Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first I want to congratulate and thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his moving and eloquent remarks--so moving and eloquent, in fact, that I contemplated foregoing my own. The Senator expressed the feelings of many of us, particularly in his closing, which was very powerful, and, I think, very well encapsulated the one possible positive result from this sorry process. I stated my opposition to Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court before Dr. Ford's allegations became public--before I had ever heard about them, before anyone had ever heard about them, as far as I know, except some members of the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, I don't believe you have to believe Dr. Ford to conclude that Judge Kavanaugh should not be elevated to the Supreme Court-- first, because of his judicial philosophy. If you will pardon me, I want to digress for a moment into constitutional history--preconstitutional history, if you will. There is a basic paradox of government. We give power to something called the government in order to protect our security, to protect us as individuals, to protect our liberty. The paradox is that we then have to worry about the government to which we have given the power abusing us. James Madison captured this in the 51st Federalist: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.…”