Clinton Rossiter Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

Government, in the Conservative view, is something like fire. Under control, it is the most useful of servants; out of control, it is a ravaging tyrant.

Clinton Rossiter
Dictatorship played a decisive role in the North's successful effort to maintain the Union by force of arms...one man was the government of the United States...Lincoln was a great dictator....This great constitutional dictator was self appointed.

Clinton Rossiter
The most momentous fact about the pattern of American politics is that we live under a persistent, obdurate, one might almost say tyrannical, two-party system. We have the Republicans and we have the Democrats, and we have almost no one else, no other strictly political aggregate that amounts to a corporal's guard in the struggle for power.

Clinton Rossiter
An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.

Clinton Rossiter
The final greatness of the presidency lies in the truth that it is not just an office of incredible power but a breeding ground of indestructible myth.

Clinton Rossiter
Even if a government can be constitutional without being democratic, it cannot be democratic without being constitutional.

Clinton Rossiter