John Adams Quotes

An independent House of Commons is as inconsistent to our Constitution as an independent, that is, absolute King.

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

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

Almost all men are born under it, all men are used to it, few men are used to anything else; till of late years nobody ever dispraised it, ... men were reconciled to mixed monarchy in England by the same causes by which they were reconciled to pure monarchy in Morocco, Turkey, and Hindustan.

… all kinds of government are defective…. sagacious legislators, knowing the vices of each of these systems of government by themselves, have chosen one that should partake of all of them, judging that to be the most stable and solid. In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check.

Supreme Court nominees should be individuals who not only understand, but truly respect the equal roles and responsibilities of different branches of government and our state governments.

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.

I am very proud of our Supreme Court - it is one of the best worldwide. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, we have seen a certain imbalance in the relationship between the judiciary, the parliament and the government. The Supreme Court behaved in an activist way. We have to debate the degree to which such Supreme Court activism is appropriate.

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.

Constitutional interpretation is not the business of the Court only, but also properly the business of all branches of government.

In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the disease incident to republican government.

We have already given in example one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose from the Executive to the Legislative body

I think the Supreme Court has, as an equal branch of government, the ability to overrule Congress and the president. But I also feel it's the role of the Congress and the president to push back. I mean I think it's important that they are understood as equal branches of government.

To what expedient then shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government, as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.

Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.

We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments.

Public opinion: May it always perform one of its appropriate offices, by teaching the public functionaries of the State and of the Federal Government, that neither shall assume the exercise of powers entrusted by the Constitution to the other.

We're going to protect and honor the Constitution, and I don't have the authority to set it aside.... If I had the authority to set it aside, this would be a dangerous government, and I wouldn't respect it.

Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

You can't have the legislative and executive branch working in a parallel universe...the partisanship that has gripped Washington has prevented us from dealing with the issues that this country needs to grapple with to determine its future.

And may I not be allowed to ... read in the character of the American people, in their devotion to true liberty and to the Constitution which is its palladium [protection], ... a Government which watches over ... the equal interdict [prohibition] against encroachments and compacts between religion and the state.

You are responsible for the world that you live in. It is not government's responsibility. It is not your school's or your social club's or your church's or your neighbor's or your fellow citizen's. It is yours, utterly and singularly yours.

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.

Experience assures us, that the efficacy of the provision has been greatly over-rated; and that some more adequate defense is indispensably necessary for the more feeble, against the more powerful members of the government.