George F. Will Quotes

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.

But Connecticut and Rhode Island have originally realized the most perfect polity as to a legislature.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

The president is the government.

The framers of our Constitution came up with two major contributions to the art of government. The first was the idea of an executive not dependent on the political support of the legislature. The second was the idea of the judiciary independent of the executive and legislative branches.

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

Maintaining checks and balances on the power of the Judiciary Branch and the other two branches is vital to keep the form of government set up by our Founding Fathers.

The theory of our governments is opposed to the deposit of unlimited power anywhere. The executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of these governments are all of limited and defined powers

The most important benefit that I can confer on the country by my Presidency is to insist upon the entire independence of the executive and legislative branches of government

The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it.

Our President is not a King, nor our senate a House of Lords.

By a single Executive, there will be danger of Monarchy or Tyranny. If the Executive consist of three persons, they may act without danger. If of one, he will be dependent on the Legislatures & cannot be impeached till the Expiration of his Office. A single Executive is against the Genius of America.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

As for us BRITONS, thank Heaven, we have a better Sense of Government deliver’d to us from our Ancestors. We have the Notion of A PUBLIC and A CONSTITUTION; how a Legislative, and how an Executive is model’d.

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive.

For one branch of government to control each of the other two is not a good thing.

The collective judgement of the Congress, with all its faults, could be superior to that of one man who makes the final decision, in the executive.

The transformation of the United States from a traditional republic to a democratic nation run in large measure by a single executive took a couple of hundred years.

The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.

In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment.

We didn't pass any constitutional amendments that affected the executive branch while I was governor.

The founding leaders of our country believed in a three-part sharing of governmental power, with each branch jealously watching the actions of the other two.