John Sarbanes: “To make our constitutional system work requires, I believe, a certain amount of restraint and good judgment on the part…”

“To make our constitutional system work requires, I believe, a certain amount of restraint and good judgment on the part of all decisionmakers. It must be an essential premise of our system that one is not willing to subvert everything, in effect to bring the whole building crashing down, in order to get your way. I never understood democracy to work that way. There has to be a certain amount of accommodation. Obviously, the basic functions of Government should continue. Are we to reach a state of affairs where every time there is a sharp policy difference-- and people can obviously hold sharply different opinions--that for one side to gain its way, it brings the Government to a halt and inflicts all of this harm that is being felt across the country?”