Franklin D. Roosevelt Quotes

The independence of the legislative arm must be respected. I had little taste for forcing Congressional action.

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

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

If our forefathers had wanted Congress to be the Commander in Chief, they would have said so.

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

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.

Most Americans look upon the President as superior to the Congress and the Supreme Court, about whose powers and functions they know very little;

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

If I could only be President and Congress too, for just 10 minutes.

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

Congress ... is far more than the simple, limited advisory council that most Presidents would like to maintain.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

The President may be right in how he reads the Constitution. But he also may be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, the President, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government?

Potential to alter permanently the political relationship between the President and Congress is enormous.... [It would] outmode contemporary informal negotiation processes between the political branches.

A committee of the Senate ought to confer with a committee of the President through a head of a department and not with the Chief Magistrate, for in the latter case a committee of that House is equal to the President.

Congress is always looking for occasions to differ from the President.

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.

It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusing to them his assent.

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Today, the most important political instrument in the hands of the opposition is the presidential veto.

The President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress itself is powerless to invade it.

Congressmen take an independent oath to protect and defend the Constitution. They work with the President; they do not work for the President.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

You run Washington DC though the House. The Senate gets in the way. The President gets in the way.

For 22 years [as a Senator] I worried about all the power at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Now [as Treasury Secretary] I worry about all the power at the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue.