Body Quote by Thomas Jefferson

In assuming any office besides its essential one, the State begins to lose the power of fulfilling its essential one.

— Herbert Spencer

Having a representative democracy requires the confidence of the voters in the system. And if voters lose confidence in the system they can make…

— Richard Painter

The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger…

— James Madison

The danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by…

— James Madison

Those who seek power at any price detect a societal weakness, a fear that they can ride into office.

— Carl Sagan

If a legislator is safe from competition, or if he represents groups with the same economic and political beliefs, he does not have to…

— Edward Kennedy

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of…

— Alexander Hamilton

The most noticeable weakness of Congressmen is their timidity. They fear the use to be made of their "record." They are afraid ofmaking enemies.…

— Rutherford B. Hayes

When the people are too much attached to savage independence, to be tolerant of the amount of power to which it is for their…

— John Stuart Mill

“The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature…

— Thomas Jefferson

It is a common happening that those in power, as their tenure of office continues, find themselves less and less able to contemplate relinquishing…

— Anthony Eden

The generosity of spirit that is usually shown by advanced democracies disappears when the public feel two things: that their government is not in…

— Damian Green