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The Congress plays a central role in our constitutional structure.

The Constitution of the United States, like all systems of government which are permanent, had its origin in the history and necessities of the people through whose instrumentality and for whose benefit it was formed.

The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that policy to this day.

The Constitution grants only Congress - not the president - the power 'to borrow money on the credit of the United States.'

If you look through history, all of the great work we've done in Congress has been around a table of compromise, when it comes to the most difficult problems.

The state must be the first to be organized and totally committed to serving the interests of the people.

Obviously no one wants to give members of Congress a lot of money, because they barely do anything, and many of them are terrible, but a Congress that is made up of rich-but-not-super-rich people is going to be more corruptible than a Congress of really rich people.

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and justice.

What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.

The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter.