Thomas Sowell Quotes

The framers, in their wisdom, designed the [political] system so that power's pretty disbursed.

The founders had a strong distrust for centralized power in a federal government. So they created a government with checks and balances. This was to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.

A constitution, in the American sense of the word, is a written instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined, and by which these powers are distributed among several departments, for their more safe and useful exercise, for the benefit of the body politic.

The Founding Fathers gladly sacrificed government that could provide speedy, effective, cohesive, and internally consistent policies. They opted for one that had a maximum number of veto points and checks and balances and protections against tyranny by particular officials or tyranny by selfish majorities.

The Constitution reminds us that the government that produces free people is one of divided power.

If we look into the constitutions of the several States, we find that … there is not a single instance in which the several departments of power have been kept absolutely separate and distinct.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

There will be found to exist at all times an imperious necessity for restraining all the functionaries of the Government within the range of their respective powers thereby preserving a just balance between the powers granted to this Government and those reserved to the States and to the people.

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers.

THE Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view. The FIRST relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on the States. The SECOND, to the particular structure of the government, and the distribution of this power among its branches.

It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another [for the Executive] to be dependent on the legislative body. The first comports with, the last violates, the fundamental principles of good government; and, whatever may be the forms of the Constitution, unites all power in the same hands.

The Senate, compared to the House, is where things are supposed to slow down, by design, Founding Father design. The Founding Fathers were hell-bent to stop government action. The Constitution limited government. And that's why people like Obama and Democrats call it a charter of negative liberties because it limits government. It's an anti-government, pro-citizen document. And the founders wanted to make it hard.

I do believe that it was through divine providence that the Founding Fathers drafted a document that created a government that didn't trust each other - hence the separation of powers. And then, to close the deal, the Bill of Rights was added to continue to protect individual rights and freedoms.

No one branch of the U.S. government should have supremacy over the other two.

Maintaining checks and balances on the power of the Judiciary Branch and the other two branches is vital to keep the form of government set up by our Founding Fathers.

The basic premise of the Constitution was a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances because man was perceived as a fallen creature and would always yearn for more power.

In our Constitution governmental power is divided among three separate branches of the national government, three separate branches of State governments, and the peoples of the several States.

The Framers (of the Constitution) were not concerned primarily with favoring one type of government over another, but with limiting the power of government, regardless of its source.

No other country has copied the separation and division of powers that we have.

Our government is composed of checks …

What other influence over, or check upon the General Government. will the States possess, if their Legislatures do not elect the Senate or second Branch of the National. Government.

In the early history of the organization of the government, its statesmen seem to have divided on the line which should separate the powers of the National government from those of the State governments, and though this line has never been very well defined in public opinion, such a division has continued from that day to this.

We have an inherently weak institution in the Presidency. It was intentionally set up that way by the founders.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. –

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.