been 80 years since the Senate has confirmed a Supreme Court nominee who was nominated during an election. And particularly when the court hangs in the balance, it makes no sense whatsoever to give Barack Obama the power to jam through a judge in the final election year.

We just need to make sure that we get somebody in there that respects the Constitution, respects the rule of law, that restores the proper balance between the states and federal government. I have great confidence Jeb Bush would do that.

If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.

When the Constitution gave us the right to bear arms, it also made us responsible for using them properly. It's not fair of us as citizens to lean more heavily on one side of that equation than on the other.

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

That's the fundamental question. Do we have a check and balance system? Do we have three equal branches or do we have one supreme branch, not just the Supreme Court? That's the fundamental question.

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

Congressional power has not so much been usurped by the Presidency as given up to the Presidency by Congress.

PM Modi's irresponsible behaviour and an overzealous Supreme Court will damage the Indian federal structure.

Our runaway judiciary is badly in need of restraint by Congress.

I am confident that Jeff Sessions will do his part to restore the delicate balance between the states and the federal government that the Founders envisioned.

They wish for a general government of unity, as they see that the local legislatures must naturally and necessarily tend to retard the general government.

We had carefully to avoid any infringement of the prerogative of the crown and the power of parliament—and yet in duty bound fully to assert the rights and privileges of the colonies.

We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body

I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.

No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand off as the coequal branch the Constitution made it.