Thomas T. Connally Quotes

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.

Our Founding Fathers created the Executive Branch to implement and enforce the laws written by Congress, and vested this power in the president.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

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.

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

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

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

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

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.

The authority of Congress must be respected …. The President must confine himself to his executive duties—to obey and execute, not make the laws.

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

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

... the opinion of the Supreme Court ... ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court, must each be guided by its own opinion of the constitution.

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.

Every American war has brought a struggle between Congress and the Executive over war powers. The Constitution is somewhat annoyingly ambiguous on the point declaring that the President is Commander in Chief but empowering Congress to provide for the common defense, declare war, and raise and support armies.

We have an inherently weak institution in the Presidency. It was intentionally set up that way by the founders.

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

I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won.

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.

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 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.

The framers of our constitution had the sagacity to vest in Congress all implied powers: that is, powers necessary and proper to carry into effect all the delegated powers wherever vested.

No one branch of the U.S. government should have supremacy over the other two.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.