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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• The 16th Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people's wealth at its disposal.

  Frank Chodorov

  Independent, Rights, Government

  Frank Chodorov (2007). “Income Tax: Root of All Evil”, p.46, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• What Obama did wrong with executive power is he tried to change the law. He tried to ignore the law. And under the Constitution, Article I, all legislative authority is vested in Congress.

  Ted Cruz

  Law, Constitution, Authority

  Source: time.com

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• I am committed against every thing which in my judgment, may weaken, endanger, or destroy (the Constitution) ... and especially against all extension of Executive power; and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the Government itself.

  Daniel Webster

  Country, Government, People

  Daniel Webster (1854). “The Works”, p.336

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• A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.

  John Adams

  Exercise, Two, Essentials

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.87, Hackett Publishing

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• Taxes are the source of life for the bureaucracy, the army and the court, in short, for the whole apparatus of the executive power. Strong government and heavy taxes are identical.

  Karl Marx

  Strong, Army, Government

  David McLellan, Karl Marx (1972). “The thought of Karl Marx: an introduction”

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• Under Article II, all executive power is vested in one president of the United States. The regulatory state is Congress's efforts to undermine the president's authority. And my hope is we will see a president use that constitutional authority to rein in the uncontrollable, unelected bureaucrats and to rescind regulations.

  Ted Cruz

  Effort, President, Use

  Source: time.com

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