Thomas Jefferson Quotes

As the Executive cannot decide the question of war on the affirmative side, neither ought it do so on the negative side by preventing the competent body [Congress] from deliberating on the question.

In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not the executive department. ... The trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.

The authority to declare war rests in Congress, not in an out-of-control president.

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

In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature.... [War is] the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.

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

it would be so dangerous for the Executive in a single Person to negative a Law that the People will not accept of it.

It is up to Congress to see to it that its powers do not slip through its fingers

I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress

There is an important role for a United States senator as a check and balance on the president of the United States.

The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?

I wish the press were paying more attention to the erosion of the Constitution and the slippery slope that we're getting into, by giving up the right of the Congress to talk about when and how and where we go to war.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

Our runaway judiciary is badly in need of restraint by Congress.

There are checks and balances and broad separation of powers under the Constitution. Each organ of the State, i.e. the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, must have respect for the others and not encroach into each other's domain.

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 impeachment power] is the heaviest piece of artillery in the congressional arsenal, but because it is so heavy it is unfit for ordinary use.

When Congress consents to the Executive making the budget it will have surrendered the most important part of a representative government.

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

The Executive is as independent of either House of Congress as either House of Congress is independent of him, and they cannot call for the records of his actions, or the action of his officers against his consent, any more than he can call for any of the journals or records of the House or Senate.

No branch of government should ever be able to combine the power of the sword with the power of the purse.

The power to make war is vested in Congress and not in the President. Congress has no constitutional authority to grant such authority to the president.

It may be said, indeed, that the Constitution has given to the Executive the power to annul the acts of the legislative body by refusing to them his assent.

Does not the President ... submit this subject to Congress for their sanction? Does he not recognize the principle ... that no treaty is binding until we pass the laws for executing it?”