Alphonso Jackson Quotes

For 22 years [as a Senator] I worried about all the power at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Now [as Treasury Secretary] I worry about all the power at the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

Federal bureaucracies are creatures of Congress, not the executive.

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

[Congress is] the chief aggrandizer of the Executive.

The Senate, in my poor opinion, is little if any check, either on the President or the House of Representatives. It has not the disposition. The members of both Houses are creatures, which, though differently born, are begotten in the same way and by the same sire. They have of course the same temper. But their opposition, were they disposed to make any, would be feeble. They would easily be borne down by the other House, in which the power resides. The President can indeed do what he pleases, provided always it shall please him to please those, who lead a majority of the Representatives.

To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places.

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

In France, executive power dominates much more than in Anglo-Saxon countries

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

The government of the United States is, and always has been, a lawyer's government.

Congress has a lot of powers which people, especially those in the executive branch, don't like to talk about.

The independence of the legislative arm must be respected. I had little taste for forcing Congressional action.

I am well aware of what three past presidents have said, but that will not be worth five cents if the people and the Congress do not support their president now.”

Without the Congress I am just a six-foot-four Texan.

Our American concept of government rests on the idea of a dominant Congress.

Congress is always looking for occasions to differ from the President.

[Then a congressman:] Were I President, I should desire the legislation of the country to rest with Congress, uninfluenced by the executive in its origin or progress.

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.

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

Our governmental good fortune does not lie in any surrender at either end of the Avenue.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

Most Americans look upon the President as superior to the Congress and the Supreme Court, about whose powers and functions they know very little;

I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won.

The biggest downside [for the President] of having the other party control a branch of the Congress is its ability to use investigations and subpoenas as anvils.