Sam Ervin Quotes

My belief was that it was not only the President's right but his duty to do anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President.

It’s hard for a President to make case for more powers when he has not used the powers he already has.

The powers that are surrendered [by Congress] to one President remain to be used by others.

I do not believe that the President has any powers at all except such as the Constitution expressly gives him or such as are necessarily inferred.

Experience concurs with reason in concluding that the first magistrate [President] will always be re-elected if the constitution permits it. He is then an officer for life.

The Jackson-Lincoln Theory of the Presidency: Occasionally great national crises arise which call for immediate and vigorous executive action, and that in such cases it is the duty of the President to act upon the theory that he is the steward of the people and … that he has the legal right to do whatever the needs of the people demand, unless the Constitution or the laws explicitly forbid him to do it..

The actions of our president systematically provide both the legal and political justifications for similar initiatives undertaken by later presidents.

Basically, if you become president, you must swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and what the Constitution says.

Presidential powers are not exercised by a body or group. The Constitution vests 'all executive power' in one and only one person - the president.

I made a mistake by being ejected from the presidency. Next time, I will choose a Cabinet which will allow me to be life President.

I’m not your lawyer. But if I were in your shoes, I’d tell the President to burn the tapes immediately and then proclaim he’d done so as a matter of national security and executive privilege and out of an obligation to protect the office of the presidency.

The constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

The President [Theodore Roosevelt] has as much use for the Constitution as a tom cat has for a marriage license.

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.

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

... the opinion of the Supreme Court ... ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court, must each be guided by its own opinion of the constitution.

The President may be right in how he reads the Constitution. But he also may be wrong. And if he is wrong, who is there to tell him so? And if there is no one, the President, of course, is free to pursue his course of erroneous interpretations. What then becomes of our constitutional form of government?

This talk of blindly following the President in everything pertaining to war—except as to his conduct of military operation in the field—is blithering idiocy.... The Constitution still abides. It defines the powers and duties of Congress. It gave Congress every war power, except that it left with the President the right to direct all military operation in the field. It gave him no other war power.

We need a President who swears that he will ‘defend and protect the Constitution’ and then do it.

He [the President] has the power, but that does not mean that he has the legitimate, constitutional right to use it.

We need a presidency which acts and protects us.

When he entered the Oval Office - by fate, not by design - Citizen Ford knew that he was not perfect, just as he knew he was not perfect when he left. But what president ever was?

Our Founding Fathers created the Executive Branch to implement and enforce the laws written by Congress, and vested this power in the president.

I do not believe any president can bind a successor president to give up his fundamental role as protector of the country.

I think that less presidential interference the better.