Quotes About The Powers Of Congress

#1. The powers of Congress are totally inadequate to preserve the balance between the respective States, and oblige them to do those things which are essential for their own welfare or for the general good.

Henry Knox

#2. To take a single step beyond the boundaries specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to definition.

Thomas Jefferson

#3. If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare ... they may appoint teachers in every state ... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.

James Madison

#4. The powers of congress must be defined, but their means must be adequate to the purposes of their constitution. It is possible there may be abuses and misapplications; still, it is better to hazard something than to hazard at all.

Oliver Ellsworth

#5. American boys should not be seen dying on the nightly news. Wars should be over in three days or less, or before Congress invokes the War Powers Resolution.

Evan Thomas

#6. The future chief justice of the United States told the delegates that an independent federal judiciary was a necessary bulwark against an overreaching Congress. If Congress were to exceed its powers, said Marshall, it would be the duty of the judiciary to declare the action void. Marshall

James F. Simon

#7. Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.

Daniel Ellsberg

#8. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one ...

James Madison

#9. It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers.

Robert Byrd

#10. Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.

Thomas Jefferson

#11. One might plausibly contend that Congress violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers when it exonerates itself from the impositions of the laws it obligates people outside the legislature to obey.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#12. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything-and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

Clarence Thomas

#13. Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Founding Fathers

#14. Country is run by ... financial powers & corporate interests [who] send their lawyers to Congress to make laws so that they don't have to pay taxes

Gore Vidal

#15. The United States being a limited form of government, one of the restrictions to which it is subject is in regard to its power to levy taxes. The States may levy them for a great many purposes for which Congress cannot, because to the States belong all of the powers not delegated to Congress.

Samuel Freeman Miller

#16. The famous convention of 1787 met in Philadelphia to define the additional powers needed to enable Congress to do its job effectively. Instead, the convention proposed a brand new national government.

Edmund Morgan

#17. When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens.

David Souter

#18. The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Barton Gellman

#19. Since the enactment of the War Powers Act in 1973, which I supported then and support now, Congress has been reluctant to assert its authority when presidents decide to send American soldiers into harm's way.

Charles B. Rangel

#20. [An] act of the Congress of the United States ... which assumes powers ... not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.

Thomas Jefferson

#21. In the United States we have, in effect, two governments ... We have the duly constituted Government ... Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution.

Wright Patman

#22. Altering the Constitution has become the daily business of the Federal Government which the document is supposed to guide and limit. Both Congress and the judiciary assume, and exercise, countless powers they aren't entitled to.

Joseph Sobran

#23. I believe that the power to declare war is most important in limiting the powers of the national government in regard to the rights of its citizens, but that it does not require Congress to give its approval before the president uses force abroad.

John Yoo

#24. In 1787, many Americans were convinced that the 'perpetual union' they had created in winning independence was collapsing. Six years earlier, in the Articles of Confederation, the thirteen state governments had surrendered extensive powers to a congress of delegates from each state legislature.

Edmund Morgan

#25. When the president acts in absence of a congressional grant of authority, he can rely only upon his own independent powers. When the president takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb.

Arlen Specter

#26. The construction applied ... to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate Congress a power ... ought not to be construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument.

Thomas Jefferson

#27. A difference must be made between a decision against the constitutionality of a law of Congress and of a State. The former acts as a restriction on the powers of this government, but the latter as an enlargement.

John C. Calhoun

#28. In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government.

James A. Garfield

#29. If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.

Dick Thornburgh

#30. The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that policy to this day.

Robert Toombs

#31. The new laws passed by Congress in the name of fighting terrorism pose a greater danger to the civil liberties of American citizens than to the operations of terrorists. Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die.

Charley Reese

#32. The War Powers Act requires presidents to seek the consent of the American people, through their representatives, before sending our troops into war. It is the responsibility of Congress to deliberate and consult with the executive branch before involving ourselves in a military conflict.

Charles B. Rangel

#33. The framers of our constitution had the sagacity to vest in Congress all implied powers: that is, powers necessary and proper to carry into effect all the delegated powers wherever vested.

John C. Calhoun