# Theodore Roosevelt — "No man is above the law" > [!quote] "No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor." > — Theodore Roosevelt, Third Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1903 ## Context Roosevelt delivered this in his annual message to Congress at the height of his trust-busting presidency, as he pressed to bring the great corporations and their owners under federal law. The line was aimed squarely at the era's most powerful private men, who had grown accustomed to operating beyond the reach of government. ## Why this matters The crispest, most-quoted American statement of legal equality: the law binds the powerful and protects the powerless alike, and obedience is owed "as a right, not asked as a favor." This is the sentence that constitutional defenders reach for whenever a president or a magnate claims exemption from ordinary law — and the precise principle that maximalist claims of presidential immunity or a leader's personal sovereignty seek to overturn. From a Republican president and movement icon, it is one of the load-bearing receipts in this collection. ## Verification - **Primary source:** Theodore Roosevelt, Third Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1903 (Congressional Record; reproduced in the [Theodore Roosevelt Association quotations index](https://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=991271&module_id=339333)). - **Status:** Verbatim from the official message. Undisputed. ## Related quotes - [[Ulysses S. Grant - let no guilty man escape]] — the same principle, applied by an earlier Republican president to his own circle. - [[Gerald Ford - our Constitution works]] — "no man above the law" vindicated after a president's resignation. - Featured in [[Presidents on the Rule of Law]].