Sherman Bell Quotes

The honest truth is that if this government were to propose the massacre of the first-born, it would still have no difficulty in getting it through the Commons.

The people in Congress have no interest in preserving the Constitution because they are interested in power.

This administration seems intent on accumulating unchecked power.

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

It is a pretty bold stand for this people to take, to say that they will not be controlled by the corrupt administrators of our General Government. We will be controlled by them, if they will be controlled by the Constitution and laws; but they will not. Many of them do not care any more about the constitution and the laws that they make than they do about the laws of another nation.

Martial law ... destroys every guarantee of the Constitution.

I think it makes no difference whether or not I endorse it. The Constitution is as the Supreme Court interprets it and I must conform to this and do my best to see that it is carried out in this country.

The good government of one man is the bad government of another

When the president decides that he knows better than you know what's good for you or your family, we've got trouble in this country.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.

The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Whoever is new to power is always harsh.

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

You can't become a dictator through checks and balances.

We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power.

I cannot agree to destroy the harmonious working of the Constitution for the sake of getting rid of an Unacceptable President.

“Treason” and “bribery” will not reach many great and dangerous offenses including attempts to subvert the Constitution.

We cannot continue to claim that we are a nation of laws and not of men if our laws and, indeed, even the Constitution of the United States itself, may be summarily breached because of some determination of expediency or because the President says “trust me.”