Government Restraint Quotes

An elective despotism [i.e. of the Congress] was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

I think that less presidential interference the better.

I was born a limited-government person. I've always had this streak going through me.

A President is not elected to do as he pleases. He is elected to do as the people please.

We are not at liberty to add one jot of power to the national government beyond what the people have granted by the constitution

Let a durable and firm peace be established and this government be confined rigidly to the few great objects for which it was instituted, leaving the States to contend in generous rivalry to develop, by the arts of peace, their respective resources, and a scene of prosperity and happiness would follow, heretofore unequaled on the globe.

That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

It must never be forgotten ... that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power.

It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

We are in desperate need of a return to limited, constitutional government.

No king should rule absolutely, like a dictator.

I would bring the government back to what it was intended to be - a plain economical government.

For liberty to expand, government must shrink. For the economy to grow, government must get out of the way.

Freedom for the government is enslavement for the people. When the government is free the people are enslaved. When the government is contained then the people are free.

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take horses or carts of any Freeman for transportation, unless with the consent of that freeman.

The Constitution was not written to restrain the citizen's behavior, it was writtne to restrain the government's behavior.

The chief duty of governments, in so far as they are coercive, is to restrain those who would interfere with the inalienable rights of the individual, among which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to worship God according to the dictates of ones conscience.

I think we have lost track of a core Republican principle of limited government and balancing budgets and restraining federal spending. We have got to change the system.

Government has no right to make itself a party in any debates respecting the principles or mode of forming or of changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from them, are established.