Walter E. Williams Quotes

I start with a concern about the growth of federal government. I start with a perspective concerned about the growth of that power, and containing it within the bounds of the Constitution.

The powers of the federal government ... result from the compact to which the states are parties, [and are] limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact.

Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.

The poor Constitution itself is hardly paid any attention to. It's necessary to ignore it because most of what government does these days is clearly unconstitutional. The original idea, as expressed by James Madison, was that states would do 95 percent of the governing. Today, they are little more than administrative subdivisions of the central empire.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

A state is absolute in the sense which I have in mind when it claims the right to a monopoly of all the force within the community, to make war, to make peace, to conscript life, to tax, to establish and disestablish property, to define crime, to punish disobedience, to control education, to supervise the family, to regulate personal habits, and to censor opinions. The modern state claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and Democrats.

A government is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and, implied in this, a compulsory territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, a government is the ultimate arbiter, for the inhabitants of a given territory, regarding what is just and what is not, and it can determine unilaterally, i.e., without requiring the consent of those seeking justice or arbitration, the price that justice-seekers must pay to the government for providing this service.

Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.

If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, warned the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions' authors (James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively), it will continue to grow - regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power.

Before the war, there was a federal government and a bureaucracy. But there was no allegiance to a national government. After the war, you have a social base that supports federal power. That’s a big change.

There is no such thing as a just and fair method of exercising the tremendous power that interventionism puts into the hands of the legislature and the executive.

It is an admitted fact that our Union, to some extent, has already been dismembered; and that further dismemberment is impending and threatened. It is a fact that the country is in danger. It is our duty, if we can, to provide a remedy for this.

‘National Security’ is, in effect, a translation of the European concept of ‘raison d’etat’, providing cover for a government that felt free to break through all traditional limits on its power.

The State has invariably shown a striking talent for the expansion of its powers beyond any limits that might be imposed upon it.

I think that the more we, as a state, yield and cede decisions to the federal government, the lesser we'll be for it as a state.

There was a fear among the original framers that the federal government would be so strong that they might destroy the state militias.

Particularly as a supposed 'conservative,' Trump ought to know something about the relationship between the federal government and the states.

Climate change is not an excuse to give the federal government ever more power over private property and state resources.

Income taxes are responsible for the transformation of the Federal government from one of limited powers into a vast leviathan whose tentacles reach into almost every aspect of American life.

The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

It has been observed, [that for the federal government] to coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.

Let the Democrates go on making its case for more government control over every aspect of our lives. More taxes to pay. More debt to carry. More rules to follow. More judges who just make it up as they go along. We Republicans, we are committed to a federal government that acts again as a servant accountable to the people, following the constitution, and venturing not one inch beyond the consent of the governed. We, we in this party, offer a better way for our country based on fundamentals that go back to the founding generation.

Lincoln once said that America was founded on a proposition that was written by Jefferson in 1776. We are really founded on an argument about what that proposition means.

The entire Nazi war machine was only possible because of past, present and future violations of the non aggression principle (achievable only through government).

I do not conceive that power is given to the President and Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power. The exercise of the power must be consistent with the object of the delegation.