Henry David Thoreau Quotes

There is no question on earth on which a Senator of the United States may not want to address himself.

Logically, in a society ostensibly grounded on representative government, it would seem reasonable that a majority of the people in a State would elect a majority of that State’s legislators.

In this country the government responds to the people, not the other way around.

In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives.

I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober, second thought of the people shall be law.

Whereas the constitution of … Holland is in its principles a popular representation, it is necessary that the right of the people be duly ascertained; that the members of the States be rendered responsible to them for their conduct and be precluded from taking any decisive step without their consent …

The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.

Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.

And if this House is to be scared, by whatever influences, from its duty, to receive and hear the petitions of the People, then I shall send my voice beyond the walls of this Capitol for redress.

We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

Government is not a bottom line enterprise. You can get yourself elected ... but you can't fire the legislature if they won't do what you want.

It is the healthiest thing in a democracy when the people who are elected exert power.

What does a vote for impeachment really mean? It is a vote to nullify the most sacrosanct institution in any democracy, the ballot box.

The respect of the American people for the Congress has been increased. They can see the Congress as a vigilant Congress.

We enjoy bashing Congress because they are us.

Term-limitation is the latest manifestation of public irresponsibility.

Frequent elections by the people furnish the only protection, under the constitution, against the abuse of acknowledged legislative power.

We need citizens willing to make Congress accountable for the travesty which passes for government today.

It is against the enterprising ambition of this department [the legislature] that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.

As the power of the populace increases, the wisdom of its statesmen, who concern themselves with external affairs, decreases proportionately.

THE representatives of the good people of this commonwealth in general assembly convened, having maturely considered the answers of sundry states in the Union, to their resolutions passed at the last session, respecting certain unconstitutional laws of Congress, commonly called the alien and sedition laws, would be faithless indeed to themselves, and to those they represent, were they silently to acquiesce….

What Congress and the popular sentiment approve is rarely defeated by reason of constitutional objections.

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of man change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.

The wisdom and discretion of Congress ... are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments