Albert B. Cummins Quotes

Unfortunately, once a person who is willing to act against the interests of the United States assumes the awesome powers of the presidency, the laws and investigative techniques we use in ordinary national security situations are woefully inadequate.

We, as a Congress, have to stand up to a president who acts like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on September 11.

The filibuster is the most important check on raw Presidential power.

I suppose this [Watergate] is an example of the dangers of letting down your guard against increased executive powers–no matter what the circumstances. Not that the danger was not real, but in this case the risk of the remedy was as great as the disease. There was a willingness to accept without challenge the Executive's claim to increased power. That's why we acted as we did, and it was a mistake.

If the president were to displace from office a man whose merits require that he should continue in it… he will be impeachable by this House before the Senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.

If Truman wins, by God I'll make sure the President of the United States can speak to the country whenever he wishes.

Getting members of Congress to do things they don’t want to do is a crucial part of being President.

It is highly improper of the President of the United States to employ extra-legal pressures in an effort to defeat the amendment …. The President has no constitutional role to play in the amending process.

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.

In their hours of timidity the Congress becomes subservient to the importunities of organized minorities that the President comes more and more to stand as the champion of the rights of the whole country.

Congress has a lot of powers which people, especially those in the executive branch, don't like to talk about.

The President can't deliver us. I'm not a package to be picked up at a department store.

It's very dangerous ... to confuse the confuse the identity and fortune of the President with the success and fortune of the nation.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

The President … does not originate laws or resolutions; he takes no part in the deliberations on them during their progress; he does not act in relation to them indirectly by advice or interference of any sort, until they have passed both houses: it is only when their operations are concluded that his power begins.

The President sets the policies and Congress does not. Our lawmakers in Washington ratify and implement what the President wants, but if he is a strong leader and can hold his own party together, even with the majority of the opposition against him he usually can win over enough members of Congress to carry what legislation he really feels is essential.

The president may have the raw constitutional power to, say, squelch an investigation or to pardon a close associate. But if he does so not to serve the public interest, but to serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act.

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

It's an intolerable abuse of power to have employees who are supposed to be advancing the public interest actually working on political campaigns.

There has been so much power concentrated. There is no leash on that power anymore and Americans face the situation that this power is getting momentum with each passing year with each presidency.

The pressure of special interests, the demands of special sections of the state, the needs of friends, all must be subordinated to the good of the people as a whole.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

It is an abuse of power, when you are President of the United States, to use the White House to single out a single news organization, and castigate them and try to delegitimize them.

The president doesn't order the military to seize political opponents. He doesn't order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.