George Mason Quotes

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

What is good for Alaska is good for the country. Transferring power from the federal government to the states provides opportunity to all states, not just Alaska.

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.

I do believe that power needs to be returned to the states. I think that we've got way too much power in Washington. This is where I'm focused: way too much power in Washington.

The word "federalism" you might think that means federalism trumps everything; federalism means federal domination. It does not mean that. It means the exact opposite, in fact. It means the states are sovereign and the federal government cannot tell 'em what to do in so many different ways.

I don't want to be the president of the United States. I do want to work with the governors across the country to make the states more pivotal, more powerful, as they should be.

This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.

There is no direct and immediate connection between the individual citizens of a state and the general government. The relation between them is through the state. The Union is a union of states as communities and not a union of individuals.

I'm pro-life but I believe that the federal government ought to stay out of it. That's a decision that the people of each state ought to make for themselves.

We have to allow people in the states to make their own decisions, to get government agencies out of the way and let local people make decisions about what's best for them.

The danger in our system is that the general government, which represents the interests of the whole, may encroach on the states, which represent the peculiar and local interests, or that the latter may encroach on the former.

America can enjoy a vital, fully functioning government, with all the benefits provided by Texas, while reducing Texas at the same time.

No no. Mix them up. I’m tired of States’ rights.

The right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively is essential to the balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends.

Texans can run Texas without the federal government telling them what to do.

as a barrier between the central government and the respective states and their citizens.

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 former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce;... the powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperities of the people.

States should have enormous input into the decisions that affect them.

… state authority should not be needlessly usurped by a centralized government. But I also believe that an obligation rests with the national government to see that the citizens of every state are treated equally.

Many states have legalized medicinal marijuana. I believe the president and the Department of Justice ought to respect the will of these separate states... We are capable of self-government. We don't need some federal gendarme to come and tell us what to do. I believe comity toward the states...ought to govern the policy.

I do not know which is the more preferable, a government composed of several members but sovereign in the country, or a government of a single man with several inferior administrations all having the attributes of constitutional power…. The present government succeeds in combining the worst of both systems by having a infinity of governments all endowed with constitutional laws and separate powers, so that departmental (provincial) councils dispute with the government and the towns and the communes.

In my eight years as governor, I did everything I could to resist federal control of issues that belong to the states.

What can we do to put more Colorado in Washington and less Washington in Colorado?

I confess I am at a loss to discover what temptation the persons entrusted with the administration of the general government could ever feel to divest the States of the authorities of that description. The regulation of the mere domestic police of a State appears to me to hold out slender allurements to ambition.