Legislature Quotes - Page 8

I am aware that by many persons, it is considered in the nature of a joke to to become a candidate and to be elected as a member of the Legislature.

Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr.

Political, Politics, Members

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I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.

Thomas Jefferson

Doctors, Virginia, Speak

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Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to feel better about themselves, and in the late 1980s led the California legislature to form a Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem. Yet Baumeister has shown that the theory could not be more spectacularly, hilariously, achingly wrong. Violence is a problem not of too little self-esteem but of too much, particularly when it is unearned.

Steven Pinker

Self Esteem, School, Kids

Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.560, Penguin

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Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Powerful, World, Progressive

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Spending comes just as natural to liberals in Minnesota and the Minnesota legislature as bashing decency comes to the editorial board of our major metropolitan newspapers.

Michele Bachmann

Boards, Minnesota, Natural

Edwatch Conference, October 10-11, 2003.

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I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic - it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out.

James Madison

Unjust, Enlightened, Shackles

James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.21, University of Virginia Press

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[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.

Thomas Jefferson

Government, Law, Judging

Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

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[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character . . . makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.

James Madison

Character, Law, Finals

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It does look like it's almost like South Africa to this extent: You have a white - what's the word - feeble minority. It's losing its majority status. And it says, the Republican Party, 'We can only get so many white votes. So, we got to reduce the votes of others.' It does look that way. Only the - maybe you're non-partisan, but only Republicans have pushed this in these 31 states. No Democratic legislature. You gotta look at the pattern here. You talk about profiling. I'm sorry, Republicans do this stuff.

Chris Matthews

Sorry, Party, White

"The Top 20 Worst Chris Matthews Quotes Calling Obama Critics Racist" by Geoffrey Dickens, www.newsbusters.org. November 7, 2013.

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there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.

James Madison

Law, Giving, Negative

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison (2010). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.508, Modern Library

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This partisan decision by a packed GOP state Supreme Court takes away worker's rights to bargain for a safe place to work. It underscores the need to vote for me in Aug. 12th primary. As governor, I will call a special session of the Legislature on day one to restore workers' rights, health care and retirement.

Chris Larson

Retirement, Rights, Decision

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What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature.

Michele Bachmann

Justice, Judging, President

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All the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture where it would have produced addition to the common mass It nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness instead of industry and morality It has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters whichever way it is directed.

Thomas Jefferson

Mean, Agriculture, Balance

Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson memorial association of the United States (1907). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election . . . They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.

Alexander Hamilton

Powerful, Mean, Distribution Of Power

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.109, Rowman & Littlefield

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I consider the difference between a system founded on
the legislatures only, and one founded on the people, to be the true difference between a league or treaty and a constitution.

James Madison

Differences, People, League

James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yate's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”

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The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies.... A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.

James Madison

War, Army, Government

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If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

James Madison

Freedom, Law, People

James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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It is the peculiar province of the legislature to prescribe general rules for the government of society; the application of those rules to individuals in society would seem to be the duty of other departments.

John Marshall

Government, Peculiar, Individual

John Marshall, Joseph Potter Cotton (2000). “The Constitutional Decisions of John Marshall”, p.245, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

John Marshall

Government, Law, Void

Marbury v. Madison (1803)

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That instability is inherent in the nature of popular governments, I think very disputable … A representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislature, executive, and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable.

Alexander Hamilton

Exercise, Thinking, Government

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No arbitrary regulation, no act of the legislature, can add anything to the capital of the country; it can only force it into artificial channels.

John Ramsay McCulloch

Country, Add, Arbitrary

John Ramsay McCulloch (1849). “The Principles of Political Economy: With Some Inquiries Respecting Their Application, and a Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Science”, p.226, Edinburgh : A. and C. Black

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The power of declaring war being with the Legislature, the Executive should do nothing necessarily committing them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, which will be preferred by a great many.

Thomas Jefferson

War, Great Men, Preference

Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.213, Algora Publishing

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It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.

Walter Cronkite

World Government, Yield, Order

"United Nations, National Sovereignty and the Future of the World". Speech upon receiving the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award, the UN Delegates Dining Room, www.thirdworldtraveler.com. October 19, 1999.

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The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey.

George Mason

Law, Punishment, Earth

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All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy - making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Ignorance, Men, Law

Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.312, Library of Alexandria

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