John McCain Quotes

Congress ... is far more than the simple, limited advisory council that most Presidents would like to maintain.

The Constitution provided an invitation to the President and Congress to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.

As members of Congress, we may disagree with the administration's position on foreign policy matters, but the fact remains: the Executive Branch is tasked with handling diplomatic matters.

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

[Congress is] the chief aggrandizer of the Executive.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

The Framers intended the Senate to be the principle architect of foreign policy. Had original intent prevailed, we would speak of the imperial Senate, not the imperial Presidency.

We have not found a way to give Congress control without depriving the President of essential power.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

The assumption by the Senate of powers of original negotiation of agreements with foreign nations must increasingly interfere with the discharge by the Executive of the powers invested in him by the Constitution.

I should not dream of asking the permission of Congress That treaty is the law of the land and I shall execute it. It is essential to give independence to the Executive in dealing with foreign powers. I am willing to accept responsibility to establish precedents which successors may follow.

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

Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

As a member of Congress, I believe Congress must provide oversight of actions by the Executive Branch as our system of checks and balances requires.

The courts are truly the least dangerous of the three branches of our government.

If I could only be President and Congress too, for just 10 minutes.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

No merely legislative body could control a single, concentrated Executive ….

The respective powers of the President and Congress of the United States, in the case of war with foreign powers are yet undetermined. Perhaps they can never be defined.

If there is one certain truth to be collected from the history of all ages, it is this: that the people's rights and liberties, and the democratic mixture in a constitution, can never be preserved without a strong executive, or, in other words without separating the executive power from the legislature.

Politically it is often much safer [for Congress] to let the executive do the leading.

Congressional power has not so much been usurped by the Presidency as given up to the Presidency by Congress.

The most important benefit that I can confer on the country by my Presidency is to insist upon the entire independence of the executive and legislative branches of government

If our forefathers had wanted Congress to be the Commander in Chief, they would have said so.