A Quote by John C. Calhoun
How can those who are invested with the power of government be prevented from the abuse of those powers as the means of aggrandizing themselves? ... Without a strong constitution to counteract the strong tendency of government to disorder and abuse there can be little progress or improvement.
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By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.
Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.
These are issues we've been grappling with since the Constitution was written: how you hold your government to account for its words and deeds. It's all about power and the abuse of power.
I, sir, have always conceived - I believe those who proposed the constitution conceived,and it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, those who ratified the constitution conceived, that this is not an indefinite government deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers - but, a limited government tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms.
Our government is based on the belief that a people can be both strong and free, that civilized men need no restraint but that imposed by themselves against abuse of freedom.
Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.
Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed.
Madison understood that if you want to protect rights from government abuse, you would be wise not to give government the power in the first place that can be used to abuse rights. That is a lesson we have forgotten. As we have asked government to do more and more for us, we have forgotten that a government big enough to give us everything we want will be powerful enough to take everything we have.
[G]overnment can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note ... that the 'can' quickly becomes 'will' the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power - whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.
When people abuse these freedoms to enrich themselves at the expense of others, then the public will demand the government to step in. That is how government grows, and how freedom is diminished.... When financial meltdowns occur, the public's outrage drives government to take over part of the private sector. When the government does so, it replaces irresponsible executives with unaccountable bureaucrats. That takes us out of the frying pan and into the fire.
A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution is power without a right. All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources. All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and quality of either.
Exploitation is an abuse of power, an act of domination driven by basic insecurity. I think all hierarchies create opportunities for that. Donald Trump is an extreme illustration of an otherwise normal tendency. Institutions are supposed to have safeguards to prevent or mitigate the tendency. Instead they often become vehicles for abuse.
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.
Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists.
America's founders were clear that the Constitution established a federal government of few and defined powers. It cannot regulate any activity it chooses, but they only regulate in those areas which the Constitution grants it power to regulate.
I have no doubt that aggressively going after wrongdoing can result in real improvement. Fewer wrongdoers in city government means more honest employees; it means better city services; it means more efficient government. And punishing wrongdoing can have a strong ripple effect that deters others from going down the wrong path.
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