Political Quotes

“Since the House of Representatives moved into this very Chamber in 1857, the people's Representatives have debated the great issues of the day. The Speaker's rostrum behind me was redesigned after World War II and words were added to the bottom level that speak to noble aspirations of our Nation: union, justice, tolerance, liberty, and peace. These words are not the fundamental principles upon which our Nation was founded, but are, I suggest, the fruits of those principles. Consequently, if our founding principles are eroded, these fruits will be eroded as well. Over recent decades, our Nation has endured a great and ongoing debate that, at its heart, goes to the continuing relevance of our Nation's founding principles. And what are those principles? They are in our Declaration of Independence. ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.'' ``The consent of the governed.'' These five words recognize that our Nation's sovereignty is in her people--not the government, not the legislative branch, not the judicial branch, not the executive branch or the Federal bureaucracy, but in the people.…”