James Madison Quotes

The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate.

The courts are truly the least dangerous of the three branches of our government.

The judicial branch of the government is the least dangerous because … it has no influence over either the sword or the purse.

When it comes to the separation of powers, the Constitution makes it look pretty simple: Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them and the judiciary adjudicates them. In reality, though, the lines between the branches are a little blurrier than they seem on paper.

We are sworn to uphold the Constitution and law. And it has to be consistent and agreed upon with three branches of government - one can't overrule the other two.

As the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of the United States are co-ordinate, and each equally bound to support the Constitution, it follows that each must in the exercise of its functions be guided by the text of the Constitution according to its own interpretation of it.

If you want to right-size executive power relative to the other branches of government, the best way to do that is to have a healthy Congress in which the two parties are debating, disagreeing, but also occasionally working together to pass legislation.

Under our system of three branches of government, the courts ultimately are the checks on the legislative and executive branches when they exceed or even abuse the limits of their power.

A question arises whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one Assembly.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

As the Texas Attorney General I saw it every day: the struggle for power between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

It has been the judiciary that has preserved the Constitution rather than the other two separated powers.

People assume that the executive branch has more power than it actually has. Only the legislative branch can create the laws; the executive branch cannot create the laws. So, if the executive branch tries to create a branch one side or the other... you go back to the founders of the nation. They set up a system that ensures that it doesn't happen.

I think Donald Trump understands there's a Constitution. And that those separate but equal branches of government give us a limited government. And he believes that.

We had so many different presidents, including Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln - there were other founders like Hamilton, Adams - who made it very clear that the courts can't make a law. The Constitution is expressly clear that that's a power reserved to Congress.

The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government. The Supreme Court is not the supreme branch. And for God's sake, it isn't the Supreme Being. It is the Supreme Court.

The separation of powers is about legislative powers. It isn't about discussion or words.

Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers.

The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principle, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period.

Constitutional interpretation is not the business of the Court only, but also properly the business of all branches of government.

I hope that the American public understands that we have three levels of government. We have the (unintelligible) the executive, but there's legislative and the judicial, and the legislative obviously need to be just doing their job.