William Moore McCulloch Quotes

as a barrier between the central government and the respective states and their citizens.

Texans can run Texas without the federal government telling them what to do.

Central government's such as Canada's have become too small to deal with the big global issues, yet they remain too large and distant to deal with problems of local control.

Our whole history tells us that the national government has been far less corrupt and incompetent than state and local government … Time and time again the federal government has had to rescue people from the states and local governments. If we left it to the states, we would still have slavery.

Many states have legalized medicinal marijuana. I believe the president and the Department of Justice ought to respect the will of these separate states... We are capable of self-government. We don't need some federal gendarme to come and tell us what to do. I believe comity toward the states...ought to govern the policy.

The States have always borne primary responsibility for operating the machinery of criminal justice within their borders, and adapting it to their peculiar circumstances.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

Where there is only a national representative government without local self-government, there is no liberty as we understand it

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system that the state governments will in all possible contingencies afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority.

Our best protection against bigger government in Washington is better government in the states.

Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work.

In my eight years as governor, I did everything I could to resist federal control of issues that belong to the states.

They wish for a general government of unity, as they see that the local legislatures must naturally and necessarily tend to retard the general government.

I'm a strong supporter of states' rights to do what they need.

What is good for Alaska is good for the country. Transferring power from the federal government to the states provides opportunity to all states, not just Alaska.

It is a fundamental principle of American law that the regulation of the local police of all the domestic affairs of a State belong to the State itself, and not to the Federal Government.

We cannot accede to the proposition ... that the citizens of the several states are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular state.

While men differ in their natural endowments, they must be treated as equal citizens in the eyes of the law; that they should possess equality of opportunity and be afforded some minimum of social benefits.

The more responsibility you can move toward local government, the better of you're going to be … City governments do better than their State governments in terms of accountability.

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

Governors would like the money to be left on a stump and let them come and pick it up and spend it where they want. Governors like to spread money around rather than target it.

Was, then, the American Revolution effected, was the American Confederacy formed, was the precious blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty, and safety, but that the government of the individual States, that particular municipal establishments, might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty?

Whatever rights as to each of these enumerated civil (not political) matters the State may confer upon one race ... shall be held by all races in equality … It secures … equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races.

States should have enormous input into the decisions that affect them.