William Rawle Quotes

The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government.

No government can long be secure without a formidable Opposition.

It is becoming more widely acknowledged that it is better to have a good constitution than not having a perfect one.

As long as there are only 3 to 4 people on the floor, the country is in good hands. It's only when you have 50 to 60 in the Senate that you want to be concerned.

All, or nearly all, the advantage there is in fixing any constitutional limits to the power of a government, is simply to give notice to the government of the point at which it will meet with resistance.

Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.

Thank God for some Republican control of one branch of the government.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

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.

The state’s secret privilege is the most basic of government privileges—it protects survival of the state, from which all other institutions derive.

The government is formed and the seat of power is safe.

Our form of government may remain notwithstanding legislation of decision, but, as long ago observed, it is with governments, as with religion, the form may survive the substance of the faith.

No government, no head of government can last if the people feel that this government is not going to defend the security of the country.

We must judge the form of government by its general tendency, not by happy accidents.

It may seem obvious. A government that cannot provide security for its citizens will soon find itself running a weak or failed state.

The very existence of a bicameral legislature is itself another defense of the status quo.

You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.

… all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state. It is a reason which I own I cannot penetrate.

The shape and composition of the government is important. We haven't reached a point where politics and economics have been totally divorced from each other.

I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth.

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers.

There is only one government in the Philippines and that is how it will stay.

America's greatness is due in no small measure to our system of government, in which power and authority are deliberately divided. The separation of powers is not a mere "technicality." It is the centerpiece of our Constitution. Our freedoms depend upon it in the future, just as they have in the past.

In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

Thank God for the founding fathers, who set up three separate branches of government. And the media acting as the Fourth Estate.