A Quote by James Madison
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.
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The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature. [If a president is successful in bypassing the Congress] it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in the government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings.
Testimony of all ages forces us to admit that war is among the most dangerous enemies to liberty, and that the executive is the branch most favored by it of all the branches of Power.
People assume that the executive branch has more power than it actually has. Only the legislative branch can create the laws; the executive branch cannot create the laws. So, if the executive branch tries to create a branch one side or the other... you go back to the founders of the nation. They set up a system that ensures that it doesn't happen.
The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies.... A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.
Apparently a great many people have forgotten that the framers of our Constitution went to such great effort to create an independent judicial branch that would not be subject to retaliation by either the executive branch or the legislative branch because of some decision made by those judges.
[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War.
By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments-that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.
Congress is a co-equal branch of government, with a long and rich history of standing up to the executive branch.
It is good to be back in the Peoples House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branchhead, heart, and hand.
Economic history is the most fundamental branch of history; not the most important. Foundations exist to carry better things.
As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.
You don't just give the executive branch unlimited resources, unlimited power. Our founders were very concerned about too much power being invested in any one, in any branch. The balance of power is fundamental to our system.
President Obama is in violation of Section 3 of Article II of the Constitution by refusing to enforce the employer mandate provisions of Obamacare. The executive branch, which has no constitutional authority to write or rewrite law at whim, has usurped the exclusive legislative power of Congress.
Of all the cares or concerns of government, the direction of war most peculiarly demands those qualities which distinguish the exercise of power by a single hand. The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength, forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority.
I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America.
The power given by the Constitution to the Executive to interpose his veto is a high conservative power; but in my opinion it should never be exercised except in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest haste and want of due consideration by Congress.
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