David Hume 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.

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

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

[Congress is] the chief aggrandizer of the Executive.

Federal bureaucracies are creatures of Congress, not the executive.

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

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

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.

The judicial branch of the government is the least dangerous because … it has no influence over either the sword or the purse.

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 responsible to the Senate and will not submit my actions to them.

I do not believe that we [Congress] should allow him [the President] to nullify acts of Congress by executive fiat. There is not one syllable in the Constitution which authorizes the President to exercise such power.

As the Texas Attorney General I saw it every day: the struggle for power between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

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.

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

Does not the President ... submit this subject to Congress for their sanction? Does he not recognize the principle ... that no treaty is binding until we pass the laws for executing it?”

The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the legislature against and upon the encroachments of the executive.

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.

Under our constitutional system, the executive executes the laws that Congress has passed. It should not be executing laws that Congress has rejected.

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 Supreme Court and courts in general have been usurping the role of the legislative branch of government.

It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers.

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

The difference between the departments undoubtedly is, that the legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.