Ted Kennedy Quotes

No president has the right to say he is judge, jury and executioner.

The President has the power to wage war but not against U. S. laws…. He is a President; not a king.

She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] wrote - and this is one we should all remember - she wrote that even war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. She held that even this president is not above the law.

The president doesn't have the authority to change the law or ignore the law, and that's what Obama tried to do.

Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. From the nature of the Constitution, ... I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

We can't give excessive, unfettered power to a president to act alone, to bind an entire country to a set of principles, a set of rules that the president, him or herself, makes.

I think you have to be concerned about any presidential executive order because it has the power of law until it's knocked down by an act of Congress or a court.

I believe that the power to declare war is most important in limiting the powers of the national government in regard to the rights of its citizens, but that it does not require Congress to give its approval before the president uses force abroad. I do not believe that the framers of the Constitution understood the power to declare to mean "authorize" or "commence" war. That does not mean that the separation of powers or checks and balances will not work.

I have allowed the president to pick his political appointees…But I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution.

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the president would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent.

No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?

We have gone into a war, an unelected president sending us into a war that the Congress frankly had no right, I believe, to authorize.

If a president can change some laws, can he change ALL laws? Can he change election laws? Can he change discrimination laws? Are there any laws, under your theory, that he actually HAS to enforce?

What do we do with a president who can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or that part?

I think where I get frustrated at times was the belief that the president can do anything if he just decides he wants to do it.

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has entered national crises, often preventing presidents from doing what they want to do. Indeed, sometimes the court's verdicts are not vindicated by history. And yet presidents have complied with those rulings.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The Bush administration is not arguing that the President is above the law; they are arguing that the President is the law.

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

When a President asserts constitutional powers he needs to be pretty certain he has those powers.

No branch of government should ever be able to combine the power of the sword with the power of the purse.

The power to make war is vested in Congress and not in the President. Congress has no constitutional authority to grant such authority to the president.

This talk of blindly following the President in everything pertaining to war—except as to his conduct of military operation in the field—is blithering idiocy.... The Constitution still abides. It defines the powers and duties of Congress. It gave Congress every war power, except that it left with the President the right to direct all military operation in the field. It gave him no other war power.