James Madison Quotes

It is high time for some congressional oversight backbone.

If atheism solved all human woe, then the Soviet Union would have been an empire of joy and dancing bunnies instead of the land of corpses.

…the War Department was…something that stood between the Army and Congress; that way to get legislation for the Army was no to try to educate Congress and the people to Army methods, but to educate the War Department to congressional methods.

If we in Congress cannot in time of war regulate the behavior of our troops, then we have no power.

We [Congress] weren't elected by the people of the District [of Columbia] to be the city's government, but we do have a federal responsibility.

As the Executive cannot decide the question of war on the affirmative side, neither ought it do so on the negative side by preventing the competent body [Congress] from deliberating on the question.

Every business action of the individual is supervised and hedged about with red tape and paternal restrictions.

It is up to Congress to see to it that its powers do not slip through its fingers

Alien ownership of land should be prohibited…. all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers

After the Republican party got into power it turned around and granted the public domain to corporations and opened it to private speculators .... in violation of the principle announced in the platform of 1852. The land grants were a mistake, to draw it mildly and we may as well all admit it now ; it was a great wrong to grant a single acre of the public domain to corporations.... Every acre of the public lands should have been held for homes for the people, under a well-guarded homestead law. That was the proper way to deal with the public domain; but instead of that it was thrown open to ruthless speculators, who have speculated in it until the poor people of this country to-day have to fight for standing room

The idea of giving to the homeless citizen a homestead is a humane one; but our public-land policy ought to be confined to that, and no one should be allowed to speculate in the common inheritance of all.

Senators are a Constitutional impediment to the smooth functioning of staff.

Congress has really serious oversight powers over Intelligence Agencies that they have not exercised in recent years.

America’s forests and waters must come into the hands of not a few men who speculate in them, but be distributed among many men, each of whom intends to make a home upon the land.

[Andrew] Jackson could be woefully wrong, He was an unapologetic defender of slavery and the main architect of Native American Removal. Even before he was President his many Indian wars destroyed much of tribal culture in a headlong grab for land.

It's Congress' job to keep an eye on the other agencies and the workings of the entire government. It is our constitutional duty.

Complying with requests from Congress is not optional. It is mandatory.

I respect the Congress's oversight responsibility.

The American people should not be footing the bill for federal employees who stonewall Congress or rewarding government officials' bad behavior.

There is an important role for a United States senator as a check and balance on the president of the United States.

Defending Congressional authority should not be a partisan issue.

As members of Congress, we have to pursue the Congressional Review Act legislation as soon as possible.

Congress, the legislative stone in America's urethra.

The discussion about food doesn't make any sense without discussion at the same time of land, land use, land policy, fertility maintenance, and farm infrastructure maintenance.

The Communal Land Rights Bill then said, since there would be those collectives set up in terms of the other legislation, there was no need for them to set up other structures to deal with the land issues.