Quote

Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.

Andrew Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Andrew Johnson
Age: 66 †
Born: 1808
Born: December 29
Died: 1875
Died: July 31
17Th U.S. President
Military Officer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Tailor
Raleigh
North Carolina
A. Johnson
President Johnson
Giving
Citizens
Principle
Much
Outside
Instruments
Gives
Private
Applies
Principles
Function
Functions
Liberty
Constitution
Broads
Within
Limits
Broad
Political
Authority
Legal
Government
Subjects
Instrument

More quotes by Andrew Johnson

Image
The homestead policy was established only after long and earnest resistance experience proves its wisdom. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude for future purchasers.
Andrew Johnson
Image
I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.
Andrew Johnson
Image
My right side is paralyzed. I need no doctor. I can overcome my own troubles.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man - for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.
Andrew Johnson
Image
The enactment of the Homestead Act would create the strongest tie between the citizen and the Government-he would with cheerfulness contribute his proportionable part of the taxes to defray the expenses of the political system under which he lived.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Honest conviction is my courage the Constitution is my guide.
Andrew Johnson
Image
I tell our sisters in the South that so far as Tennessee is concerned she will not be dragged into a Southern or any other confederacy until she has had time to consider and then she will go when she believes it to be her interest, and not before.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.
Andrew Johnson
Image
There are no good laws but such as repeal other laws.
Andrew Johnson
Image
If blacks were given the right to vote, that would place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored in the country upon an equality with the poor white man.
Andrew Johnson
Image
If you always support the correct principles then you will never get the wrong results!
Andrew Johnson
Image
Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Let them impeach and be damned.
Andrew Johnson
Image
The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.
Andrew Johnson
Image
I realized, there are people out there who can beat me, want to beat me. And unless I continue to innovate and evolve, I am going to learn a painful lesson from someone who has.
Andrew Johnson
Image
It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders of the Republic.
Andrew Johnson
Image
I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes. I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space
Andrew Johnson
Image
Notwithstanding a mendacious press notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him.
Andrew Johnson
Image
Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'
Andrew Johnson