Government

"Though the mere opinion of an Attorney- or Solicitor-General ought not to be cited, yet coupled with the fact, it may have some weight as showing the general sense of professional men."

"The regular way of pardons is by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General. &c. They are men of the law, and might stop it in their office, and the rest of the offices, &c . . . . To pardon before trial, when the King knows not what fact he is to pardon, is a dangerous precedent. . . . The King cannot pardon a man, an impeachment depending."

"I wish to say a word or two about the position of the Attorney-General, because in my judgment it is of importance in this case, and his position appears likely to be lost sight of. Everybody knows that he is the head of the English Bar. We know that he has had from the earliest times to perform high judicial functions which are left to his discretion to decide. For example, where a man who is tried for his life and convicted alleges that there is error on the record, he cannot take advantage of that error unless he obtains the fiat of the Attorney-General, and no Court in the Kingdom has any controlling jurisdiction over him. That perhaps is the strongest case that can be put as to the position of the Attorney-General in exercising judicial functions. Another case in which the Attorney-General is preeminent is the power to enter a nolle prosequi in a criminal case.1 I do not say that when a case is before a Judge a prosecutor may not ask the Judge to allow the case to be withdrawn, and the Judge may do so if he is satisfied that there is no case; but the Attorney-General alone has power to enter a nolle prosequi, and that power is not subject to any control. Another case is that of a criminal information at the suit of the Attorney-General, a practice which has, I am sorry to say, fallen into disuse. The issue of such an information is entirely in the discretion of the Attorney-General, and no one can set such an information aside. There are other cases to which I could refer to be found in old and in recent statutes, but I have said enough to show the high judicial functions which the Attorney-General performs."

"Just as people are born, live a time, and die by diseases or old age, in the same way republics are formed, flower a few centuries, and persih finally by the audacity of a citizen, or by the weapons of their enemies. All has their period; all empires, and largest monarchies even, have only so much time: the republics feel continually that this time will arrive, and they look at any too-powerful family as the carriers of a disease which will give them the blow of death."

"When a monarchy gradually transforms itself into a republic, the executive power there preserves titles, honors, respect, and even money long after it has lost the reality of power. The English, having cut off the head of one of their kings and chased another off the throne, still go on their knees to address the successors of those princes. On the other hand, when a republic falls under one man's yoke, the ruler's demeanor remains simple, unaffected, and modest, as if he had not already been raised above everybody."

"A republic is, in essence, what a monarchy is not. That, in short, is the argument, based on a very long history of states called republics, and thinkers called republicans, who learned from each other. A republic is a state that has many rulers, instead of one, most of them independently elected rather than appointed. A republic is a state where most of the public business must perforce be publicly aired, since these many magistrates naturally differ about that business and thus cannot conduct it without robust argument. Though it is still said in our civic pedagogy that a republic is something called a "representative democracy," many of history's republicans have not been representative, and many have been far from democratic, including some which were undemocratic precisely by virtue of being representative. What all republics have been is polyarchal, ruled by the pluribus instead of the uno."

"In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that "governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it." Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed."

"But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans—we are federalists."

"Democracy, republics: What do these words signify? What have they changed in the world? Have men become better, more loyal, kinder? Are the people happier? All goes on as before, as always. Illusions, illusions. Besides, one should consider the interest of a nation before subverting it with words. Democracy is necessary in some cases and We believe some African peoples might adopt it. But in other cases it is harmful, a mistake."

"Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination: on the contrary, that under no form of government, will laws be better supported — liberty and property better secured — or happiness be more effectually dispensed to mankind."

"The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly, luxuriantly, from their ashes."

"Republicanism did not die away. They remain to temper the scramble for private wealth and happiness and they continue to underlie for many of our ideals and aspirations: for our belief in equality and our dislike of pretension and privilege; our deep yearning for individual autonomy and freedom from all ties of dependency; our periodic hopes, expressed, for example, in the election of military heroes and in the mugwump and progressive movements, that some political leaders might rise above parties and become truly disinterested umpires and deliberative representatives; our long-held conviction that farming is morally healthier and freer of selfish marketplace concerns than other activities; our preoccupation with the fragility of the republic and its liability to corruption; and, finally, our remarkable obsession with our own national virtue-an obsession that still bewilders the rest of the world."

"You and your descendants have to ascertain whether this great mass will hold together under the forms of a republic, and the despotic reality of universal suffrage; whether state rights will hold out against centralisation, without separation, whether centralisation will get the better, without actual or disguised monarchy; whether shifting corruption is better than a permanent bureaucracy; and as population thickens in your great cities, and the pressure of what is felt, the gaunt spectre of pauperism will stalk among you, and communism and socialism will claim to be heard."

"[A] licentious people is not going to sustain republican government. We've got to make sure that republican government, government not only of the people as all government is but by and for the people doesn't perish from the Earth. If we lose it here, it's not as if it's going to be restarted somewhere else."

"Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?" "A Republic, if you can keep it."

"Countries, therefore, when lawmaking falls exclusively to the lot of the poor cannot hope for much economy in public expenditure; expenses will always be considerable, either because taxes cannot touch those who vote for them or because they are assessed in a way to prevent that."

"If the Nation is living within its income, its credit is good. If, in some crises, it lives beyond its income for a year or two, it can usually borrow temporarily at reasonable rates. But if, like a spendthrift, it throws discretion to the winds, and is willing to make no sacrifice at all in spending; if it extends its taxing to the limit of the people's power to pay and continues to pile up deficits, then it is on the road to bankruptcy."

"If simply printing and spending more money would cure our problems we should by now be one of the wealthiest nations in the Western world.—In the lifetime of the last Labour Government the amount of money in the economy went up by £20 thousand million but the number of jobs did not increase. Indeed, unemployment doubled and prices more than doubled too.—In the last three years (1976–79) the amount of money in the economy went up by 50%; but yet only 4%; went into output, the rest into higher prices and imports. The record is clear, printing money doesn't create jobs, it only creates more inflation. But there is another word for printing money—they call it “reflection”. It is a cosy word but a fraudulent device. It cuts the value of every pound in circulation, of every pound the thrifty have saved. It means spending money you can't afford, haven't earned and haven't got. You would accept that it is neither moral nor responsible for a family to live beyond its means. Equally it is neither moral nor responsible for a Government to spend beyond the nation's means, even for services which may be desirable. So we must curb public spending to amounts that can be financed by taxation at tolerable levels and borrowing at reasonable rates of interest."

"That most delicious of all privileges—spending other people's money."

"Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago."

"The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health, social and economic crisis. Historical comparisons are few, particularly in recent decades. This tragedy constitutes nothing less than a trial for all humanity. [...] The pandemic, in other words, is now testing the capacity of our political and economic systems to cope with a global problem situated at the level of our individual interdependence, which is to say at the very foundation of our social life. [...] We equally depend on the state to help businesses of all sizes endure this trial by providing them with the financial assistance and guaranteed loans they require in order to avoid bankruptcy and retain as much of their as possible. States no longer have any qualms about spending without limits in order to save the economy ⁠— "whatever it takes!" ⁠— while just weeks ago states opposed any request to increase hospital staff, hospital beds, or emergency services, out of its obsessive concern for budgetary constraint and limiting the public debt. States have since rediscovered the virtues of interventionism, at least when it comes to funding and shoring up the . One of the most ambitious stimulus plans to date has been implemented by Germany. Their plan constitutes an abrupt break with the dogmas that have been the norm since the beginning of the ."

"Every government program is backed up finally by men with guns. If it weren’t, no one would ask the government to do what individuals have refused to do voluntarily."

"No; no; not a sixpence."

"Any Government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse."

"I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form."

"The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistence."

"Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody."

"Two conditions are essential for an absolute independence of powers. First, that the source from which they emanate is one; second, that they all exert upon each other reciprocal vigilance. The people would not be sovereign, if one of the constituted powers that represent them, did not emanate immediately from them; and there would be no independence if one of them was the creator of the other. Give the legislature, for example, the right to appoint members of the executive power; it will exert on them a fatal influence, and political liberty will no longer exist. If the legislature appoints the judges, it would influence the judgments and there would be no civil liberty. Thus in England, where the executive power exerts a marked influence on the legislature, political liberty is considerably diminished. The judicial power, whatever appointed by the executive, is immune from its fatal influence because the people compose the jury and the judges are irremovable; so civil liberty has not yet received almost no attack."

"One must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another."

"It is obvious that the executive power could not proceed from the Parliament, made of two Houses and holding the legislative power, or we would have a mixing of powers in which the government would soon be nothing more than an makeshift of delegations. Certainly, during the current transitional period, we had to have the President of the provisional government elected by the National Constituent Assembly, because from a clean slate there was no other acceptable means to designate him. But this can only be a momentary arrangement. Truly, unity, cohesion and the internal discipline of the government of France must be sacred things, or the very direction of the country will become powerless and disqualified. How could this unity, this cohesion and this discipline be maintained if the executive power came from the other power which it must balance, and if each of the members of the government, which is collectively responsible to the entire national representation, was, at his post, only the representant of a party?"

"The laws of Rome had wisely divided public power among a large number of magistracies, which supported, checked and tempered each other. Since they all had only limited power, every citizen was qualified for them, and the people — seeing many persons pass before them one after the other — did not grow accustomed to any in particular. But in these times the system of the republic changed. Through the people the most powerful men gave themselves extraordinary commissions — which destroyed the authority of the people and magistrates, and placed all great matters in the hands of one man, or a few."

"To admit then a right in the House of Representatives to demand, and to have as a matter of course, all the Papers respecting a negotiation with a foreign power, would be to establish a dangerous precedent. It does not occur that the inspection of the papers asked for, can be relative to any purpose under the cognizance of the House of Representatives, except that of an impeachment, which the resolution has not expressed. I repeat, that I have no disposition to withhold any information which the duty of my station will permit, or the public good shall require to be disclosed: and in fact, all the Papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain were laid before the Senate, when the Treaty itself was communicated for their consideration and advice. The course which the debate has taken, on the resolution of the House, leads to some observations on the mode of making treaties under the Constitution of the United States."

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

"In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty."

"The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy."

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

"One of the most prevalent ideological mantras of Western capitalism is that the market should rule. But as the latest health and economic crises demonstrate, capitalists soon forget their worship of the market when times get tough. They scream for government money, and plenty of it. It turns out that "the market" is fine when it comes to whipping workers to accept lower wages, but when it comes to lower profits, the market can go hang. [...] Every student with the misfortune to have studied economics at school or university will know that "the market" is the god before which we must all kneel. Markets bring s and producers together to ensure an equilibrium of , the textbooks tell us. We may all be individuals each pursuing our own private interests, but this selfish endeavour miraculously results in an optimum outcome for all. You don’t even have to step inside a classroom to have received this lesson. It’s rammed home in normal times in every newspaper, in every news bulletin on the TV, in every politician’s speech. Just listen to them. Governments can’t expand spending on Newstart because “the markets” won’t allow it. [...] The fact that governments across the are now prepared to spend trillions of dollar to save the from collapse only confirms that the world economy cannot be left safely in the hands of "the market". And, the situation clearly confirms that when the capitalist class and governments deem it necessary to save their system, lots of measures they once denounced as "unaffordable", not permitted by the condition of "the economy", are actually affordable and permitted. Governments can act when required. The ideological justifications of yesterday are revealed as threadbare. But nor are government interventions of this nature geared towards the interests of the working class, only the interests of the bosses."

"Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."

"It is the duty of those serving the people in public place closely to limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the government economically administered, because this bounds the right of the government to extract tribute from the earnings of labor or the property of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets extravagance among the people. We should never be ashamed of the simplicity and prudential economies which are best suited to the operation of a republican form of government and most compatible with the mission of the American people. Those who are selected for a limited time to manage public affairs are still of the people, and may do much by their example to encourage, consistently with the dignity of their official functions, that plain way of life which among their fellow-citizens aids integrity and promotes thrift and prosperity."

"The appropriation of public money always is perfectly lovely until some one is asked to pay the bill. If we are to have a billion dollars of navy, half a billion of farm relief, [etc.] … the people will have to furnish more revenue by paying more taxes. It is for them, through their Congress, to decide how far they wish to go."

"Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man who has power is inclined to abuse it; he goes until he finds limits. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?. To prevent this abuse, it is necessary that, by the arrangement of things, power shall stop power. A government may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits."

"In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law. By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other, simply, the executive power of the state. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner. Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression. There would be an end of every thing, were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals. The executive power ought to be in the hands of a monarch, because this branch of government, having need of dispatch, is better administered by one than by many: on the other hand, whatever depends on the legislative power, is oftentimes better regulated by many than by a single person. But, if there were no monarch, and the executive power should be committed to a certain number of persons, selected from the legislative body, there would be an end of liberty, by reason the two powers would be united; as the same persons would sometimes possess, and would be always able to possess, a share in both."

"The people who own the country ought to govern it."

"There is no doubt that many expensive national projects may add to our prestige or serve science. But none of them must take precedence over human needs. As long as Congress does not revise its priorities, our crisis is not just material, it is a crisis of the spirit."

"The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed."

"There are four categories of voting on the floor of the Senate. The first are those who have been described as ones who can hear the farthest drum before the cry of a single hungry child. Then there is the group who can hear every child, whether he is hungry or not, before they can hear a single drum. Then you have a third group, who say, "Nothing can happen to the almighty dollar, so we will vote for all the children and all the drums." The time has come when we must have some priorities with respect to the way we are allocating our steadily decreasing resources, else it should be clear to everybody—that the economy of the United States could well be destroyed."

"The genius of Republican liberty, seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people; but, that those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and, that, even during this short period, the trust should be placed not in a few, but in a number of hands. Stability, on the contrary, requires, that the hands, in which power is lodged, should continue for a length of time, the same. A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of electors, and a frequent change of measures, from a frequent change of men; whilst energy in Government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand."

"He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton."

"In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government, which to a certain extent is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. Were this principle rigorously adhered to, it would require that all the appointments for the supreme executive, legislative, and judiciary magistracies should be drawn from the same fountain of authority, the people, through channels having no communication whatever with one another. Perhaps such a plan of constructing the several departments would be less difficult in practice than it may in contemplation appear. Some difficulties, however, and some additional expense would attend the execution of it. Some deviations, therefore, from the principle must be admitted. In the constitution of the judiciary department in particular, it might be inexpedient to insist rigorously on the principle: first, because peculiar qualifications being essential in the members, the primary consideration ought to be to select that mode of choice which best secures these qualifications; secondly, because the permanent tenure by which the appointments are held in that department, must soon destroy all sense of dependence on the authority conferring them. It is equally evident, that the members of each department should be as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal."

"Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."