Executive Power Quotes

• The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

  Daniel Webster

  Freedom, Political, Age

  Daniel Webster, Edwin Percy Whipple (2001). “The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster”, p.385, Beard Books

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• When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Umpires, Law, Liberty

  Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (2015). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.206, Library of Alexandria

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• A good president does with executive power what Pablo Picasso did with paint. He takes bills into new and slightly discomfiting territory. He puts extra eyes on policies. He moves the mouth of the Supreme Court from where it should be to where it must be.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Moving, Eye, President

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• It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

  Andrew Jackson

  Government, Law, Practice

  Andrew Jackson (1835). “Annual messages, veto messages, protest, &c. of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States”, p.263

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• The peculiar danger of executive power is that it executes.

  Michael Parenti

  Political, Peculiar, Danger

  Michael Parenti (2010). “Democracy for the Few”, p.227, Cengage Learning

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• The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

  James Madison

  Government, Hands, Independent Judiciary

  The Federalist no. 47 (1788)

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• Loyalty of the law-making power to the executive power was one of the dangers the political fathers foretold.

  Garet Garrett

  Loyalty, Father, Law

  Garet Garrett (1944). “The Revolution was”

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• Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

  Michael Palin

  Lying, Government, Holy Grail

  "Fictional character: Dennis". "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", 1975.

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• Making recess appointments when the Senate isn't in recess is neither rational nor moderate. It's a raw misuse of executive power by a president whose love of government is his most vulnerable spot with the electorate.

  John Podhoretz

  Government, President, Vulnerable

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• I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

  George W. Bush

  Humor, Political, Wells

  George W. Bush's Remarks in Question and Answer Session with the Press, georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. January 29, 2001.

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• Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Exercise, Government, President

  Nixon, Richard M. (1975). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1973”, p.185, Best Books on

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• I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America.

  Barack Obama

  America, Trying, President

  Townhall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, March 31, 2008.

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• The Independent or Congregational theory includes two principles; first, that the governing and executive power in the Church is in the brotherhood; and secondly, that the Church organization is complete in each worshipping assembly, which is independent of every other.

  Charles Hodge

  Independent, Organization, Two

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• I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

  Noam Chomsky

  Accumulation, Executives

  "Noam Chomsky on Venezuela - the transcript". Interview with Rory Carroll, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2011.

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• Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

  Immanuel Kant

  Opposites, Liberty, Democracy

  Immanuel Kant (1932). “Perpetual peace”

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• Civilization has developed executive powers far beyond its understanding.

  Maude Meagher

  Civilization, Understanding, Executives

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• The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period (A.D. 98-180) of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines.

  Edward Gibbon

  Two, Government, Years

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.48, Modern Library

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• [T]hough individual oppression may now and then proceed fro the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter . . .

  Alexander Hamilton

  People, Justice, Liberty

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.144, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself. The inconvenience of meeting to exercise these powers in person, and their inaptitude to exercise them, induce them to appoint special organs to declare their legislative will, to judge and to execute it. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Law, Judging

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.378, Penguin

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• That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.

  George Mason

  Taken, Law, Two

  "The Federal and State Constitutions Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America" compiled and edited by Newton Thorpe, Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1909.

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• Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Fighting, Two

  "Noam Chomsky on Venezuela - the transcript". Interview with Rory Carroll, www.theguardian.com. July 4, 2011.

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• When a monarchy gradually transforms itself into a republic, the executive power there preserves titles, honors, respect, and even money long after it has lost the reality of power. The English, having cut off the head of one of their kings and chased another off the throne, still go on their knees to address the successors of those princes. On the other hand, when a republic falls under one man's yoke, the ruler's demeanor remains simple, unaffected, and modest, as if he had not already been raised above everybody.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Kings, Fall, Cutting

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• It equally proves, that though individual oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive. For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Mean, Judging, Long

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.380, Coventry House Publishing

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• And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Liberty, Unions, Lasts

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.380, Coventry House Publishing

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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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