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214
REVOLUTION
To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to
care about people who have no power.
Jane Fonda
The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.
Che Guevara
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a
picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined.
Mao Zedong
belhon:;,.''
The fundamental principle is that no battle, combat or skirmish is
to be fought unless it will be won.
Che Guevara
The path that leads from moral standards to pohtical activity is
strewn with our dead selves.
Andrtf Malraux
The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are seldom
brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them.
John Stuart Mill
A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.
Edmund Burke
M B
Revolution by the Have-Nots has a way of inducing a moral revolution among the Haves.
Saul Alimky
All civilization has from time to time become a thin crust over a
volcano of revolution.
Havelock Ellis
Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.
Germaine Greer
The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight.
Jean Cocteau
is;
�• U
Crowns Book of
PoKtical Quotations
Ovox 2500 Lively Quotes
from Plato to Reagan
by Michael Jackman
' CROWN PUBLISHERS, INC.
NEW YORK
�To^ndre Limozin
SIR
Paris Non 13. 1787|
It is some time since I have had the honour of acknowle
regularly the receipt of yoiir favors. Those of Oct. 1,1. and 20. mS!
Nov. 2. and [9.] have come duly to hand. I am very glad the
ican sailors have found the protection of so good a friend, rjb'i^^
been for some time in daily expectation of communicating to i "*"'*'
some interesting regulations on our commerce. But as yet thei
minister has notfinishedthem. These will render it necessary^t^p
our commerce in the ports of France be put under a regular super
intendance, which I hope we shall be enabled to do ere longii§j|
would be of great service to us could we by any means know? *~
proportion of the American productions brought in[to] the se»|f||
ports of France are paid for in productions and manufa
this country, adding thereto the monies expended in the
by the ships and crews. Will you be so good as to tell me wl
such a thing will be practicable.—I have taken the liberty.qf$g
ing to your address by water a package containing the bust of
Marquis de la Fayette to be forwarded to the Governor of Vir
by any vessel going into James or York rivers, of which I will^
your care. I have the honor to be with much esteem Sn|Yo
' T H : JEF^BLSbN*
most obedient humble servant,
PrC (DLC).
teept
about one fifth Nbrther^^^^hey^represent
necessaiy.
Igperwill
be obliged to takevjn^^i^
comes directly from
^S^ »;
toucied^>^
European port, in French
tf-l?*^mariftm bottoms, and to m ^ e ^ ^ u i ^ a M r m France. It will
^Jlbe particularly watcbed that th^Upti^aMtnot a single hogshead
^^ih' England. By this I hope to ^ve cottpleiely,'effected the diverting
l^s^much of the tobareo trade:as M<whts to;thdr own M
"* &P* England to France. I am glad tofindralsoby your letter that
. J r " ^P "*
^ have theteffect to rMa^tte/price of this coml^^nodrty at the English market. 24000'. hEds^of tobacco a year,
iKlless at that market; than heretoforej m^lproducelsome change,
iaod h could not, be-for the worse, Thesoiaw^the farmers wiU
c a
w l t h o u t
?
V
8
6
1011
:
London. I - am of opinion- th^ cd^d^im^^ the whole of
is made in America espmaflyi if; tyrrias states wiU intro_?;the-ditene ^ - t h e ^ P i e a ^ t / ^ E ^ ^ r r i c e s -abb, both of
qualities are demanded - here in concurrence with that of
"na. I have procured for them^theVseed^from Egypt and
^ conuh^ d i m ^
tite trthsportation:
^
jWKcfcxoi^ to this
^ v a ^ w h f c h wiU
in
To James Maury
Paris Nov. IS. i-TS
I received your favor of Oct. 25. the day before'
It would be needless for me therefore to add to what your
know on the subject of peace and war. The principal
is so intent on domestic improvements, and on peace as
to give leisure for them, that it will not be his fault if it'Bc
turbed again. It will be equally unnecessary for me to give?jr
formal attestation of your being a citizen of the Unitrf^
Should any occasion for it arise hereafter I shall be alway
to certify it.—With respect to tobacco the contract with Mi^
and the order of Bemi cease with this year. I am.ot
rangement for thefiveyears which yet remain of the.^ _
to the fanners general, by which they will be obliged tol
the tobacco for which they shall have occasion from - A
DEAR SIR
[354]
de&ils cannot
.^l»^agi^abiey»dip
^ ^ ^ . aarAmerican, I
5 you " m O m m i ^ W ^ ^ m k ^ d on all oci,, I>eM;"-Si^Tdur.-fri^
, . . .
^
. , -ro^^^^wlerttert of
luction to AmencaM?amjiag%^
from
needing
logy on your parti that it calls ifc&a&s on mine. I endeavor
r
]
;;
.'[S55]' " '
.; ' ^
�13 N O V E M B E R 1787
s:been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets:
T V P
tbey are setting up a kite to keep
t^'^^'™
' ^ P ^ Eod this article will be rectified
" " l ^ t ^ ; ^ constitution is accepted.—You ask me if any thing
S^^^'^^j^-^.- '5^»
^^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ t *
materials there, and that they wait the
I ^ J ^ ^y'' But this country probably will join the extinguishers.—
|35ie want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned
^jne to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to
|amuse, when we cannot inform. Present my respects to Mrs. Smith,
be assured of the sincere esteem of Dear Sir Your friend &
8
u
r
o f
4 1 1 6 m o n i e n t
o r d e r
1
6
K S £
S
A l ,
?
N
o
t
a
w o r d
1
1 6
I am to give myithante^ofe!^
constitution. I
leave throiigh:'-yoii - t o t ^ l ^ t ^ i i ^ * * ^
be yet three;
weeks before I; shaUviecweithemxfromtA^
^Tliere are very: ^
good articles in h:,. a m K i v ^ i ^
know which preporide^g?
ate. What we;Jtt*»|to!lip^
chapter on ^:Stadtltold^|£^
a ChieTma^str^
had ever
disposed .towards-W(K|fewKt^%^
read of thee
tions of Poliahikmgs'shoul^
"contim^fe^iM^^i^p^
sevmngirh^SHTK^tfiitishlss^^
gazcMeets tp'rep^^t^'inod^ mtq^evdry form lies about our Bdni
in anarchy, that tiie;world^hasfM;lra^ believed them, the Engl "'
nation has belkved itii^n, the ^ministers theinselves have come
believe them, andiwij^ is mcretwonderfd we have believed tl
ourselves. Yet whe^ndotes this anarchy exist? Where did it <
exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can
tory produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted!
11 say nothing of it's motives: Ihey.-were founded in ignorance, nc^
wickedness. God forbid-we>should ever be 20. years without;-'-'^
a rebellion. The peoplelcaninbt be all, and always, well infor ^
The part which is wrong. wiUcbe. discontented in proportion .to:^
importance of the facts (^ey-'inisebneeive.' If they remain quiet ui^
der such misconceptions it is a. lethargy, the forerunner of der
to the public liberty. We Have bad 13. states independant
years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebeljLin a century and a half for each stated What country before .eyw|
existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what countrecan preserve it's liberties iif their rulers are not warned from tin^
to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let tb
take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon
pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?'
tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the bk
of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Com
w
5
!
i
1
A
:
[356]
TH:
fPite ( D L C ) .
Jt waa to Adams that T J owed the
'ygr-THB N E W coNSTmmoN (see
m. t o - T J , 10 Nov. 1787), and,
• to'the French charg« d'affaires
^ X s r i ^ T J . was. wrong in think-
JEFFERSON
ing that it would be T H R E E WEEKS be-
fore he would receive other copies from
America i Otto's copies arrived two days
after the present letter was written (see
Otto to T J , 25 Sep. 1787).
| g F r o m Madame Townsend
'
le 13 9bre. 1787
pf|Pai; re^u ITionneur de votre lettre Monsieur, et depuis ce tems
^M^S? q^ttfc, la ,Campagne. Je ne saurois vous exprimer com""fH* sn* fachfc Ale vous avoir importung par une demande sur
Jnelle ous voul6s bien prendre la peine d'entrer dans des details.
g|rsais que Pon a beaucoup de peine dans ce moment a rgaliser
'Sfcfbnds, e'est ce qui fait que j'avdis pris le parti d'aller a Londres
yendre a la Banck. Je vous prie Monsieur de recevoir mes
•te de vous avoir importune dans cette circonstance et de me
e.tres sincerement votre tres humble et obeissante s.,
8
v
TOWNSEND
•jVoulSs vous avoir la bontg de me dire le plus sure moyen d'en~ une lettre en Dfinmark?
(MoSHi)i endorsed. Recorded in
^
received IS Nov. 1787.
|There is no evidence that T J replied
|.the"present letter, though he may
Vdone so in response to the query in
the postscript, which would seem to be
a none-too-subtle hint that the fruitless
outcome of her appeals to T J was about
to be communicated to John Paul Jones.
rom tlje Commissioners of the Treasury
,
Treasury, IS Nov. 1787. Omitted mentioning in their letter
|lQ Nov. "(M m a late Report made by this Board to Congress, on the
[357]
�MNIEL RSAC
OTCLO EERH
Fax:804-293-3108
Jan 20 '98 12:44
P.Ol
MONTICELL®
MONTICELLO RESEARCH DEPARTMENT
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I f there are guestions or problems with t h i s fax please c a l l Research
Department at (804) 984-9848.
THOMAS JEFFERSON MEMOBIAt- FOUNDATION, INC.
POST OFFICE BOX 316
CHARLOTTESmtE, VI*CINIA MyOJ
PHONE 804984.980*
FAX 804977.7757
�""rimony to
volume.
^
many or
"f'on.forJoca/
^f/cflenon.,,,,
THOMAS JEFFERSON
WRITINGS
Autobiography
A Summary View of the Rights af British Amenca
Notes an tht State qf Virginia
Public Papers
Addresses, Messages, and Replies
Miscellany
Letters
THE
LIBAARY
OF
AMERICA
�9J8
L E T T E R S 1789
epochs & sit as long as ihcy pkase, instead of meeting only
when, & sitting only as long as the king pleases as in England. There is a dittcrence of opinion whether the king shall
have an absolute, or only a qualified Negative on their acts.
The parliaments will probably be suppressed; & juries provided in criminal cases perhaps even in civil ones. This is what
appears probable at present. The Assembly is this day discussing the question whether ihcy will have a declaration of
rights. Paris has been led by events to assume the government
of itself. It has hitherto worn too much the appearance of
conformity to continue thus independently of the will of tfie
nation. Reflection will probably make them sensible that the
security of all depends on the dependance of all on the nadona) legislature. I have so much confidence on the good
sense of man, and his qualificationsforsclf-govemmcnt, that
I am never afraid of the issue where reason is left free to exert
her force; and I will agree to be stoned as a false prophet if
all docs not end well in this country. Nor will it end with this
country. Hers is but thefirstchapter of the history of European liberty.
The capture of the Baron Bcsenval is very embarrassing for
the States general They are principled against retrospective
laws, 8c wUl make it one of the comer stones of their nw
e
building. But it is very doubtful whether the andent laws «ill
condemn him, and whether the people will permit him to be
acquitted. The Duke dc la Vauguyon also & his son arc taken
at Havre.—In drawing the parallel between what England iv
8c what France is to be Iforgotto observe that the latter will
have a real constitution, which cannot be changed by the ordinary legislature; whereas England has no constitution at all:
that is to say there is not one principle of their govemmem
which the parliament docs not alter at pleasure. The omnipotence of parliament is an established principle with thcm —
Postponing my departure to America till the end of September I shall hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Pari*
before I go, 8c of renewing in person to yourself 8c M d m
aa e
la Comtesse assurances of those sentiments of respect 8c attachment with which I have the honor to be Dear Sir your
most obedient humble serv!
JAMES MADISON
959
P S. It is rumored 8c bclcivcd in Paris that the English have
.
fomented with money the tumults of this place, 8c that they
arc arming to attack France. I have never seen any reason to
bdievc cither of these rumors.
T H E E A R T H B E L O N G S TO T H E L I V I N G "
To James Madison
Pttns, Stpttmbtr i, uSf
DEAR SIR,—I sit down to write to you without knowing by
w a occasion I shall send my letter. I do it because a subject
ht
conies into my head which I would wish to dcvelopc a little
m r than is practicable in the hurry of the moment of makoe
ing up genera) despatches.
The question Whether one generation of men has a right
to bind another, seems never to have been started either on
this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among
the fundamental principles of every government. The course
of reflection in which wc are immersed here on the clemenory principles of society has presented this question to my
mind; and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think
»m capable of proof. I set out on this ground which I supp s to be self evident, "that thf earth bekngs in wufruct to the
oe
l * - that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.
m 0™
The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when
himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society
ha formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by thefirstoccupants. These will genctally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have
fanned rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the
mfc and children, or to somc one of them, or to the legatee
ofthe deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the
child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural right,
bur by a law of the society of which they are members, and
to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural rigbt
oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him
m that occupation, to the paimcnt of debts contracted by
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�LETTERS [789
JAM ES MADISON
him. For if he could, he might during his own life, cat up the
usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and
then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would bereverseof our principle. What is true of
every member of the society individually, is true of them alt
collcctivclv, since the rights of the whole can be no more than
the sum of the rights of individuals. To keep our ideas clear
when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole
generation of men to he born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving
a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 1
1
years, and their period of life H years more, that being the
average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who
have already attained 21. years of age. Each successive gencr
ation would, in this way, come on and go off the stage at 1
fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth
belongs to each of these generations during it 's course, fully,
and in thdr own right. The id. generation receives it clear of
the debts and incumbrances of the ist., the jd. of the i d and
90 on. For if the ist. could charge it with a debt, then the
earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation.
Then no generation can contract debts greater than may be
paid during the course of it's own existence. At 21. years of
age they may bind themselves and their lands for H yean to
come: at zz. for JJ: at zj for j i . and at 34 for one year only,
because these are the terms of life which remain to them a
t
those respective epochs. But a material difference must be
noted between the succession of an individual and that of a
whole generation. Individuals arc parts only of a society, subject to the laws of a whole. These laws may appropriate the
portion of land occupied by a decedent to his creditor rather
than to any other, or to his child, on condition he satisfies hu
creditor. But when a whole generation, that is, the whole society dies, as in the case we have supposed, and another generation or society succeeds, this forms a whole, and there is
no superior who can give their territory to a third society,
who may have lent money to their predecessors beyond their
faculty of paying.
What is true of a generation all arriving to self-government
on the same day, and dying all on the same day, is true of
chose on a constant course of decay and renewal, with this
only ditlcrcnce. A generation coming in and going out entire,
as in the first case, would have a righr in the ist year of rhcir
self dominion to contract a debt for JJ. years, in the 10th. for
14 in the 20th. for 14. in the joth. for 4. whereas generations
changing daily, by daily deaths and births, have one constant
term beginning at the date of their contract, and ending when
a majority of those of full age at that date shall be dead. The
length of that term may be estimated from the tables of mortality, corrected by the circumstances of climate, occupation
81c. peculiar to the country of the contractors. Take, for instance, the table of M. dc Buffbn wherein he states that 2),994
deaths, and the ages at which they happened. Suppose a society in which 13,994 persons arc born every year and live to
the ages stated in this tabic. The conditions of that society
will be as follows, ist. it will consist constantly of 617,70) persons of all ages. zdly. of those living at any one instant of
time, one half will be dead in 24. years 8. months, jdly. 10,675
will arrive every year at the age of 21. years complete. 4thly.
it will constantly have )4*,4i7 persons of all ages above 21.
yean. jly. and the half of those of 21. years and upwards living
it any one instant of time will be dead in 18. years 8. months,
or say 19. years as die nearest integral number. Then 19. years
is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly
extend a debt.
To render this conclusion palpable by example, suppose
that Louis XIV and XV. had contracted debts in the name of
the French nation to the amount of 10.000 milliards of livres
md that the whole had been contracted in Genoa. The interC of this sum would be $00 milliards, which is said to be the
M
»holc rent-roll, or nctt proceeds of the territory of France.
Must the present generation of men have retired from
Ac territory in which nature produced them, and ceded it
to the Genoese creditors? No. They have the samerightsover
t e soil on which they were produced, aa the preceding genh
erations had. They derive these rights not from their prede.cwors, but from nature. They then and their soil arc by
rurure clear of the debts of their predecessors. Again suppose
960
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LETTERS
17*9
FAMES M A D I S O N
...
Louis XV and his contemporary generation had said to the
money lenders of Genoa, give us money that we may cat,
drink, and be merry in our day; and on condition you will
demand no interest till the end of 19- years, you shall then
forever after receive an annual interest of* 12 per cent. The
money is lent on these conditions, is divided among the living, eaten, drank, and squandered. WouJd the present generation be obliged to apply the produce of the earth and of
their labour to replace rheir dissipations' Nor at all.
I suppose that the received opinion, that the public debts
of one generation devolve on the next, has been suggested b
v
our seeing habitually in private life that he who succeeds to
lands is required to pay the debts of his ancestor or testator,
without considering that this requisition is municipal onlv.
not moral,flowingfromthe will of the society which has
found it convenient to appropriate the lands become vacant
by the death of their occupant on the condition of a paiment
of his debts; but that between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. Wc seem not to have perceived
that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one
independant nation to another.
The interest of the national debt of France being in faa b t
u
a two thousandth part of it's rent-roll, the paimcnt of it is
practicable enough; and so becomes a question mcrelv of
honor or expediency. But with respect to future debts; would
it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the
nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they m v
a
pay within their own age, or within the term of 19. yearv
And that all future contracts shall be deemed void as to what
shall remain unpaid at the end of 19. yearsfromtheir date
This would put the lenders, and the borrowers also, on theit
guard. By reducing too the faculty of borrowing within it?
natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too
free a course has been procured by the inattention of monrv
5
1
3
*ioo£ at a tompouiid inu-rcsr of A per eeitt rruki-j »r the oid < f iv yrjr
»
an altgrcgarl• of jwiiiripa! and iittvn'st of £251.14 tht- itirmw of wiiu h i 1
<
£11 .11". which is nearly 1 " p'. cent on ihtfirstcapital of i-'ioo.
1
96?
lenders to this law of nature, that succeeding gcneTadons are
not responsible for the preceding.
On similar ground it may be proved that no s o c i c t > ^ r ~ 7 ^
T ^ L r ^
™ . or even a perpetual law The I X caffh belongs always to rhe living generation. They may mant ^
ige tt then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during
ther usufruct. They are masters too of their own perwns, and
consequently may govern them as they please But persons
and property makc the sum ofthe objects of government The
const^non and the laws of their predeces^rs extinguished
them, m their natural course, with those whose will gave
hem being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be
»df, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law,
naturaUy cxp.res at the end of ,9. years. If it be enforced
longer, it is an act of force and not of right
It may be said that the succeeding generation exercising in
tot the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the
c o m t i t w i
7
only. In thefirstplace, thu objection admits the right, in propoyng: m equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivl ^ j T ^ ^
^
of government lere
» perfectly contrived that the will ofthe majority could al^ysbc obtained fairly and without impediment. But this is
of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves;
their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are
S T . ? "17 k * * ™ F ^ i t i o n . Factions get possesn l l
- Wbci, corrupts them* Phonal
~
TJu™
* * ecnerai interests of their
constituents; and other impediments arise so as to prove to
every practical man that a law of limited duration « much
m r manageable than one which needs a repeal
oe
Thi, principle that the earth belongs to the living and not
t the dead « ot very extemive application and consequences
o
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51
o n u n a h
fr0m
OUntrY
d
m O S t CSpCCi1
L resolution ^ u
(he ^
of the
i nW c
^
-
11 c
^
questions Whether the nation may
dunge the descent of lands holdcn in tail? Whether thev may
vhargc the appropriation of lands given anticntly to the
vhiirch, to hospitals, colleges, orders of chivalry, and othcr-
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�964
LETTERS
1789
ecclesiastical and feudal? it goes to hereditary offices, authorities and jurisdictions; to hereditary orders, distinctions and
appellations; to perpetual monopolies in commerce, the arts
or sciences; with a long train of et cettrus: and it renders the
question of reimbursement a question of generosity and not
of right. In al) these cases the legislature of the day could
authorize such appropriations and establishments for their
own time, bur no longer; and the present holders, even where
they or their anccston have purchased, arc in the case of (ma
j\4t purchasers of what the seller had no right to convey.
Turn this subject in your mind, my Dear Sir, and particular))' as to the power of contracting debts, and dcvelopc it
with that perspicuity and cogent logic which is so peculiarly
yours. Your station in the councils of our country gives you
an opportunity of producing it to public consideration, of
forcing it into discussion. At first blush it may be rallied as a
theoretical speculation; but examination will prove it to be
solid and salutary. It would furnish matter for a fine preamble
to our first Uw for appropriating the public revenue; and it
will exclude, at the threshold of our new government the contagious and ruinous errors of this quarter of the globe, which
have armed despots with means not sanctioned by nature for
binding in chains theirfellow-mcn.We have already given, in
example one effectual check to the Dog of war, by tranrter
ring the power of Jetting him loose from the executive to the
Legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who
arc to pay. I should be pleased to see this second obstacle held
out by us also in the first instance. No nation can makc 1
declaration against the validity of long-contracted debts so
disinterestedly as we, since we do not owe a shilling which
may not be paid with case principal and interest, within the
time of our own lives. Establish the principle also in the new
law to be passed for protecting copy rights and new inventions, by securing the exclusive right for 19. instead of 14.
years [a line ennrrty faded] an instance the more of our taking
reason for our guide instead of English precedents, the habit
of which fetters us, with all the political herccics of a nation,
equal!)' remarkable for it's encitcment from some errors, is
long slumbering under others. I write you no news, because
when an occasion occurs I shall write a separate letterforthai
MADAME D ' E N V I L L E
965
A D I E U TO F R A N C E
To Madame d'Enville
K'*' Torli. April i. PVO
I had hoped, Madame la Duchcssc, to have again had the
honor of paying my respects to you in Paris, but the wish of
our government that I should take a share in its administration, has become a law to mc Could I have persuaded myself
that public offices were made for private convenience, I
*ould undoubtedly have preferred a continuance in that
<vhich placed me nearer to you; but believing on the contrary
that a good citizen should take his stand where the public
juthonty marshals him, I have acquiesced. Among the cirromsLUiccs which reconcile mc to my new position the most
pwverftiJ is the opportunines it will give mc of cementing the
Inendship between our two nations. Be assured that to do
this is the first wish of my heart. I have but one system of
rthics for men 8c for nations—to be grateful, tn be faithful to
iB engagements and under al) circumstances, to be open 8c
generou^ promotes in the long nm even the interests of
tath; and I am sure it promote* their happiness. The chanee
in your government will approximate us to one another You
hare had some checks, some horrors since I left you; but the
wav to heaven, you know, has always been said to be strewed
mh thorns. Why your nation have had fewer than any other
on earth, I do not know, unless it be that it is the best on
cjrth. If I assure you. Madam, moreover, that I consider
Mmrsclf personally as with the foremost of your nation in
even virtue, it is notflattery,my heart knows not that, it is a
•tornagc to sacred truth, it is a tribute I pay with cordiality to
1 character m which I saw but one error; it was that of treating mc wjth a degree of favor I did nor merit. Be assured I
'hall ever retain a lively sense of all vour goodness to mc
«hich was a circumstance of principal happiness to mc durimi
nv stay in Paris. I hope that by this time you have seen that
sv prognostications of a successful issue to your rc\<olution
.vrc been verified. I feared for you during a short interval
rm after the declaration of the army, tho' there might be cp*KJCJ of distrcsi, the denoument was out of doubt. Heaven
<nJ that the glorious example of your country may be but
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�1394
LETTERS
SAMUEL
[8l6
"What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlements, or labor'd mound.
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud, with spires ind turrets crown'd;
No: men, high minded men;
Men, who their duties know;
But know their rights; and knowing, dart maintain.
These constitute a State."
In the General Government, the House of Rcprescntativo
is mainly republican; the Senate scarcely so at all, as not
elected by the people directly, and so long secured even
against those who do elect them; die Executive more republican than the Senate,fromits shorter term, its election by tht
people, in practice, (for they vote for A only on an assurance
that be will vote for B.) and because, tn practice abo, a principle of rotation seems to be in a course of establishment; the
judiciary independent of the nation, thdr coercion by impeachment beingfoundnugatory.
If, then, the control of the people over the organs of then
government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our
governments have much less of republicanism than ought to
have been expected; in other words, that the people have less
regular contra) over their agents, than their rights and their
interests require. And this I ascribe, not to any want of republican dispositions in those whoformedthese constitutions, but to a submission of true principle to European
authorities, to speculators on government, whosefearsof the
people have been inspired by the populace of their own great
cities, and were unjustly entertained against the independent,
the happy, and therefore orderly dozens of the United States.
Much I apprehend that the golden moment is pastforreforming these heresies. The functionaries of public power
rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and a
n
unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail
against an organized opposition to it. Wc arc always told that
things arc going on well; why change them? Cbi sta bent,
nm si muovt," said the Italian, "let him who stands well, stand
still.* This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well
a
KERCHEVAL
1395
with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and reitraincd, as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people.
But it is while if remains such, we should provide against the
consequences of its deterioration. And let us rest in the hope
that it will yet be done, and spare ourselves the pain of evils
which may never happen.
On this view of the import of the term repttbhc, instead of
saying, as has been said, "that it may mean anything or nothmg,' wc may say with truth and meaning, that governments
art more or lessrepublicanas they have more or less ofthe
element of popular ejection and control in thdr composition;
and bdicving, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the
safest depository of their ownrights,and especially, that the
evilsflowingfrom the duperies of the people, are less injurious than those from the egoism of thdr agents, I am a
friend to that composition of government which has in it the
most of this ingredient. And 1 sincerely believe, with you,
that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the prindple of spending money to be
paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
I salute you with constantfriendshipand respect.
1
REFORM OF T H EVIRGINIA CONSTITUTION
To Samuel Kercheval
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jlR,—I duly recdved your favor of June the i)th, with the
copy of the letters on the calling a convention, on which you
are pleased to ask my opinion. 1 have not been in the habit
of mysteriousreserveon any subject, nor of buttoning up my
opinions within my own doublet. On the contrary, while in
public service especially, I thought the public entitled to
frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed. But
I am nowretired:Iresignmyself, as a passenger, with confidence to those at present at the helm, and ask but for rest,
peace and good will. The question you propose, on equal rep-
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LETTERS
1816
S/SMVEl
KERCHEVAL
1397
tive, the Governor is entirely independent of the choice of the
rcscntation, has become a party one, in which I wish to takt
people, and of their control; his Council equally so, and at
no public share. Yet, if ir be asked for your own satisfaction
only, and not to be quoted before the public, I have no m - best but afifthwheel to a wagon. In the Judiciary, the judges
o
of the highest courts arc dependent on none but themselves.
tive to withhold it, and the less from you, as it coincides with
In England, where judges were named andremovableat the
your own. At the birth of ourrepublic,I committed that
vvill of an hereditary executive,fromwhich branch most misopinion to the world, in the draught of a constitution annexed to the "Notes on Virginia," in which a provision w s rule was feared, and has flowed, it was a great point gained,
a
y
inserted for a representation permanently equal. The infancy b fixingthem for life, to makc them independent of that
executive. But in a government founded on the public will,
of the subject at that moment, and our inexperience of selfthis principle operates in an opposite direction, and against
government, occasioned gross departures in that draught
from genuine republican canons. In truth, the abuses of mon- that will. There, too, they were still removable on a concurarchy had so muchfilledall the space of political contempla- rence of the executive and legislative branches. But we have
ae
tion, that wc imagined everythingrepublicanwhich was not m d them independent of the nation itself. They are irremovable, but by their own body, for any depravities of conmonarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principk.
that "governments are republican only in proportion as ther duct, and even by their own body for the imbecilities of
embody the will of their people, and execute it." Hence, out dotage. The justices of the inferior courts are self-chosen, are
first constitutions hadreallyno leading principles in them. for life, and perpetuate their own body in succession forever,
But experience and reflection have but more and more con- so that a faction once possessing themselves of the bench of a
county, can never be broken up, but hold their count)' in
firmed mc in the particular importance of the equal represenchains, forever indissoluble. Yet these justices are therealextation then proposed. On that point, then, I am entirely in
ecutive as well as judiciary, in all our minor and most ordisentiment with your letters; and only lament that a copy-righi
nary concerns. They tax us at will;fillthe office of sbcriflf", the
of your pamphlet prevents their appearance in the newspamost important of all the executive officers of the county;
pers, where alone they would be generallyread,and producr
name nearly all our military leaders, which leaders, once
general effect. The present vacancy too, of other matter,
named, are removable but by themselves. The juries, our
would give them place in every paper, and bring the question
judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it, are not
home to every man's conscience.
selected by the people, nor amenable to them. They are choBut inequality ofrepresentationin both Houses of our legsen by an officer named by the court and executive. Chosen,
islature. Is not the onlyrepublicanheresy in thisfirstessay of did I say* Picked up by the sherifffromthe loungings of the
our revolutionary patriots at forming a constitution. For let ir
court yard, after everything respectable has retiredfromit.
be agreed that a government is republican in proportion is Where then is our republicanism to be found? Not in our
every member composing it has his equal voice in the direc
consritution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our people.
tion of its concerns (not indeed in person, which would bt Thar would oblige even a despot to govern us republicanly.
impracticable beyond the limits of a city, or small township, Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in the form of our conbut) byrepresentativeschosen by himself, and responsible to
stitution, a things have gone well. But this lact, so triumU
him at short periods, and let us bring to the test of this canon phantly misquoted by the enemies of reformation, is not the
every branch of our constitution
fruit of our constitution, but has prevailed in spite of it. Our
In the legislature, the House of Representatives is chosen
functionaries have done well, because generally honest men.
by less than half the people, and not at all in proportion tn
If any were not so, they fearedtt)show it.
those who do choose. The Senate arc stil] more disproporBut it will be said, it is easier to find faults than to amend
tionate, and for long terms of irresponsibility. In the Execu-
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1816
them. I do not think their amendment so ditticutr as is pretended. Only lay down true principles, and adhere to them
inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their .surrender by the
alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the
ascendency of the people. If experience be called for, appeal
to that of ourfifteenor twenty governments for forty years,
and show me where the people have done half the mischief
in these forty years, that a single despot would have done in
a single year; or show half theriotsand rebellions, the crimes
and the punishments, which have taken place in any single
nation, under kingly government, during the same period.
The true foundation of republican government is the equal
right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their
management. Try by this, as a rally, every provision of our
constitution, and sec if it hangs directly on the will of the
people. Reduce your legislature to a convenient number lor
fiill, but orderly discussion. Let every man who fights or pays,
exercise his just and equal right in their eleaion. Submit thcm
to approbation or rejection at short intervals, Let the executive be chosen in the same way, and for the same term, by
those whose agent he is to be; and leave no screen of a council behind which to skulk from responsibility. It has been
thought that the people are not competent electors of judges
Ititnud in tht law. But I do not know that this is true, and, if
doubtful, wc should follow principle. In this, as in many
other elections, they would be guided by reputation, which
would not err ofrcner, perhaps, than the present mode of appointment. In one State of the Union, at least, it has long
been tried, and with the most satisfactory success. The judges
of Connecticut have been chosen by the people every six
months, for nearly two centuries, and I believe there has
hardly ever been an instance of change; so powerful is the
curb of incessant responsibility. If prejudice, however, derived
from a monarchical institution, is still to prevail against the
vital elective principle of our own, and if the existing example
among ourselves of periodical eleaion of judges bv the people
be still mistrusted, let us at least not adopt the evil, and reject
the good, of the English precedent; let us retain amovabilitv
on the concurrence of the executive and legislative branches,
and nomination bv the executive alone, Nomination to oflicc
SAMUEL
KERCHEVAL
1}99
is an executive hmction. To give it to the legislature, as we
do, is a violation ofthe principk of the separation of powers.
It swerves the members from correctness, by temptations to
intrigue for office themselves, and to a corrupt barter (jf
votes; and destroys responsibility by dividing it among a multitude. By leaving nomination in its proper place, among executive functions, the principle of the distribution of power is
preserved, and responsibility weighs with its heaviest force on
a single head.
The organization of our county administrations may be
thought more difficult. But follow principle, and the knot unties itself. Divide the counties into wards of such size as that
every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person.
Ascribe to them the government of their wards in all things
relating to themselves exclusively. A justice, chosen by themselves, in each, a constable, a military company, a patrol, a
school, the care of their own poor, their own portion of the
public roads, the choice of one or more jurors to serve in
somc court, and the delivery, within their own wards, of their
own votes for all ctcctivc officers of higher sphere, will relieve
the county administration of nearly aU its business, will have
it better done, and by making every citizen an acting member
of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the
independence of his country, and its republican constitution.
The justices thus chosen by every ward, would constitute the
county court, would do its judiciary business, direct roads and
bridges, levy county and poor rates, and administer all the
matters of common interest ro the whole country. These
wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments, and have proved themselves the
wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government, and for its preservation. Wc
should thus marshal our govenunent into, i, the general federalrepublic,for all concerns foreign and federal; i , that of
the State, for whatrelatesto our own citizens exclusively; 3,
the county republics, for the duties and concerns of the
county, and 4, the wardrepublics,for the small, and yet numerous and interesting concerns of the neighborhood; and in
government, as well as in every other business of lite, it is by
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KERCHEVAL
1401
left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the
Mlum omnium in omnia, which somc philosophers observing
to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of
this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and
in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Somc men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred
:rcd
to be touched. Thev ascribe to the men of the preceding age
a wisdom more than human, and suppose whar they did to
be beyond amendment. I knew that age welt; I belonged to
it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was
very like the present, but without the experience of the prcsenr; and forty years of experience in government is worth a
century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves,
were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be home
wilh; because, when once known, wc accommodate ourselves
to them, andfindpractical means of correcting their ill effects.
But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in
hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes
more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries arc
made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions
change with the change of circumstances, instinitions must
advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well
require a man to wear still the coat whichfittedhim when a
boy, as civilized society toremainever under the regimen of
their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which
has lately deluged Europe in blood. Thdr monarchs, instead
of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of
favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind
steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through
blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had
they beenreferredto the peaceful deliberations and collected
wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable
and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor
weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs.
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division and subdivision of duties alone, that all matters, grcar
and small, can be managed to perfection. And the whole is
cemented by giving to every citizen, personally, a part in the
administration of the public affairs
The sum of these amendments is, 1. General Suffrage, x.
Equal representation in the legislature, j . An executive chosen
by the people. 4.. fudges elective or amovable. 5. Justices, ju
rors, and sheriffs elective. 6. Ward divisions And 7 Periodical
amendments of the constitution.
I have thrown out these as loose heads of amendment, for
consideration and correction; and their object is to secure
sclf-govemmcnt by the republicanism of our constitution, «
well as by the spirit of the people; and to nourish and perpct
uate that spirit. I am not among those who fear the people.
They, and not the rich, arc our dependence for continued
freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not
let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. Wc must makc our
election between eamomy and liberty, or profuttcn and servitwU.
If we run into such debts, as that wc must be taxed in our
meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts,
in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our
creeds, as the people of England arc, our people, like them,
must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the
earnings offifteenof these to the government for their debts
and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and
potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence bv
hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held
really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in
foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity,
exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us
the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed bv
public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle
in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second
fot a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced
to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities
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LETTERS
1816
Let us, as our sister States have done, avail ourselves ot" our
reason and experience, to correct the crude essays of our first
and unexperienced, although wise, virtuous, and well-meaning councils. And lastly, let us provide in our constitution for
its revision at stated periods. What these periods should be,
nature herself indicates. By the European tables of mortality,
of the adults living at any one moment of time, a majority
will be dead in about nineteen years. At the end of that period, then, a new majority is come into place; or, in other
words, a new generation. Each generation is as independent
as the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before.
It has then, like them, a right to CIKXISC for itself the lorm of
government it believes most promotive of its own happiness;
consequently, to accommodate fo the circumstances in which
it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for
the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of
doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided
by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of
time, if anything human can so long endure. It is now forty
years since the constitution of Virginia wai formed. The same
tables inform us, that, within that period, two-thirds of the
adults then living arc now dead. Have then the remaining
third, even if they had the wish, the right to hold in obedience to their will, and to laws heretofore made by them, the
other two-thirds, who, with themselves, compose the present
mass of aduhs? If they have not, who has? The dead? But the
dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot
own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no
accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern
of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction;
and this declaration can only be made by their majority. That
majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to makc the constitution what they think will be
the best for themselves. But how collect their voice? This is
the real difficulty. If invited by private authority, or county or
distria meetings, these divisions are so large that few will attend; and their voice will be impcrfcaly, or falsely pro-
MRS.
SAMUEL H. SMITH
I403
tKHitKcd. Here, then, would be one ofthe advantages ofthe
ward divisions I have proposed. Tlie mayor of even' ward, on
a question like the present, would call his ward together, take
the simple yea or nay of its members, convey these to the
county court, who would hand on those of all its wards to
the proper general authority; and the voice of the whole people would be thus fairly, fully, and peaceably expressed, discussed, and decided by the comnion reason ofthe society. If
this avenue be shut to the call of sufferance, it will makc itself
heard through that nf force, and we shall go on, as other
nations arc doing, in the endless circle nf oppression, rebellion, reformation; and oppression, rebellion, reformation,
again; and so on ti ire ver.
These, Sir, arc my opinions of the governments we sec
among men, and of the principles by which alone we may
>revent our own from falling into the same dreadful track. I
•ave given them at greater length than your letter called for.
But I cannot say things by halves; and I confide them to your
honor, so to use them as to preserve mc from the gridiron of
the public papers. If you shall approve and enforce them, as
you have done that of equal representation, they may do
jome good. If not, keep them to yourself as the effusions of
withered age and useless time. I shall, with not the less truth,
assure you of my great respect and consideration.
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N E V E R AN I N F I D E L , I F N E V E R A P R I E S T "
To Mrs. Samuel H. Smith
Mmticrtk, Angvn tf, ttit
I have received, dear Madam, your very friendly letter of
July 11st, and assure you that I feel with deep sensibility its
kind expressions towards myself, and the more as from a person than whom no others could be more in sympathy with
my own aflfcrtions. 1 often call to mind the occasions of
knowing your worth, which the societies of Washington furnished; and none more than those derived from your much
valued visit to Monticello. I recognize the same motives of
goodness in the solicitude you express on the rumor supposed
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WE
into a new race of men, whose labor and posterity will one day cause great
changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigor, and industry
which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The
Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of thefinestsystems of population which has ever appeared,
and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different
climates they inhabit. The American ought therefore to love his country
much better than that wherein he or his forefathers were born. Here the
rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor;
his labor is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a
stronger allurement? Wives and children, who before in vain demanded
of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father
to dear thosefieldswhence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and clothe
them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a
rich abbot, or a mighty lord. Here religion demands but little of him; a
small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse
these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he
must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed
to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.
MICHEL
GUILLAUME
JEAN DE CREVECOEUR,
Letters of an
American Farmer, 1782
. , . its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners.
My God I how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they
are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter
30 WE ARE
LOOK AT OURSELVES
to Monroe, June 17,7
I have often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes
of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President
without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at
length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a set-^
ting Sun.:..
'
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Report of the Constitutional Convention, September 17, 1787. On the back of the President's
chair a sunburst was painted, and Franklin made the remark as the last members signed the Constitution.
Our new federal government is very acceptable to a great majority of our
dtizens and will certainly be adopted immediately by nine and in the
: of a year or 18 months by all
to be a citizen of the United Stz
a citizen of the freest, purest,
i of the earth.
BENJAMIN R U S H ,
letter
ber 28, 1787
dose of the eighteenth centun
the belief that even the matei
Radicals as extreme as Thr
re contented with avowing no higl
duce the simpler forms of Eui
ean vices; and even this their
ed States had thus far made a s.
EWorld,—they had agreed to try t
ntinent in one republican system; bu
fidence in their success, that Jeffe
aerican idea as vital; he would not si
a. "Whether we remain in one co:
• into Atlantic and Mississippi cor
.
nt to the happiness of either part.'
Jt a spell so strong, that he thought
ipolitical confederation "not very imj
Whe task of overcoming popular in'
iw, and seemed to offer peculiar diffic
[ the way, and without a wealthy cl.
ent, the people of the United States
|their problems, to become a specu!
dd do little without changing their
ning to love novelty for novelty's sal
oney had been proportioned to the :
vard they were under every inducei
nt losses in order to win occasional!
Me they had naturally accepted old pi
erience as final authority. As an ind.
pent to dvilize, they could not afford
an examples, but must devise new
bich assumed that what had been mu
order to make the Americans a scier
9 feel the necessity of scientific trainii
owledge was money, they would not ii
/
-AS.
1
�itwamrac..
WE
LOOK AT OURSI
example that will protect the independent^
ack so long as this government stands. . !
mce and perpetuation of government and
om government and rule by men, and in
principles basic to the Constitution of the
lestroy the system when we reduce it to the in
en who operate it. We shall strengthen it an<f
ustice and liberty for all men more certain |
traint, we maintain it on the high plane on |
udiciary Committee, 1937, reporting unfair
Roosevelt's "Court-Packing Bill"
171
WHAT WE LIVE B Y
LOVE OF COUNTRY
y u will think me transi^tedjtdthjm&usiasm, but I am not. I am well
^ a f e o f the toil, and blood,_and treasure, jhat it will cost us to maintain"
'^jJ g^cIaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all
^ g j o o m ^ J can seejhfijravs of ravishing light and glory. I can see that
^ pnd is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph
frTfiaTday's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in
god^we^sKall not . . . The second day of July, 1776, will be the most
£3ioraBle"epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it
will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn
jets of devotion to God Almighty. I t ought to be solemnized with pomp
jnd parade, with shows, games, sporte, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward
for evermore.
n
j
t
B
t one is entitled to in America. I t is the
a to be treated by other citizens as an equalj
WENDELL L. Wi
iy nationalities, many races, many religions--!
nity, the unity of freedom and equality. \ y |
ality against another, seeks to degrade all nati|
> set one race against another seeks to cnsla
o set one religion against another seeks to | |
ing for a free America—for a country in w h |
equal rights to liberty and justice. I am
it, for the rights of the little man as well as,
; well as the strong, for those who are hell
an help themselves.
JOHN ADAMS,
letter to Mrs. Adams, July 3, 1776
I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
NATHAN HALE, last words before being hanged as a spy by
the British, New York, September 22, 1776
That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate
red and blue; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, repreicnting a new constellation.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELI
i
Resolution of Continental Congress, June 14, 1777
eatest power on earth. To that tremendous|j
S. TRUMAN, address at opening of Confer^
Nations Organization, San Francisco, 1945
use we are infallible, but we are infallible
H. JACKSON, of the Supreme Court, Br^
953
I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our
Country; he is a Bird of bad moral Character; like those among Men who
live by Sharping and Robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy.
The Turkey is a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original
Native of America.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
letter to Sarah Bache, Jan. 26, 1784
Tbe name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity,
must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than appellatives derived from local discriminations.
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
"Farewell Address," Sept. 17, 1796
�'SEX
m
' 1
294
Chapter 46: Immigration and Naturalization
grants who, with their descendants, are now
numbered among our best citizens.
Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), 22nd and 24th
President of the United States (D-NY). 1897.
13. What did they come here for? Why do not they
go back [io Italy] and stay there?
William E. Cox (1861-1942), U.S. Congressman (DIN). In reference to Italian immigrants. House debate,
1917.
14. They [the Americans] are a mixture of British,
Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and
Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race
called Americans have now arisen.
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Cr&vecoeur (JHector St. John) (1735-1813), French Consul in New
York City, writer, and agriculturalist. Utters from an
American Farmer, 1782.
ft
%
is. Immigrants are alone, ignorant strangers, a prey
to all manner of anarchical and wild notions. Except to their employer they have no value until
they get a vote.
Richard Croker (184M922), Tammany Hall
leader. New York City. Quoted by William Thomas
Stead, The Review of Reviews, Oct. 1897.
16. If you want me to release ten million Chinese to
come to the United States, I'll be glad to do so.
Deng Xiaoping, Premier of China. Quoted by
Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith, 1982.
17. The silly ancestors of the Americans called it
"national development" when they imported millions of foreigners to take up the public lands and
left nothing for their own children.
Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901), U.S. Congressman
(Populist-MN). Caesar's Way, 1891.
18. Citizenship obtained through naturalization is not
a second-class citizenship.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U.S. Supreme
Court Justice. Knauer v. United States, 1945.
19. Don't forget, we have a disposal problem.
Allen W. Dulles (1893-1969), Director, Central
Intelligence Agency. Remark to President Kennedy in
1961 about the fifteen thousand Cubans recruited for the
Bay of Pigs invasion who were still in the United States.
Quoted in The New York Times, Aug. 20,1989.
20. America. Emigratton. In the distinctions of the genius of the American race it is to be considered
that it is not indiscriminate masses of Europe that
are shipped hitherward, but the Atlantic is a sieve
through which only or chiefly the liberal, adventurous, sensitive, America-loving part of each city.
mm
clan, family are brought. It is the light complex-?
ion, the blue eyes of Europe that come: the ok
eyes, the black drop, the Europe of Europe, is 1
fm Europe].
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882),
writer. Journals, June 1851.
21. I see with joy the Irish emigrants
Boston, at New York, and say to myself,
they go - to school.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. Journals, July 1866.
22. The typical immigrant of the present does not r
ally live in Amenca at all, but, from the point i
view of nationality, in Italy, Poland, Czecho-Slo^
valda, or some other foreign country.
SK
Henry Pratt Fairchild (1880-1956), professor,]
New York University. Immigration, 1913.
V
23. A closed country is a dying country.
Edna Ferber (1887-1968), American novelist. Ra-'i
dio broadcast, 1947.
24. Asia is the continent of origination; Europe the ;;!
continent of differentiation; and America the con-;"'
tinent of reunions.
Francois Guizot (1787-1874), Premier of France.
1871.
25. My whole family has been having trouble withf
immigrants ever since we came to this country.
\
Edgar Y. Harburg (1896-1981), American play- \
wright and songwriter. Finian's Rainbow.
26. The banishment [of Russian Jews], whether by direct decree or by not less certain indirect methods,
of so large a number of men and women is not a
local question. A decree to leave one's country is
in the nature of things an order to enter another some other.
Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), 23rd President of
the United States (R-IN). Message to Congress, Dec. 9,
1891.
27. Make it [the United States] the home of the skillful,
the industrious, the fortunate, the happy, as well
as the asylum of the distressed.... Let out this, our
celebrated goddess. Liberty, stretch forth her fair
hand toward the people of the old world - tell
them to come, and bid them welcome.
Patrick Henry (1736-1799), Member, Contmental
Congress and Virginia House of Burgesses, Governor (
^_ Virginia, and Member of the Virginia Constituti
Ratification Convention. Speech, Virginia House of
Delegates, 1783.
28. The melting pot failed to function in one crucial
area. Religions and nationalities, however differ-
�Chapter 66: Nationalism, Patriotism, and Treason
j 51. A nation united can never be conquered.
\
Thomas Jefferson. Letter to John Adams, Jan. 11,
J816.
_
52. Robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; murder is a
crime; treason is a crime and crime must be punished. The law provides for it, and the courts are
open. Treason must be made infamous and
traitors must be impoverished.
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), 17th President of
the United States (War Democrat-TN). Quoted in
George W. Julian, Recollections, 1884.
53. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), British writer and
lexicographer. Quoted in James Boswell, The Uft of
Samuel Johnson, Apr. 7,1775.
54. I criticize America because I love her. I want to
see her stand as a moral example to the world.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American
clergyman and dvilrightsleader. Quoted on National
Public Radio, Apr. 21,1989.
55. Pacifism is patriotism.
Fiorello H. La Guardia (1882-1947), U.S. Congressman (R and Socialist) and Mayor of New York City
(R and Fusion Party). Quoted in The Harlemite, Apr. 23,
1923.
56. Treason is more often the result of weakness than
of a deliberate plan to betray.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680),
French nobleman and writer. Reflexions ou Sentences et
Maximes Morales, 1665.
57. True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act
exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it
does at another.
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870), General in Chief, Confederate Army. Quoted in The New York Times, Jan. 19,
1957.
58. Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, patriotic men are better man gold.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of
the United States (R-IL). Quoted by Carl Schurz in Simon Wolfs 70th Year Book, 1903.
59. Hope is the mainspring of patriotism.
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl of Dwyfor (18631945), Prime Minister of Great Britain (Liberal). Speech,
House of Commons, Oct. 30,1919.
60. Let us abandon this narrow conception of patriotism, which consists of the doctrine, "My country
right or wrong." There is a nobler doctrine ... "My
country must always be right."
Meyer London (1871-1926), U.S. Congressman
(Sodalist-NY). Speech to Congress, Jan. 18,1916.
61. If Fascism ever came to America it would be on a
program of Americanism.
Huey P. Long (1893-1935), Governor of Louisiana
and US. Senator (D-LA). Quoted in U.S. Army Orientation Fact Sheet No. 64, Mar. 24,1945.
62. Newfangled and artificial treasons have been the
great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually
wreaked theu- alternate malignity on each other.
James Madison (1751-1836), 4th President of the
United States (Democratic Republican-VA). The Federalist, No. 10, Nov. 23,1787.
63. Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from
which wars are hatched.
Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), French writer.
My Uncle Sosthenes.
64. The issue between the Republicans and the
Democrats is clearly drawn. It has been deliberately drawn by those who have been in charge of
twenty years of treason.
Joseph R. McCarthy (1908-1957), U.S. Senator (RWI). Speech, Charleston, WV, Feb. 4,1954.
65. Every Frenchman has two mistresses: his own,
and France.
Napollon I (1769-1821), military leader and Emperor of France. Maxims.
I:.
66. While it is dangerous to see nothing wrong in
America, it is wrong to see nothing right in
America.
Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the United
States (R-CA). Presidential nomination acceptance address, Republican National Convention, Chicago, IL,
July 27,1960.
67. There are things a man must not do to save a nation.
John O'Leaiy (1830-1907), Irish patriot and separatist. Quoted by W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies, 1927.
68. The Communism of the English intellectual is
something explicable enough. It is the patriotism
of the deracinated.
George Orwell (Eric Blair) (1903-1950), English
writer. A Collection of Essays, 1954.
69. Patriotism is usually stronger than class-hatred,
and always stronger than internationalism.
George Orwell. A Collection of Essays, 1954.
�12. AMERICA^
44 T h e only foes that threaten America are the/
enemies at home, and these are ignorance, supers^
tion and incompetence.
m San
ELBERT HUBBARD, in The Philistine magazine,^
ople, but
ty o f the
graves at
•es o f its
g i n the
/ before
ss o f the
published from 1895-1915.
45 A n American Religion: W o r k , play, breathe,
bathe, study, live, laugh, and love.
ELBERT HUBBARD, 7 V Roycroft Dictionary and
Book oj Epigrams, 1923.
46 O, yes,
1945.
d i n the
ir search
created.
^ '*
I say i t plain,
America never was America to me.
A n d yet I swear this oath—
America w i l l be!
LANGSTON HUGHES, "Let America Be America
Again," in The Poetry of the Negro, 1949.
I ism and
rhe U.S.
8
a?
ise, and
n Rome,
47 W e are the standard-bearers i n the only really
authentic revolution, the democratic revolution
against tyrannies. O u r strength is not to be measured by our military capacity alone, by our industry, or by our technology. W e w i l l be remembered,
not f o r the power o f our weapons, but f o r the
power o f our compassion, our dedication to human
welfare.
HUBERT H . HUMPHREY, The Cause Is
nan l i f e
n't mis-
Mankind, 1964.
48 T h e union shall be preserved.
ANDREW JACKSON, in a letter to Martin Van
Me,
52 I do believe we shall continue to grow, to multiply and prosper u n t i l we exhibit an association powe r f u l , wise, and happy beyond what has yet been
seen by men.
Buren, July 23, 1831.
. T H O M A S JEFFERSON, in a letter to John Adamv
jSnuaiy 21, 1812.
53 I pray we are still a young and courageous nation, that we have not grown so old and so fat and
so prosperous that all we can think about is to sit
back w i t h our arms around our money bags. I f we
choose to do that I have no doubt that the smoldering fires w i l l burst into flame and consume us—
dollars and a l l .
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in a speech in Congress,
-
May 7, 1947.
54 T h e Great Society is a place where every child
can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. . . . I t is a place where the city of
man serves not only the needs o f the body and the
demands o f commerce but the desire f o r beauty and
the hunger f o r community. . . . I t is a place where
men are more concerned w i t h the quality o f their
goals than the quantity o f their goods.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in a speech at Ann Arbor,
Michigan, May 22, 1964.
55 F o r this is what America is all about. I t is the
uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. I t is the
star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping i n the unplowed ground.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in his inaugural address,
January 20, 1965.
49 America is American: that is incontestable.
ways,
ise.
is full-
HENRY JAMES, in a letter to Grace Norton,
1870.
50 O n e loves America above a l l things, f o r her
youth, her greenness, her plasticity, innocence,
good intentions, friends, everything.
W I L L I A M JAMES, in a letter to Mrs. Henry
ifessor
i,
• of the
Whitman, 1899.
51 I t is part o f the American character to consider
nothing as desperate, to surmount every difficulty
by resolution and contrivance.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter to Martha
Jefferson, March 28, 1787. .
56 A rich harvest i n a hungry land is impressive.
T h e sight of healthy children i s . impressive.
These—not mighty arms—are the achievements
which the American nation believes to be impressive.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, in a speech at Johns
Hopkins University, April 7, 1965.
57 I cannot see why, i f we have the w i l l to do i t ,
we can't provide for our own happiness, education,
health, and environment
W e ' r e greedy but not
short on the wherewithal to meet our problems.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, quoted in Doris Keams,
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, 1976.
�IN
GENERAL
ENCOMIUMS
America is a hell of a success.
JOSEPH G U R N E V ( " U N C L E JOE") C A N N O N
If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common
calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up, as it is, of
people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits
of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their
modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was
impracticable. But by the simple operation of constructing government on
the principles of society and the rights of man, every difBculty retires, and
I the parts are brought into cordial unison.
i
T H O M A S PAINE
/ T m u s t soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our country flourish;
as it will amazingly and rapidly after the war is over; like a field of young
Indian corn, which long fair weather and sunshine had enfeebled and
discolored, and which in that weak state, by a sudden gust of violent
wind, hail, and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruction;
yet the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double
vigor, and delights the eye not of its owner only, but of every observing
aveler.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to Washington, March 5, 1780
What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or
the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood,
which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family
whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son
married a French woman, and whose present four sons now have four
wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him
all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new
mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new
rank he holds. He became an American by being received in the broad
lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted
9
�46
12. AMERICA
Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson on August 10,
1776, and adopted on June 20, 1782.
3 As for America, it is the ideal fruit of all your
youthful hopes and reforms. Everybody is fairly
decent, respectable, domestic, bourgeois, middleclass, and tiresome. There is absolutely nothing to
revile except that it's a bore.
HENRY ADAMS, in a letter to Charles Milnes
Gaskell, December 17, 1908.
4 American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water
pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.
HENRY ADAMS, in a letter to Royal Cortissoz,
September 20, 1911.
^_
5 I always consider the settlement of America with
reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand
scene and design in providence, for the illumination
of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish
part of mankind all over the earth.
JOHN ADAMS, in his notes for "A Dissertation on
the Canon and Feudal Law," 1765.
6 Our country is too big for union, too sordid for
patriotism, too democratic for liberty.
FISHER AMES, in a letter to Thomas Dwight,
October 26, 1903.
7 I like it here, just because it is the Great Void
where you have to balance without handholds.
W.H. AUDEN, in a letter to Naomi Mitchison,
1942.
8 I n America, we have people who are too rich,
people who are too poor, people who are hungry,
people who are sick, people who are homeless, people who are imprisoned, people who are bored, people who are strung-out, people who are lonely, people who are exploited, people who lose and can't
find their way, people who give up on life. America,
we better live as sisters and brothers. Let us take
care of our land. W e cannot stand up for every
other land. Stand up for ourselves.
PEARL BAILEY, Hurry Up, America, and Spit,
1976.
9 America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
KATHERINE LEE BATES, "America the
Beautiful," published in The Congregationalist,
July 4, 1895.
10 I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin titles of mining claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule
Flat
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET, "American Names,"
1927.
ill I t is a noble land that God has given us: a land
can feed and clothe the world; a land whose
tlines would enclose half the countries of
urope; a land set like a sentinel between the two
mperial oceans of the globe.
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, in a speech in
Indianapolis, Indiana, September 16, 1898.
12 M y country, 'tis of thee
Sweet land of felony
Of thee I sing—
Land where my father fried
Young witches and applied
Whips to the Quaker's hide
And made him spring.
AMBROSE BIERCE, "A Rational Anthem," Black
Beetles in Amber, 1892.
13 The twentieth century ideals of America have
been the ideals of the Jew for more than twenty
centuries.
Louis D. BRANDEIS, "A Call to the Educated
Jew," in the Menorah Journal, January, 1915.
14 A l l I want is the same thing you want. T o have
a nation with a government that is as good and
honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American
people.
JIMMY CARTER, in a speech at Sacramento,
California, May 20, 1976.
�148
Detectives
So the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages
Of eternity.
1
—JULIA CARNEY,
Little Things, 1845
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love
Help to make earth happy
Like the heaven above.
-Ibid.
2
Our life is frittered away by detail. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU, "Where I Lived
and What I Lived For," Walden, 1854
[More at SIMPLICITY. ]
3
Cod is in the details.
—ANONYMOUS
[Probably of European origin, popularized here by architect Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe and others. Sometimes attributed to Gustave Flaubert: "Le bon Dieu
est dans le detail." A variant is "The devil is in the details."]
Small is beautiful.
—E. F. SCHUMACHER, Small Is Beautiful:
Economics As If People Mattered, 1973
DETECTIVES
See CRIME, CRIMINALS, & DETECTIVES
DETERMINATION, EFFORT,
PERSISTENCE, & PERSEVERANCE
5
There are no gains without pains.
See also ACTION & DOING,COMMITMENT; ENTHUSIASM & ZEAL;
ENDURANCE; PATIENCE; RESISTANCE; WILL
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1745
[This proverbial wisdom was used also by Adlai Stevenson in accepting the Democratic party's presidential nomination in 1952.]
Little strokes
Fell great oaks.
Poor Richard's Almanack,
August 1750
[Proverbial. For example, in the 16th century, John Lyly included in his Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit: "Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks." And
in Henry VI, Part III, Shakespeare wrote: "Many strokes, though with a little
axe, / Hew down and fell the hardest timber'd oak."]
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
We should never despair,- our situation before has been unpromising and has
changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must
only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the
-tiifies.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler
on the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, July 15, 1777
I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a
single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD!
—WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, The Liberator,
first issue, Boston, Jan. 1, 1831
[More at SLAVERY.]
fe
�America 6) Americans 17
American motto
:h American colonists—
on the flagship Alfred,
answer to the question,
"Well, doctor, what have we got, a repubhe
or a monarchy?" Sept. 18, 1787
[The dialogue was recorded by James McHenry, an aide to George Washington.
The conversation took place in Philadelphia. A Mrs. Powel posed the question.]
f all mankind.
Common Sense, 1776
No human power can now stop the march of a nation destined to exert its influence all over the world, and perhaps to dominate it.
—ANONYMOUS,
A repubhe if you can keep it.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
—DOMINIQUE DUFOUR DE PRADT,
to for the national seal,
littee, 1776
i, John Adams, and Benambers may have had in
by Virgil in the form £
o of Gentleman's Maga.r here, too. This periodfirst such publication to
rom the military, where
Lunition. A Swiss artist,
he committee, has been
seal that the committee
ow, p. 24.]
: of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777
.y become its model,
rd Price, March 22, 1778
iw that the choice for his
i, April 15, 1778,
Boswell, Life of Johnson
Des Colonies et de la Revolution
actuelle de I'Amiriqae, 1817
[The Abb6 de Pradt had been Napoleon's chaplain.]
Who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an
American picture or statue?
—SYDNEY SMITH,
Edinburgh Review, 1820
[Rev. Smith's famous taunt dated rapidly, as Longfellow became a best-seller in
England, Poe was taken up by the French, and so on to the situation today, in
which American culture more than holds its own.]
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been unfurled, there
will [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not
abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
—JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
June 4, 1821
[The resolve to stay home weakened in the 19th century. In the 20th, the question of when to try to destroy monsters abroad has been one of the great, recurring issues facing the nation. Adams predicted that if America became
involved in foreign wars, gradually the principle of force would replace love of
liberty. He concluded, "She might become dictatress of the world; she would
no longer be the ruler of her own spirit." Will Rogers noted irreverently, "If we
ever pass out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America
died of the delusion that she had moral leadership,'" The Autobiography of
Will Rogers, 1949.]
The happy union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their
example the hope of liberty throughout the world.
—JAMES MADISON,
JME JEAN DE CREVECOEUR
ector St. John),
American Farmer, 1782
ace of men, whose labors
world.
—Ibid.
lor. See below, p. 21.]
l,od is just.
tate of Virginia, 1781-85
>re at FREEDOM.]
jresentative of our counrd.
.arah Bache, Jan. 26,1784
"Outline" notes, Sept. 18:
[Inscribed in Madison Memorial Hall of the Library of Congress.)
6
The whole people [Americans] appear to be divided into an almost endless variety of religious factions.
—FRANCES TROLLOPE, Domestic Manners of the Amencans, 1832
[She made this observation in 1828, according to American Heritage, June
1976.)
I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken a stronger
hold on the affections of men.
—ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America, 1835
[See also Tocqueville at MONEY & THE RICH.]
7
America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and
every change seems an improvement
No natural boundary seems to be set
to the efforts of man; and in his eyes, what is not yet done is only what he has
not yet attempted to do.
—Ibid.
8
�-v
r
�UCA
national commitment
lebate on public issues
d, robust, and widewell include vehement,
es unpleasantly sharp
\t and public officials,
r official conduct does
mal protection merely
; criticism and hence
; reputations. . . . the
ty imposed upon those
to public criticism is
ich the First Amendsurvive.
AK, JR., speaking for
Supreme Court deci4. The court reversed
nent against the New
;h was based on the
abama city and state
had been libeled by
advertisement criticizconduct during racial
The case marked the
which the Supreme
an ordinary civil libel
.vith the guarantees of
freedom in the Bill of
: Th6 Union
; from many.)
ie United SUtes, proi0 Aug., 1776, by a
p of Benjamin Frankind Thomas Jefferson,
ine, 1782. This motto
itle page of the GenJan., 1692.
Nation" in speaking of
always use the word
racy." We are not a
confederacy of equal
better to Oliver Dyer,
I its provisions, looks
>n composed of'indeOecision in Texas vs.
725.
i party that does not
step to the music of
.er to Whig Convenfass., 1 Oct., 1855.
said about allegiance
i South, no North, no
AMERICA
AMERICA
East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
HENRY CLAY, Speech in U.S. Senate, 1848.
replying to John Hancock. The latter,
just before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, had addressed the
Continental Congress as follows: " I t is
too late to pull different ways; the
members of the Continental Congress
must hang together."
Attributed to BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in
i
The gentleman speaks of Virginia being my
country. The Union, sir, is my country.
HENRY
CLAY, Speech in U.S. Senate,
1848.
2
They talk defensively of "states' rights"
when they and we well know that there can
be no such thing as a state's right to default
on a national duty.
'
LEROY COLLINS, Address before Greater
Columbia (S.C.) Chamber of Commerce, 3 Dec, 1963. Collins, himself a
Southerner, was assailing in particular
extremist Southern politicians.
21
I am not a Virginian, but an American.
PATRICK HENRY, Speech in the Continen-
tal Congress, 5 Sept., 1774.
8
•
\
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One nation, evermore!
O. W. HOLMES, Voyage of the Good Ship
Umon.
9
The North! the South! the West! the East! Our federal Union, it must be preserved.
No one the most and none the least,
ANDREW JACKSON, Toast, offered at a banBut each with its own heart and mind,
quet in Washington, D.C, 13 April,
Each of its own distinctive kind,
1830, on Jefferson's birthday.
Yet each a part and none the whole,
But all together form one soul;
/rhT cement of this Union is the heart blood
That soul Our Country at its best,
of every American.
No North, no South, no East, no West,
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings, vol. x i v . ^ No yours, no mine, but always Ours,
TT
^
Merged in one Power with lesser powers,
When any one State in the American Union
For no one's favor, great or small,
refuses obedience to the Confederation by
which they have bound themselves, the rest
But all for Each and each for AH.
have a natural right to compel obedience.
EDMUND VANCE COOKE, Each for AU.
t
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings, vol. xvii.
4
Then join hand in hand, brave Americans
all —
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!
JOHN DICKINSON, Liberty Song. (First
published in the Boston Gazette, 18
July, 1768.)
A song for our banner! The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand, divided we fall!"
It made and preserves us a nation!
The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever,
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the flag of our union forever!
GEORGE P.
MORRIS,
The
Flag
of
Our
Union.
12
These are the United States—a united people
with a united purpose. Our American unity
does not depend upon unanimity. We have
differences but now, as in the past, we can
derive from those differences strength, not
weakness; wisdom, not despair.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, Address to joint session of Congress, 27 Nov., 1963—his
first major speech after his accession to
the presidency.
13
This, then, is the state of the union: free and
restless, growing and full of hope. So it was
in the beginning. So it shall always be, while
God is willing, and we are strong enough to
keep the faith.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, State of the Union
message, 4 Jan., 1965.
This glorious Union shall not perish! Pre- 14
cious legacy of our fathers,-it-shall go down Let us now join reason to faith, and action to
honored and cherished to our children. Gen- experience, to transform our unity of interest
erations unborn shall enjoy its privileges as into a unity of purpose. For the hour and the
we have done; and if we leave them poor in day and the time are here to achieve progress
all besides, we will transmit to them the without strife, to achieve change without hatred; not without difference of opinion, but
boundless wealth of its blessings!
EDWARD EVERETT, Speech at Union Meet- without the deep and abiding divisions which
scar the Union for generations.
ing, Faneuil Hall, Boston.
5
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, Inaugural Address,
Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or,
20 Jan., 1965.
fU. I f . x
frjc
f/h~e,-
�116
DEMOCRACY
DEMOCRACY
hands, and with an equal power to maintain
their rights.
ciety are not innate. They are the r
habit and long training, and for
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, Life, vol. iv, p. will require time and probably mu
224.
ing.
1
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings,
I don't object to a dictatorship as violently
as some people do because I realize that not
all people in this world are ready for democratic processes. . . . I f they have to have a
dictator in order to keep Communism out,
then I don't think we can object to that.
BARRY GOLDWATER,
22.
10
Men, by their constitutions, are nal
vided into two parties: 1. Those'
and distrust the people, and wish t
powers from them into the h a — „
higher classes. 2. Those who identify
selves with the people, have corifii
them, cherish and consider them aif
honest and safe, although not the
depository of the public interesl
every country these two parties
The appellation of Aristocrats
crats is the true one, expressing
of all.
1
Statement on televi-
sion program Issues and Answers, American Broadcasting Co., 7 Apr., 1963.
2
Would shake hands with a king upon his
throne,
And think it kindness to his majesty.
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK,
Connecticut.
3
A representative democracy, where the right
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings,
of election is well secured and regulated, and
73.
the exercise of the legislative, executive, and
judiciary authorities is vested in select per- It is an axiom in my mind that
sons, chosen really and not nominally by the
people, will, in my opinion, be most likely to'' can never be safe but in the
be happy, regular, and durable.
/ people themselves.
j
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Works, vol. ix, pr-
72.
.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings,
24.
12
4
Democracy—the ballot box—has few wor- I may not be a great President,
as I am here, I am going to try to '
shippers any longer except in America.
President and do ray dead level
DEAN W. R. INGE. (MARCHANT, Wit and
this system preserved, because wb
Wisdom of Dean Inge. No. 216)
chips are down, it is not going f
6
The republican is the only form of govern- number of people we have or the n
ment which is not eternally at open or secret acres or the number of resources;;
the thing that is going to make usj
war with the rights of mankind.
system of government.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Reply to Address,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, Interview
1790.
nationally from Washington, i
I know no safe depository of the ultimate
Mar., 1964. These were his c
powers of society but the people themselves;
words. ,
and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome
n a democracy, the people have \
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
lo what must be done.
them, but to inform their discretion by eduLYNDON B. JOHNSON, Speech at
_cation.
tion exercises of the National £
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Letter to W. C. JarSchool for Girls, Washington'!
vis, 28 Sept., 1820.
June, 196S.
v
7
—
Governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of the people,
and execute it.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings, vol. xv, p.
33.
8
u
Democracy which began by liberati
politically has developed a danger
ency to enslave him through the
majorities and the deadly power
opinion.
LUDWIG LEWISOHN, The Modem
No government can continue good but under
the control of the people.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Writings, vol. xv, p.
p. 17.
16
It is very easy to talk about being
communism. I t is equally important/
The qualifications of self-government in so- lieve those things which provide a sati
234.
9
�'''-'•'•'fp-f".
George Wdthington
lington
earned that success is to be meas
» much by the position that one
:d in life as by the obstacles which
srcome while trying to succeed.
Up from Slavery.
are two ways of exerting one's
me is pushing down, die other is
by Basil Matthews, Booker T. ,;
jton.
£
.'t hold a man down without stay|j
vith him.
imes Magazine, February 20,
never permit myself to stoop sol
ite any man.
jeorge Washington
(1732-1799)
resident of the United States
tei I allude to is the exorbitar
ed by the merchants and vendor
or every necessary they disp
nsible the trouble and risk in
e the adventurers a right
rice, and that such, from the i
•licy, should be paid; but
ceive that they, in direct
17 principle of generosity, of 1
justice, should be allowed, '
to restrain 'em, to avail
e difficulties of thei times, at
nes upon the public ruin.
> the President of Congre
^shamM. Camp, August
ixim founded on the univer
mankind that no nation is
her than it is bound by itsf
tier to Henry Laurens, 177£
Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon
as every good man would wish. The measure
of iniquity is not yet filled . . . Speculation,
production, engrossing, forestalling . . . affording too many melancholy proofs of the
decay of public virtue . . . and too glaring
instances of its being the interest and desire
of too many who would wish to be thought
friends, to prolong the war.
Letter to a friend, March Sl, 1779.
Is the paltry consideration of a little dirty
pelf to individuals to be placed in competition keeping with the essential rights and
liberties of the present generation, and of
millions yet unborn?
Shall a few designing men for their own
aggrandizement, and to gratify their own
avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have
been rearing at the expense of so much time,
blood and treasure? And shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust
for gain?
Ibid.
to continue himself one moment in office,
much less perpetuate himself in it. Under
an extended view of part of this subject, I
can see no proprietry in precluding ourselves from the service of any man, who,
in some great emergency, shall be deemed
universally most capable of serving the public.
Letter to Lafayette, April 28, 1788;
quoted by Senator Wright Potman, May
15, 1944, Congressional Record, in defense of a fourth tefirt. ,
The administration of justice is the firmest
pillar of government.'
Letter to Randolph, 1789.
The liberty enjoyed by the people of these
States of worshipping Almighty God, agreeably to their consciences, is not only among
the choicest of their blessings, but also of
their rights.
Message to Quakers, 1789.
As mankind becomes more liberal, they
will be more able to allow that those who
conduct themselves as worthy members of
the community are equally entitled to the
protection of civil government I hope ever
I wish the Constitution, which is offered, to see America among the foremost nations
had been made more perfect; but I sincerely in examples of justice and liberality.
believe it is the best that could "be obtained
Message to Catholics, 1789.
at this time. And, as a constitutional door is
The Citizens of the United States of Ameropened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it, under the present circumstances of ica have a right to applaud themselves fcr
having given to mankind examples of an
the Union, is in my opinion desirable.
enlarged and liberal policy-a jpobcy Worthy
Letter to Patrick Henry, from Mount
of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conVernon, September 24,1787.
science and immunities of citizenship. It is
As for instance on the ineligibility Of the now no more that toleration i i Spoken of, as
same person for President, after he should if it was by the indulgence of one class of
have served a certain course of years, I con- people that another enjoyed the exercise of
fess I differ widely myself from Mr. Jefferson their inherent natural rights. For happily
and you as to the necessity or expedience of the government of the United States, which
rotation in that appointment. There cannot, gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution
in my opinion, be the least danger that the no assistance, requires only that they who
President will, by any intrigue, ever be able live under its protection should demean
Our cause is noble, it Is the cause of mankind! And the danger to it fi to be apprehended from ourselves.
Ibid.
[7:
�George Washington
themselves as good citizens in giving it on
all occasions their effectual support
To the Jewish Congregation, New Port,
Rhode Island, August, 1790.
The nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave
to its animosity or to its affection, either of
May the children of the Stock of Abraham, which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
Ibid.
who dwell in this land, continue to merit duty and its interest.
and enjoy the good will of the other inhabiThe great rule of conduct for us, in regard
tants, while every one shall sit in safety to foreign nations is, in extending our ^comunder his own vine and fig-tree, and there mercial relations to have with them as little
shall be none to make them afraid. Ibid.
political connection as possible.
Ibid.
Of all the animosities which have existed
It is our true pohcy to steer clear of peramong mankind, those which are caused by manent alliances, with any portion of the
a differenccof sentiments in religion appear foreign world.
Ibid.
to be the most inveterate and distressing,
and ought most to be deprecated. I was in
It is folly in one nation to look for dishopes that the enlightened and liberal pol- interested favors from another.
Ibid.
icy, which has marked the present age, would
Guard against the impostures of pretended
at least have reconciled Christians of every
patriotism.
Ibid.
denomination so far that we should never
again see their religious disputes carried to
The basis of our political systems is the
such a pitch as to endanger the peace of ' right of the people to make and to alter their
society.
constitutions of government
Ibid.
Letter to Edward Newenham, OctoAll obstructions to the execution of the
ber 20, 1792.
laws, all combinations and associations under
It is substantially true, that virtue or moral- whatever plausible character, with the real
ity is a necessary spring of popular govern- design to direct, control, counteract, or awe
ment. The rule indeed extends with more or the regular deliberations and action of the
less force to every species of free govern- constituted authorities, are destructive of this
ment. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.
look with indifference upon attempts to shake
Ibid.
the foundation of the fabric.
I never mean, unless some particular cirPromote then as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general dif- cumstance should compel me to do it to posfusion of knowledge. In proportion as the sess another slave by purchase, it being
structure of a government gives force to among my first wishes to see some plan
public opinion, it is essential that public adopted by which slavery in this country
may be abolished by law.
Ibid.
opinion be enlightened.
Farewell Address to the People of the
Against the insidious wiles of foreign
United States, September, 1796.*
influence, (I conjure you to believe me
• This address was never delivered; it was fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free peoU
published in Claypole's Daily Advertiser. ple ought to be constantly awake; since <
The general ideas were Washington's, but history and experience prove that foreign
Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, notably influence is one of the most baneful foes
Ibid.
Hamilton, were said to have written parts. of republican government
[726]
i
�+
Gale's Quotations
Franklin Pierce
1804-1869
American. US President
But i f your America's past i s l i m i t e d , your f u t u r e i s
boundless.
-- Inaugural address, March 4, 1853
Born: November 23, 1804 i n H i l l s b o r o , NH. Died: October 8, 1869 i n Concord,
NH.
Career H i g h l i g h t s : Dem., 14th pres., 1853-57; t r i e d unsuccessfully t o end
sectional controversy over slavery.
!
Copyright (c) 1995 Gale Research Inc.
�+
Gale's Q u o t a t i o n s
Thomas J e f f e r s o n
1743-1826
American. US P r e s i d e n t
I am persuaded t h a t t h e good sense of t h e people w i l l
be found t o be t h e b e s t army.
-- L e t t e r , Edward C a r r i n g t o n ,
always
1787
Born: A p r i l 13, 1743 i n A l b e m a r l e County, VA.
Died: J u l y 4, 1826 i n Albemarle
County, VA.
Career H i g h l i g h t s : T h i r d p r e s . , 1801-09; w r o t e D e c l a r a t i o n o f Independence,
1776; n e g o t i a t e d LA Purchase, 1803; o r g a n i z e d Lewis, C l a r k e x p e d i t i o n , 1803.
A l s o known as: Red
Fox
!
Copyright
(c) 1995 Gale Research I n c .
�Gale's Q u o t a t i o n s
+
Thomas Paine
1737-1809
American. P h i l o s o p h e r , A u t h o r
Not a p l a c e upon e a r t h m i g h t be so happy as America. Her
s i t u a t i o n i s remote f r o m a l l t h e w r a n g l i n g w o r l d , and she has
n o t h i n g t o do b u t t o t r a d e w i t h them.
-- The American C r i s i s , no. 1 (December 23,
1776)
Born: January 29, 1737 i n T h e t f o r d , England. Died: June 8, 1809 i n New York,
NY.
Career H i g h l i g h t s : Advocated c o l o n i a l independence i n Common Sense, Jan 1776.
!
Copyright
(c) 1995 Gale Research I n c .
�Gale's
+
Quotations
John Adams
1735-1826
American. US P r e s i d e n t
I must s t u d y p o l i t i c s and war t h a t my sons may have l i b e r t y t o
study mathematics and p h i l o s o p h y . My sons ought t o s t u d y
mathematics and p h i l o s o p h y , geography, n a t u r a l h i s t o r y , n a v a l
a r c h i t e c t u r e , n a v i g a t i o n , commerce, and a g r i c u l t u r e , i n o r d e r
t o g i v e t h e i r c h i l d r e n a r i g h t t o study p a i n t i n g , p o e t r y ,
music, a r c h i t e c t u r e , s t a t u a r y , t a p e s t r y , and p o r c e l a i n .
-- L e t t e r t o A b i g a i l Adams (May 12, 1780)
Born: October 30, 1735 i n B r a i n t r e e , MA.
Died: J u l y 4, 1826 i n Quincy, MA.
Career H i g h l i g h t s : Signed D e c l a r a t i o n o f Independence, 1776; second US p r e s . ,
1797-1801; helped draw up T r e a t y o f P a r i s , 1793, ending American R e v o l u t i o n .
A l s o known as: The A t l a s o f Independence
!
Copyright
(c) 1995 Gale Research I n c .
�foreign "Policy
negotiations and lost political ground at home. See William Allen Whi'
memorial editorial at EPITAPHS & GRAVESTONES.]
I don't know how a lot of these other nations have existed as long as they have
till we could get some of our people around and show 'em how to be pure aod'
good like us.
—WILL ROGERS, More Letters, Feb. 27, 1932;
.n
In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of thtf
good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because hi
does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his oblii
tions and who respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world
neighbors.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, First Inaugural Addresal
March 4, 1933
1
He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, referring to the Nicaraguan die
Anastasio Somoza, attributed in a number of sources,
including William Pfaff in The New Yorker, May 27, 1985.]
[Some forty years later, CIA chief William Casey, discussing the Pana
dictator Manuel Noriega, said, "He's a bastard, but he's our bastard."
comment, made to U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, chair of the House InteUige
Committee, was reported in Haynes Johnson's Sleepwalking Through Histc
America in the Reagan Years, 1991.]
Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive re
tory power.
—JOHN FOSTER DULLES, speech to the Council on ForeigQij
Relations, Jan. 12, 1954
[Dulles was secretary of state under Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959, during 1
Cold War with Russia. His call for "massive retaliatory power"—almost
mediately condensed by the media into "massive retaliation"—implied thatl
the United States would respond with overwhelming nuclear strikes to any!
military threats by Communist nations, even if made only with convention^?
forces. An attraction of "massive retaliation" was that it was cheaper—in the/,,.,
short run, at least—than maintaining large conventional forces. In the words O^TII
then Defense Secretary Charles W. Wilson, it offered "a bigger bang for the^i
buck." It was also a lot scarier since it was coupled with Dulles's predilectk
for "brinksmanship"; see below. Ernest Gross, who was in the audience for thej
"massive retaliation" speech, said later, "We all shook our heads and were re-j!
ally worried," American Heritage, June 1971.J
tofnmawayl
^li^^ii^bria^
interview with James Shepley,
Life magazine, Jan. 16, 1956
[Dulles's willingness to face down Russian and Chinese communists, even if it
meant going to the brink of nuclear war was derided by Adlai Stevenson and
other Democrats as "brinksmanship," a term that probably was inspired by the
popularity of Stephen Potter's humorous book Gamesmanship (1947). In 1953
and 1954, Dulles faced a series of crises in the Far East, centering on the Korean
peace talks, the French defeat in Indo-China, and China's desire to recover Taiwan. He reacted with dramatic vigor. As John Kenneth Galbraith observed in a
letter to Pres. John F. Kennedy, "The greatest difficulty with Dulles was his
yearning for new and exciting variants in policy," October 9, 1961.]
T
—JOHN FOSTER DULLES,
�Education
161
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
—DOROTHY PARKER, attributed in The Ten-Year Lunch,
documentary on the Algonquin Round Table [1987]
[Parker is said to have made this pun during a round of a word game played by
wits who gathered at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. She was challenged
to use the word horticulture in a sentence.]
When eras die, their legacies
Are left to strange police.
Professors in New England guard
The glory that was Greece.
Thoughts on Deaths,
in Thoughts Without Words, 1928
—CLARENCE DAY,
School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency.
—H. L. MENCKEN, "Travail," Baltimore Evening Sun,
Oct. 8, 1928
[Princeton University:] A quaint ceremonious village of puny demigods on
stilts.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN, letter to the Queen of Belgium,
Nov. 20, 1933
My boyhood saw
Greek islands floating over Harvard Square.
—HORACE GREGORY,
Chorus for Survival, 1935
(The speaker is Ralph Waldo Emerson.)
MfeWnoienters ajumyersity walksHon'hallowed ground.!;. J-?
—JAMES-BRYANT CoNAmyNotes on the Harvard Tercentenary,
1936
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
6
7
—B. F. SKINNER, Education in 1984
(Similarly, Mark Twain wrote in his Notebook, published posthumously in
1935, "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.")
The whole educational system has become one massive quiz program, with 8
the prizes going to the most enterprising, most repulsively well-informed person—the man with his hand up
first.
—HAROLD TAYLOR,
conference, 1947
[Dr. Taylor, chosen at age thirty to head Sarah Lawrence College, was the
youngest college president in the United States. In later years, he pursued a distinguished career in education, the arts, and in support of world peace. He also
observed, "What is wrong with a great deal of higher education in America is
that it is simply boring." Both quotes here are from his New York Times obituary, February 2, 1993.)
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
9
—EARL WARREN, Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954
[More at AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE MOMENTS and THE CONSTITUTION.]
Like so many aging college people, Pnin had long since ceased to notice the ex- io
istence of students on campus.
—VLADIMIR NABOKOV,
Pnin, 1957
[Nabokov taught at Cornell.)
�It is an axiom in political science that unless a people are educated and ea:!.
lightened it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty or the capacity fo£§
self-government.
—TEXAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, March 2, 18361
Let the children of the rich and poor take their seats together and know of no
distinction save that of industry, good conduct, and intellect.
—TOWNSEND HARRB
[Harris, a merchant, served on and headed New York City's board of education!'
and was the chief advocate for founding the present College of the City of New
York in 1847. In the 1850s, he served successfully as a diplomat in Japan.] ^
3 Education . . . is a great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheeM
of the social machinery.
—HORACE MANN, report as Secretary of thef
Massachusetts Board of Education, If
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free meand
ing brook.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Journal, 1850
The public school system of the several states is the bulwark of the Americani
republic.
—REPUBLICAN PARTY, national platform!
1876
^
[This platform called for a constitutional amendment to forbid using publicf
funds for any sectarian school.]
The free school is the preserver of that intelligence which is to preserve us as|
a free nation.
—REPUBLICAN PARTY, national platform, 18881
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly;^
in the long run.
—MARK TWAIN, The Facts Concerning the Recent
Registration, in Sketches New and Old, 1867
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is •
nothing but cabbage with a college education.
—MARK TWAIN, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar; f l
in Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894
| |
[But see also the note under Skinner below.]
. jii*
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school'
boards.
—MARK TWAIN, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar;
in Following the Equator, 1897
10
Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the fooUsh ^
their lack of understanding. —AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary, 1906
They know enough who know how to learn.
—HENRY BROOKS ADAMS, The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
1 A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.
2
-Ibid
Kean College of New Jersey,
1912
[Dana, a librarian in Newark, was asked to find a suitable inscription for a new
building at Newark State College, Union, N.J., which later became Kean College. Apparently lacking a good dictionary of quotations, he wrote this maxim,
which eventually the college adopted as its motto.]
�Education
159
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose
yours.
1
—ANONYMOUS
[Pres. Harry S. Truman used this line, according to Ralph Reyes's Nice Guys
Finish Seventh; so did Ronald Reagan in his 1980 presidential campaign.]
I'm always looking for a one-armed economist [one who can't say "On the 2
other hand"]
—HARRY S. TRUMAN, attributed by Howell Raines,
editorial page editor of The New York Times
[Peter J. Boyer, writing in The New Yorker, August 22 & 29, 1994, quoted
Raines as saying that just as Truman looked for one-armed economists, he
himself wanted one-armed editorial writers.]
There is nothing sacred about the pay-as-you-go idea so far as I am concerned, 3
except that it represents the soundest principle of financing that I know.
—HARRY S. TRUMAN, quoted in The New York Times,
article on the proposed balanced-budget amendment
to the Constitution [Jan. 26, 1995]
aj*:ncli/
^ ^ ' ^
—JOHN F. KENNEDY, Inaugural Address, 1961
[See also Andrew Carnegie at RICH & POOR.]
I stressed to the President the importance of realizing that in economics, the 5
majority is always wrong.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, c. 1962
[Quoted in Plain Tales from the Embassy, excerpts from letters and quotes dating from Mr. Galbraith's tenure as ambassador to India, American Heritage,
October 1969.]
Voodoo economics.
—GEORGE BUSH, speech, 6
April 1980
[In the Republican presidential primary race in Pennsylvania, Bush thus derisively characterized the "supply side" economic theory espoused by his opponent, Ronald Reagan. According to this theory, a tax cut would actually
increase government revenues by stimulating the economy. After Bush became Reagan's running mate, the phrase came back to haunt him. "God I wish
I hadn't said that," he remarked. He had it right, though. Pres. Reagan's budget
chief David Stockman confided to a reporter for the The Atlantic magazine,
that supply-side economics was "a Trojan horse," adding, "None of us really
understands what is going on with all these numbers," November 1981. At a
meeting on June 5, 1981, presidential chief of staff James Baker asked jokingly
(sort of), "You mean it really is voodoo economics after all?" By 1988, Pres.
Reagan—assisted by a Democratic Congress—had run up the national debt to
a record $2 trillion. In 1991, the economy was the central theme in Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. See fames Carville at POLITICAL SLOGANS.]
EDUCATION
See also BOOKS & READING; KNOWLEDGE & INFORMATION
vynere>the-press iS'free'and»eyeiyiman?able:t(?read,.aU^sisafer/
- f e ^ g S S ? ; ^
[See also Jefferson under THE PRESS.)
7
Yancey, 1816
It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it. 8
—DANIEL WEBSTER, argument in the U.S. Supreme Court case
Trustees of Dartmouth CoUege v. Woodward, March 10, 1818
�E
EATING
ECONOMICS
See FOOD, WINE, & EATING «
See also BUSINESS; CAPITALISM & CAPITAL V. LABOR, ^
COMMUNISM; DEPRESSION, THE; MONEY & THE RICH; POVERTY
& HUNGER; RICH & POOR, WEALTH & POVERTY; SOCIALISM '
A nationalidebt, if it. is notrexcessiw,wi^be:toTusra?nationaLblessmgn?
'"^*^^^fti*x^
to Robert Morris, April 30, 1781'|
[But see Hamilton below on debt and taxes.]
•,. i |
t
x
Toiextltigui3£i^^^
J I .
Li.-.r.-t
/ — - i - -
mo're'of less'iinpopulai^
^
—ALEJUJ^ER-HAKSLTON,
c. 1790-94
[Professor Thomas McGraw of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration drew attention to this comment by Hamilton in The New York {
Times, May 2, 1993. He added that Hamilton had obseirved that one commonly
sees the very people who declaim against public debt "vehement against every '
plan of taxation which is proposed to discharge old debts, or to avoid new." Hie •
debt that worried Hamilton and Pres. George Washington as well was the huge
Revolutionary War bill of $75.4 million, fifteen times annual revenues. U.S.
debt in 1993 was four times annual revenues. See also Andrew Jackson below.)
Not worth a continental.
—ANONYMOUS,
c. 1790
[A popular expression for worthlessness. The "continental currency" was paper money issued by Congress after the Revolution. The nation was deep in
debt and could not back up the currency. The continental quickly inflated to
the point that one silver dollar was equal to $40 in continentals.]
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One
method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sept. 17, 1796
�144
Democracy
1
Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
—JOHN ADAMS, letter to lohn Taylor, April 15, 1814,,
[For another perspective on democracy and survival see under AMERICA &
AMERICANS for Abraham Lincoln's 1838 speech at the Young Men's Lyceum in
Springfield, 111.)
2
The tendency of democracy is, in all things, to mediocrity.
—JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, The American Democrat, 1838.^
3 Democracy as I understand it, requires me to sacrifice myself for the masses,"i
not to them. Who knows not that, if you would save the people, you must of-j
ten oppose them.
—ORESTES A. BROWNSON, An Oration on the Scholar's Missio
4
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
May 19, 1856
5
speedy
.:|
:
^OTernmentTof;the;pe6pl^Sy thepe^
'•
^ ^ £ f i ^ j & j ^ ^ l S ^ i ^ ^ ^ V a u r g Address, Nov. 19, 18631
[More at GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.)
i i S l
6
I will not gloss over the appalling dangers of universal suffrage.
—WALT WHITMAN, Democratic Vistas, 1871
7
The rise of democracy as an effective force in the nation came in with westeripl
preponderance under Jackson and William Henry Harrison, and it meant thej
triumph of the frontier—with all of its good and all of its evil elements.
—FREDERICK J. TURNER, The Significance of the Frofltier*|
in American History, 1893
, :>"
8
The democracy born of free land, strong in selfishness and individualism, intolerant of administrative experience and education, and pressing individual
liberty beyond its proper bounds, has dangers as well as its benefits.
-Ibid.
[See also THE FRONTIER,- INDIVIDUALITY & INDIVIDUALISM.]
9
The>w,orld.must.be made, safeior democracy. ,
,i ~ *
K
W
I
L
S
O
N
(
speediTb the U.S. Congress, April 2, 1917^
[More at WORLD WAR I. For Franklin D. Roosevelt's call for the U.S. to be the
arsenal of democracy, see under AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE MOMENTS.] "
1 0
11
1 2
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy!
—H. L. MENCKEN, Notes on Democracy, 1926
I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
—LANGSTON HUGHES, The Black Man Speaks,
in Jim Crow's Last Stand, 1943
[See also Hughes at AMERICA & AMERICANS.]
The blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.
—HENRY MILLER, With Edgard Var&se in the Gobi Desert,
in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945
�YOUTH
1
See also AGES; CHILDREN
In^our;.youth;iS:Our strength;UnaurW
'"' "™' "
—
H
E
R
M
A
[More at AMERICA & AMERICANS.)
J
i
2
u
N rnvntuifWhite-Jacket, 1850
A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
—HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
3
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, / can.
My Lost Youth, 1858
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Voiuntaries, 1867
In America, the young are always ready to give to those who are older than
themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
—OSCAR WILDE, The American Invasion,
in Court and Society Review, March 1887
One may return to the place of his birth.
He cannot go back to his youth.
—JOHN BURROUGHS, The Return,
in Bird and Bough, 1906
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
—ROBERT FROST, Birches, 1916
All lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.
—CONRAD AIKEN, All Lovely Things,
in Twins and Moves, 1916
[Aiken's own youth was blighted at age ten, when he heard gun shots and found
the bodies of his father and mother—killed by his father in a murder-suicide.)
�PUBLIC FIGURES: GRANT
WILSON
689
My friend, you are half right.
At a reception when a guest told him that " i n my State
they say that the welfare of the nation depends on God and
Abraham Lincoln"
I laugh because I must not cry.
ULYSSES S. G R A N T
I know only two tunes: one of them is "Yankee Doodle" and the other
isn't
THEODORE KOOSEVELT *
»cs,ii^»!..V'';v
j ' ••• . /
1
^ ^ B S w i t l S t K g ^ l:o4d*'an*d^timid^
d
Pdn't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit
soft
WOODROW W I L S O N
^Ciievolence or Justice? I don't care how benevolent the master is going
•o be, ! will not live under a master.
The New Freedom, 1912
" ''jo--. •
I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at
you as when they are shooting at you.
Speech, May, 1914
I Would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour
'•tth the. man who wrote it.
;
�NEW ENGLAND
the struggle for existence had passed it by."
Van Wyck Brooks
New England: Indian Summer
1940
* **
"All protestantism, even the most cold and passive,
is a form of dissent. But the religion most prevalent
in our northern colonies [New England) is a refinement of the principle ofresistance:it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion."
Edmund Burke
"Speech on Conciliation with America"
March 22, 1775
"If the United States had been settled from the
Pacific Coast eastwards. New England would still be
undiscovered."
Alistair Cooke
One Man's America
1952
* **
" I [the devil] have helped your grandfather, the
constable, when he lashed the Quaker women so
smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that
brought your father a pine-pitch knot, kindled at my
heart, to set fire to an Indian village.... I had a very
general acquaintance here in New England."
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown
1835
* **
" I felt the ground shake under my feet at my first
contact with [a] New England Town Meeting."
Thomas Jefferson
Quoted by Clifton Fadiman
American Treasury 1455-1955
1955
* **
"The nursery of the Revolutionary spirit."
Benjamin Lassing, 18th-century historian
Quoted in American Heritage
June, 1968
* + *
"Where was it that New England bred the men
Who quartered the Leviathan's fat flanks
And fought the British Lion to his knees?"
Robert Lowell
"Salem"
Lord Weam's Castle
1946
* **
"New England at the time that Emerson emerged
Was much like my own town in Illinois. Self-
repression was a feature of the Puritan religion, and
distmst of nature was something enjoined upon the
mind and heart."
Edgar Lee Masters
The Living Thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson
1958
* **
"The two or three main ideas which constitute the
basis of the social theoiy of the United States were
first combined in . . . the states of New England. The
principles of New England spread at first to the
neighboring states; they then passed successively to
the more distant ones; and at length they imbued the
whole Confederation. They now extend their influence beyond its limits over the whole American
worid. The civilization of New England has been like
a beacon lit upon a hill, which after it had diffused its
warmth around, tinges the distant horizon with its
glow."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
1835
* **
"In the laws of. .. New England, we find the germ
and gradual development of that township independence which is the life and mainspring of American
liberty at the present day. The political existence of
the majority of the nations of Europe commenced in
the superior ranks of society, and was gradually and
imperfectly communicated to the different members
of the social body. In America, on the other hand, it
may be said that the township was organized before
the county, the county before the state, the state
before the Union."
Alexis de 'tocqueville
Democracy in America
1835
* **
" I see that Life magazine calls the New England
town meeting the quintessence of democracy; but
one of my neighbors, who has probably attended
more of them than the editors of Life, had another
name for it. 'Well,' he said, as he climbed into our
car balancing a pot of baked beans wrapped in a
paper bag, 'here we go to the Chase and Sanborn
hour' "
E.B. White
"Town Meeting"
1940
* »*
"We shall find that the God of Israel is among us,
when 10 of us shall be able to resist 1,000 of our
enemies; when he shall make us a praise and a glory,
that men shall say of succeeding plantations, 'The
Lord make it like that of New England.' For we must
319
�unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to
convert retreat into advance."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Inaugural Address
1933
* **
[On America and World War II]: "We are all in i t all the way."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Radio address
Dec. 7, 1941
* **
"Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941—a date which will live in
infamy—the United States of America was suddenly
and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of
the empire of Japan."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Message to Congress
Dec. 8, 1941
* **
[After the loss of the Philippines to the Japanese]: "It
was bitter for us not to be able to land a million men
from a thousand ships in the Philippine Islands."
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
State of the Union address
1942
pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a
putrefying ooze; and in the eyes ofthe people there is
the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a
growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes
of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing
heavy for the vintage."
John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath
1939
* **
"The idealists who will have helped put us into
another war for democracy or the survivors among
them will live to see democracy slain in America by
the war they sought."
Norman Thomas, American socialist leader
Radio speech
June 29, 1941
» **
" I f we desire isolation [as a foreign policy], we shall
have it—the isolation of a prison camp."
Dorothy Thompson
Speech in Toronto
1941
* **
"We are fighting [World War II] because we have
the best way of life yet learned by mankind and we
'jTheioniy^limitiitoliAmerica'strealization of tomorr. want to preserve it."
row^ willjhe'rEKTi ^rfrmhtQ-nfi.tnri»v£lMiiscmnve w i n
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ G S i S t ^ ^ o fnnvsrriS
Philip Wylie
withiaj^g^d|aai\e||aiffl.''
Generation of Vipers
^ ^ ^ t S f f P r e s i i i e n t Franklin D. Roosevelt
1942
Speech at Warm Springs, Georgia
April 12, 1945
* *»
"1 believe in the future of America; but I believe in it "Great men have done great things here, and will
only as I believe in Easter—after it has passed again, and we can make America what America must
through Good Friday."
become."
The Rev. Fulton J. Sheen
James Baldwin
Radio talk
The Fire Next Time
April 6, 1941
1963
* **
* **
"Perhaps America since the Depression will never be "America is a pivotal point in the world where the
*> young again."
future of man is at stake. To like America or not to
Gertrude Stein
like her; these words have no sense. Here is a
Everybody's Autobiography battlefield, and one can only follow with excitement
1937 the struggle she carries on within herself, the stakes
of which are beyond measure."
Simone de Beauvoir
[On the destmction of crops toraiseprices during the
America Day by Day
depression): "The people come with nets to fish for
1947
Potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back;
* **
•hey come inrattlingcars to get the dumped oranges,
bwt the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and
"The great attraction that America holds for me
*atch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming consists in the fact that it appears as arealmstill in
Superpower and Beyond
77
�AMERICA
"The leadership of black people in the United States
has always been overwhelmingly of mixed ancestry.
The whiteryou look, the more qualified you are to be
a black leader. Going back to slaveiy, the abolitionists who allegedly were fighting for our rights always
selected mulattoes, the children of slave masters, to
educate and to force on us as leaders.... Today, in
the late '70s, the same thing exists. Most black
leaders do not look like me. I look African. I can
pass in any country as African. The average black
leader cannot."
Roy Innis, national director.
Congress of Racial Equality
Quoted in Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Oct. 9, 1978
"Despite all of the publicity about the new South, the
election of a Southern president [Carter], no more
riots, no more demonstrations, there is still hostility.
I'm impressed with the fact that blacks and whites
are associating in social ways, but beneath that sugarcoating there is that hostility—and the black middle
class, the educators, are being severed."
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, civil rights leader
Quoted in New York Times
March 23, 1978
"The opinion, that they [blacks] are inferior in the
faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence.... I advance it as a
suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a
distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments
both of body and mind."
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia
1787
[On the indefensibility of slavery]: "And can the
liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have
removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the
minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of
God? That they are not to be violated but with his
wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep
forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural
means only, arevolutionof the wheel of fortune, an
exchange of situation, is among possible events . . . "
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia
1787
"The race question involves the saving of black
America's body and white America's soul."
James Weldon Johnson
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
1912
* **
"And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts,
will not be fully free until all its citizens are free."
President John F. Kennedy
TV speech on desegregation of Univeristy of
Alabama
July 11, 1963
* **
"At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching
among the lights of 27th and Welton in the Denver
colored section, wishing I were a Negro, feeling that
the best the white worid had offered was not enough
ecstasy forme, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness,
music, not enough night."
Jack Kerouac
On the Road
1955
* * * .
" I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal."
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
" I Have a Dream"
Speech at Lincoln Memorial during
march on Washington
1963
* **
"There will be some black men who can remember
that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and
steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have
helped mankind on to this great consummation [end
of Civil War); while, I fear, there will be some white
ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and
deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it."
President Abraham Lincoln
Public letter
1864
* **
[At memorial to black Civil War regiment]:
"Two months after marching through Boston
half theregimentwas dead;
at the dedication
William James could almost hear the bronze
Negroes breathe."
Robert Lowell
"For the Union Dead"
1964
20
m
�AMERICA
"The people who wrote the Constitution of the
United States said the people of the United States
shall be protected in their life, liberty and property.
They didn't say life, liberty and welfare, or life,
liberty and food stamps. They said life, liberty and
property. The ownership of property and the right of
free people to acquire property is the most important
part of human rights, and without that right we don't
have any other right."
Howard Jarvis
NBC-TV's "Meet the PressJune 18, 1978
* **
" I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid
on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the
United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the
people...' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Cong
is to take possession of a boundless field of
power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to George Washington
1791
^ring^mthe^^^
tib£:df-Ir^TCi^ence:''
Abraham Lincoln
Speech in Independence Hall, Philadelphia
1861
» »»
"The actual history of the Constitution, as everyone
knows, has been a history of the gradual abandoni
. of all such impediments to governmental tyri
: Today we live frankly under a government of
men, not of laws."
H.L. Mencken
"On Government"
Prejudices: Fourth Series
1924
* *»
"In the Declaration of Independence:—as in the earVirginia Bill of Rights—equality was given the
supreme rank and the rights to liberty are posited as
derived from equality. This logic was even more
(
iy expressed in Jefferson's original formulation
of the first of the 'self-evident truths:' 'All men are
c
i equal and from that equal creation they
deriverightsinherent and unalienable, among which
are the preservation of life and liberty and the pursuit
of happiness.'"
Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma
1942
"The worship of the Constitution also is a most
flagrant violation of the American Creed which, as
far as the technical arrangements for executing the
power of the people are concerned, is strongly opposed to stiff formulas. Jefferson actuallyreferredto
the American form of government as an experiment.
The young Walt Whitman, among many other liberals before and after him, expressed the spirit of the
American Revolution more faithfully when he demanded 'continual additions to our great experiment
of how much liberty society will bear.' Modern
historical studies of how the Constitution came to he
as it isrevealthat the Constitutional Convention was
a plot against the common people."
Gunnar Myrdal
An American Dilemma
1942
* **
"The humanitarian idealism of the Declaration [of
Independence] has always echoed as a battle cry in
the hearts of those who dream of an America dedicated to democratic ends. It cannot be long ignored
or repudiated, for sooner or later itretumsto plague
the council of practical politics. It is constandy
breaking out in fresh revolt Without its freshening influence our political history would have been
much more sordid and materialistic."
Vemon L. Parrington
Main Currents in American Thought
1930
* **
" I see where there is a bill up in Congress now to
amend the Constitution. It means the men who drew
up this thing years ago didn't know much, and we are
just now getting a bunch of real fellows who can take
the old parchment and fix it up like it should have
been all these years."
Will Rogers
The Best of Will Rogers
1979
» **
[On the superiority of the federal Constitution to
those of the states]: "An attentive observer will soon
remark that the business of the Union is incomparably better conducted than that of any individual state.
The conduct of the federal government is more fair
and more temperate than that of the states; its designs
are more fraught with wisdom, its projects are more
durable and more skillfully combined, its measures
are put into execution with more vigor and consistency."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
1835
63
^iM
�AMERICA
"Human affections, tike the solar heat, lose their
intensity as they depart from the center
On these
principles, the attachment of the individual will be
first and forever secured by state governments."
Alexander Hamilton
Speech to New York Constitutional Convention
1787
« •*
"Gendemen indulge too many unreasonable apprehensions of danger to the state governments; they
seem to suppose that the moment you put men into a
national council [federal government], they become
comipt and lose all their affection for their fellow
citizens."
Alexander Hamilton
Speech to New York Constitutional Convention
1787
* *»
"Our federal union. It must and shall be preserved."
President Andrew Jackson
Toast at dinner
"The Union—next to our liberty, the most dear."
Vice President John C. Calhoun
Toastreplyingto Jackson's
1830
* **
" I believe this [to be] the strongest government on
earth."
President Thomas Jefferson
Inaugural address
1801
executive arm, is ignorant, incompetent, comipt,
and disgusting—and from this judgment I except no
more than 20 living lawmakers and no more than 20
executioners of their laws."
H.L. Mencken
"On Being an American"
Prejudices: Third Series
1922
• »*
" . . . I am not so much alarmed at the excessive
liberty whichreignsin that country [America], as at
the very inadequate securities which exist against
tyranny. When an individual or a party is wronged in,
the United States, to whom can he apply forredress?.t
If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the}£
majority; if to the legislature, itrepresentsthe major- '
ity, and implicidy obeys its injunctions; if to the
executive power, it is appointed by the majority
remains a passive tool in its hands; the public troop
consist of the majority under arms; the jury is the
majority invested with the right of hearing judicial
cases; and in certain states even the judges are
elected by the majority."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
1835
" I have seen a number of legislatures, and there was
a comfortable majority in each of them that knew just
about enough to come in when itrained,and that was
all."
Marie Twain
* « •
"Letters from the Sandwich Islands"
"Too often our Washingtonreflexis to discover a
1866
problem and then throw money at it, hoping it will go
away."
Kenneth Keating, U.S. senator
Quoted in New York Times "Government accomplishes little that is good
Dec. 24, 1961 The granting of acts of incorporation, bounties, special privileges, favors, and profligate legislation...
* *•
is shocking."
"The government of the United States has been
Gideon Welles, secretaiy of the navy
emphatically termed a government of laws, and not
Diary entry
of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high
July, 1866
appellation, if the laws furnish noremedyfor the
violation of a vested legal right."
John Marshall, Supreme Court chief justice have to convey what seems to me the most
"I
Marbury vs. Madison decisionsignificant and pregnant thing of all
I think it is
1803 best indicated by saying that the typical American
* **
has no 'sense of the state.' I do not mean that he is
"It is, for example, one of my firmest and most not passionately and vigorously patriotic. But I mean
sacred beliefs,reachedafter an inquiry extending that he has no perception that his business activities,
over a score of years and supported by incessant his private employments, are constituents in a large
prayer and meditation, that the government of the collective process; that they affect other people and
United States, in both its legislative arm and its the wodd forever, and cannot, as he imagines, begin
58
�freedom
FREEDOM
199
See also CONSTITUTION, THE;
DEMOCRACY; FREE SPEECH;
INDEPENDENCE DAY; RIGHTS
such thihg^liberty Without ffe'edonifof 'speechf
'••.rSw;Srji:^-l •<•• ' "
"
'
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
Dogood Papers, 1722
[An early expression of the revolutionary spirit in the colonies. Franklin was
sixteen when he wrote these essays for The New England Courant under the
pen name Silence Dogood.]
Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.
—BIBLE, Leviticus 25:10,
inscribed on the Liberty Bell, 1752
2
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
—BENIAMIN FRANKLIN, speech, Pennsylvania Assembly,
Nov. 11, 1755
(A variant of this appears on a plaque in the stairwell of the Statue of Liberty
on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.]
3
One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's
house. A man's house is his castle.
—JAMES OTIS, argument on the Writs of Assistance,
Boston, 1761
[More at PRIVACY.]
4
Ilie'C^Cwlra^ave^^
- >x^<Wfc^^£
5
l
>
t'ime.
' _THOMAS JEFFERSON, Summary View
of the Rights of British America, 1775
Do thou, great liberty, inspire our souls,
And make our lives in thy possession happy
Or our deaths glorious in thy just defense.
6
Cato, 1713,
used as the motto of the Massachusetts Spy,
Nov. 22, 1771, to April 6, 1775
JCato may have been the first play published in America, and was very popuMT Nathan Hale borrowed from it in his final statement before execution; see
AMERICAN REVOLUTION. The Massachusetts Spy, a weekly newspaper, was pubushed by Isaiah Thomas, who went on to become the foremost book publisher
m the newly independent United States.]
—JOSEPH ADDISON,
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
•wvery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but
•» for me, give me liberty or give me death!
—PATRICK HENRY, speech,
. .
Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
I v ^ n f ^ g declaration, but probably apocryphal. Neither Washington nor Jefl ? j ° ' h o were there, ever mentioned Henry's speech. As in the case of
f u r y ' s "if this be treason" challenge, cited in AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE
JVOMENTS, this speech was reconstructed many years after the fact by Henry's
"tographer William Wirt. 1
n
w
7
�Freedom
201
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to H. L. Pierce et al., April 6, 1859
1
When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the 2
same person. There was such a glory over everything.
—HARRIET TUBMAN, description of her first escape to the North,
quoted in Sarah H. Bradford, Harriet, the Moses of Her People,
1869
|She got away for good in 1849, and dedicated herself to freeing others, leading
more than 300 slaves out of bondage via the Underground Railroad. In the Civil
War, she worked for the Union forces in coastal South Carolina, acting as a
nurse, laundress, and spy. She was as eloquent as she was courageous.]
3
I had reasoned this out in my mind: There was two things I had a right to, liberty and death. If I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man
should uke me alive.
—Ibid.
4
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
—ANONYMOUS, spiritual
[Quoted'by Martin Luther King, Jr., to conclude his speech at the Lincoln
Memorial in the march on Washington in 1963; see AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE MOMENTS. This is his epitaph at South View Cemetery in Atlanta.]
That buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom.
5
—FREDERICK J. TURNER, The Significance of the Frontier
in American History, 1893
[More from this passage at AMERICA & AMERICANS.]
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
6
—W. E. B. Du Bois, The Legacy o//ohn Brown, 1909
Vou can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's
freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
—CLARENCE DARROW, Peopie v. Lioyd, 1920
7
I always say . . . if my fellow citizens want to go to hell, I will help them. It's 8
•oy job.
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR.,
letter to Harold J. Laski, March 4, 1920
The right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights.
9
—Louis D. BRANDEIS, Olmstead v. the United States, 1928
IMore at PRIVACY.]
freedom is never given; it is won.
—A. PHILIP RANDOLPH, keynote speech,
Second National Negro Congress, 1937
•^•ndolph was the founder of the railway porters' union. He unionized the
oilman company, and was influential in persuading Pres. Harry Truman that
w U.S. armed services should be integrated. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
^^de the same point some twenty-five years later,- see below.)
|n the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world
•ounded upon four essential human freedoms.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, State of the Union message,
jL.
Jan. 6, 1941
ITne four freedoms cited by the president were: freedom of speech, freedom of
1 0
11
�200
1
fieedom
Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, attributed
[Also sometimes attributed to James Otis in the form of the Latin motto: Ubi
libertas, ibi patria. For Franklin, the root of the attribution may be in a letter
to David Hartley, December 4, 1789, in which Franklin wrote: "God grant that
not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may
pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'"]
2
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their
only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are
the gifts of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I
tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785
[Jefferson was warning in particular that slavery violated God's gift of liberty
for us all.]
3
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to
Col. WilliamSj.Sfnitlj, Nov. 13,1787
4 Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been unfurled, there
will [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be.
—JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, July 4, 1821
[More at AMERICA & AMERICANS.]
5 Independence now and forever!
eulogy,
August 2, 1826
[Webster spoke in memory of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who both
died on July 4,1826. Four days earlier, when asked to suggest a toast to be made
in his name, Adams had said, "It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of
God, it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence now and Independence forever." See also INDEPENDENCE DAY.]
—DANIEL WEBSTER,
6 Liberty and independence, forever!
—DAVID CROCKETT, Alamo journal, March 5, 1836,
in Colonel Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas 1837]
[These are the final words of the journal attributed to Crockett, killed later
that day, along with all the other defenders of the San Antonio fortress, by
Mexicans under General Santa Anna. The entire last paragraph reads: "Pop,
pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day. No time for memorandums
now. Go ahead! Liberty and independence forever!" For more on the Alamo
and Crockett, see William Barrett Travis at AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE
MOMENTS.]
7 We should be men first, and subjects afterward.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU,
8
Civii Disobedience, 1849
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Public Opinion, speech,
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Jan. 28, 1852
[Sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson or Patrick Henry. The true source
seems to be the Irish magistrate and orator John Philpot Curran, who in a
speech delivered on July 10, 1790, stated: "The condition upon which God
hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."]
—WENDELL PHILLIPS,
�Quotes frohi President Abraham Lincoln
http://wormhole.res.cmu.edu/~adavenpo/quotes/qtext/lincoln.html
Abraham Lincoln Quotes
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we
believe to be just."
"If the good people, in their wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar
with disappointments to be very much chagrined."
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever
differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
(From "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.")
"Die when I may, I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a"
flower wouiairo^"!
"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentance, to be ever in view,
and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words:
"And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How
consoling in the depths of affliction!"
( Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society.)
"No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting, to this place, and the
kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed
from a young to an old man. Here my children have been bom, and one is buried. I now leave, not
knowing when or if ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon
Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With
that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be
everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well."
( Farewell Address, Springfield, Illinois )
"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the
reigns of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that
friend shall be down inside me."
( Reply to Missouri Committee of Seventy )
" With malice toward none, with charity for all, withfirmnessin therightas God gives us to see the
6
1 of 2
01/07/98 10:40:58
�Quotes trom President Abraham Lincoln
http://wormhole.res.cmu.edu/~adavenpo/quotes/qtext/lincoln.html
righClet us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for ffim who
shall have-bourne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a
juttlmcMti^^^
®
( Secbncl Inaugural Address)
•• %
" I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those
who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for othres. Whenever I hear anyone
arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
( Address to an Indiana Regiment)
"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by
legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the
very principles upon which our government was founded."
(December 1840)
''ImportMt principles may/and must be inflexible."
( Last public address, Washington, D.C.)
"It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God."
"My concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side."
"T^e .best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend." |
(This site was awarded a Times Pick by the Los Angeles Times on 2/12/97.
Mti PK
C
I
Back to Andrew's Quote Archive main menu.
wormhole.snurgle.org/Andrew M. Davenport/ adavenpo@cmu.edu/ 30,533 accesses, since 17 Sept
1996
2oil
01/07/98 10:41:02
�Favorite Quotes: Samuel Adams
http://www.regent.edu/acad/schgov/asnyder/quotes/adams_s.html
Dr. Alan Snyder's Selected Great Quotes
Samuel Adams
The rights of the colonists as Christians .. . may be best understood by reading and carefully
studying the institutes of the great Lawgiver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be
found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of
America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot
be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to
the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people?
they Will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.
i
Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age,
by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of
inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and,
in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; of instructing them in the art
of self-government without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies,
great or small; in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the
Christian system.
Other Great Quotes by:
Adams, John | Adams, Samuel | Chambers, Whittaker | Franklin, Benjamin | Grotius, Hugo |
Jefferson, THomas | Johnson, Paul [ Kilpatrick, William Kirk | Lewis, CSTj Madison, James
Veith, Gene Edward, Jr. | Washington, George | Webster, Noah
Write to Dr. Snyder at asnyder@regent.edu
Dr. Snyder's Homepage
Robertson School of Government
Last modified 12 Oct 1997
1 ofl
01/07/98 11:34:16
�248
1
kifoimation
One is hip or one is square, one is a rebel or one conforms, one is a frontiersman in the Wild West of American night life, or else a square cell, trapped in
the totalitarian tissues of American society, doomed willy-nilly to conform if
one is to succeed.
—NORMAN MAILER, The White Negro, 1957
INFORMATION
See KNOWLEDGE & INFORMATION
See also RJSTICE
INJUSTICE
2
This is an age of the world where nations are trembling and convulsed. A
mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that canies in its bosom great and
unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion.
—HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852
[This is from the last chapter. The book's immense popularity itself contributed to the coming convulsion.)
3
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., letter from Birmingham city jail, 1963
4
There comes a time when . . . men are no longer willing to be plunged into an
abyss of injustice.
-Ibid.
[More at RESISTANCE.)
See also GOVERNMENT
INSTITUTIONS
5 An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
Self-Reliance,
in Essays: First Series, 1841
In his Journal, in 1832, Emerson wrote, "We do not make a world of our own,
)ut fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to
them to be useful at all.")
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
6 In a changing world, worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting
them to the changing time.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, speech,
Syracuse, N.Y., Sept. 29, 1936
INSULTS
See also ELITE, THE (Adlai Stevenson and Spiro Agnew);
FAULTS & FAILINGS; FOOLS & STUPIDITY; HARDING, WARREN G.
You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and I am
Yours,
B. Franklin
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, letter to William Strahan,
of London, England, July 5, 1775
[Strahan was a fellow printer (of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English
Language, among other works) as well as—the occasion for this letter—a
Member of Parliament. Franklin was thinking of patriot blood shed at Lexington and Bunker Hill when he wrote this letter, but he did what wise people
generally do with letters that are written in anger: he never mailed it: Thus, the
old friends remained friends despite the war between their nations.)
�(Si
Knowledge &) Information
263
See also EDUCATION; FACTS
KNOWLEDGE & INFORMATION
Forewarned, forearmed.
i
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1736
[Another proverb recycled by Franklin. Cervantes included it in Don Quixote,
1615.]
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
•iSSS^^^SeS^^T
"
....
,, ,,
;isy
i?
—DANIEL WEBSTER, speech at
the laying of the cornerstone,
Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1825
3
Knowledge is the knowing that we cannot know.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
Representative Men, 1850
It is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
—JOSH BILLINGS, fosh Billings' Encyclopedia of Wit
and Wisdom, 1874
[This is essentially a proverb, used in various forms by Benjamin Franklin and
others. Abroad, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spake Zarathustra
(1883-91), "Better know nothing than half know many things." John Maynard
Keynes opined, "It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong."
See also Thomas Jefferson at THE PRESS—the note after his comment on there
being nothing in newspapers that can be believed.)
4
Many men are stored full of unused knowledge . . . they are stuffed with useless ammunition.
—HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887
5
Knowledge is the recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an
embrace.
—GEORGE SANTAYANA, TAe Life of Reason:
Reason in Common Sense, 1905-1906
6
Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.
—ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD, Adventures of Ideas, 1933
7
Die knowing something. You are not here long.
8
—WALKER EVANS,
unpublished text for his subway photographs, c. 1940,
quoted in Belinda Rathbone, Walker Evans [1995]
[The full passage runs: "Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more.
Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something .. . (etc.)." Evans was one
of America's great photographers, most remembered for his photos of Alabama
tenant farmers in the Depression, published in Let Us Now Praise Famous
Men, 1938, with a text by James Agee.)
iiP
MM
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common
sense.
—GERTRUDE STEIN, untitled essay from 1946,
in Reflection on the Atomic Bomb [1973]
9
To live effectively is to live with adequate information.
—NORBERT WIENER, The Human Use of Human Beings, 1954
1 0
So much has already been written about everything that you can't find out anydung about it.
—JAMES THURBER, The New Vocabularianism,
in Lanterns and Lances, 1961
11
�Government
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN/ speechpPeona;
217
111.,
Oct. 16, 1854
Nov. 19, 1863
[More at GETTSYBURG ADDRESS.]
A^publjc^fice i s j a ^
motto of
3
Pres. Grover Cleveland^admimstrations^
(The thought was phrased many ways over^the years. Hem^-g^y/j^^speeph/
in Ashland, Kentucky,, in 1829, said: "G^raminentd'sTa^tnist^and the officers
jpublic- trusts, bestowed'^^fbr^heygppd ^
'ah.individual or;paffyf"'lh i 872^Chafles"Sumner noted, "The phrase 'public office is a public trust' has of late become common property." Grover Cleveland,
among many references to this concept, wrote in accepting the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1892: "Public officers are the trustees of the people." See also Thomas Jefferson on assuming a public trust at POLITICS &
v
1
,
POLITICIANS.]
Government is force.
article, 4
New York World, 1890
—JOHN ADAMS INGALLS,
[For more see under Ingalls at POLITICS & POLITICIANS.]
It is perfectly true that the government is best which governs least. It is 5
equally true that the government is best which provides most.
—WALTER LIPPMANN, A Preface to Politics, 1913
[A response to John L. O'Sullivan; see above.]
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from
the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
—GENERAL POST OFFICE, NEW YORK CITY, inscription, 1913
[Adapted from a passage in Herodotus, The Histories, 5th cent. B.C. More at
6
NATURE: WEATHER.]
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it
teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites every man
to become a law unto himself, it invites anarchy.
—LOUIS BRANDEIS, Olmstead v. U.S., dissenting opinion, 1928
I am against government by crony.
7
L. ICKES, resigning as
8
Secretary of the Interior, Feb. 1946
—HAROLD
9
No man should be in public office who can't make more money in private life.
—THOMAS E. DEWEY, maxim, cited in Richard Norton Smith,
Thomas E. Dewey [1982]
The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often
very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top, there is no limit to oppression.
—H. L. MENCKEN, Minority Report:
H. L. Mencken's Notebooks [1956]
10
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2 of 3
01/07/98 10:31:36
�Taxes
485
Of all debts, men are least willing to pay taxes. What a satire is this on govenunent!
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Politics, in Essays: First Series, 1844
Hie beggar is taxed for a corner to die in.
—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,
The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848
The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.
—CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, My Summer in a Garden, 1870
The tax-gatherer is viewed as a representative of oppression.
—FREDERICK J. TURNER, The Significance of the Frontier in
;4
American History, 1893
: .vfLife on the frontier promotes individualism, Tlirner wrote, adding: "The ten^dency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control"—mcluding imposition
^ taxes. See also Turner at AMERICA & AMERICANS.]
lam in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to bear his
share of the burdens of the government which protects him, I find a man who
tt unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.
^
—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, speech, Democratic National
Convention, July 8, 1896
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxider. mist takes only your skin.
iffi
—MARK TWAIN, notebook entry, Dec. 30, 1902, in
Albert B. Paine, ed., Mark Twain's Notebook [1935]
?||Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.
^M>'
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR., Compahia General de Tabacos
de Filipinos v. Collector of Internal Revenue, 1904
• M.
fflthe income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.
—WILL ROGERS, The Illhemte Digest, 1924
lis first appeared as one of his weekly articles, April 8, 1923, entitled "Help! the Girls with their Income Taxes."]
iJThe power to tax is not the power to destroy while this court sits.
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR., Panhandle Oil Co., v.
Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 1930
10
-
-
u.
~'^FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, speech, Pittsburgh, Oct. 19, 1932
IjAnyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes may be as low as possible; he
not bound to choose the pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is
BOt even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
11
—LEARNED HAND, Helvering v. Gregory, 1934
^JOne keeps taxes low through the use of legal tax umbrellas. As explained in an
'^toonymous verse, probably from this era, "The rain, it raineth all around, /
'Ppon the just and unjust fellas, / But more upon the just because / The unjust
have the just's umbrellas," American Heritage, Dec. 1973.]
Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an
organized society.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, campaign speech,
Worcester, Mass., Oct. 21, 1936
1 2
I:.
�Travel
493
1
The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of
tobacco.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journal, 1859
Some things are better eschewed than chewed; tobacco is one of them.
—GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE, Prenticeana, 1860
2
A man of no conversation should smoke.
3
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journal, 1866
4
The roots of tobacco plants must go clear through to hell.
—THOMAS ALVA EDISON, diary, July 12, 1885
[Edison had a tobacco habit; he chewed tobacco, smoked heavy cigars and
knew they were making him sick. Still, he lived to be eighty-four. This day's
diary entry was cited in American Heritage, Dec. 1970.)
5
I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have no
other restrictions as regards smoking.
—MARK TWAIN, speech, on his seventieth birthday,
Delmonico's, New York City, Dec. 5, 1905
[Twain confided that (like Edison) he didn't exercise either,- see PHYSICAL FITNESS.]
Tobacco is as indispensable as the daily ration. We must have thousands of tons
of it without delay.
—JOHN JOSEPH PERSHING, cable to Washington, 1917
[Gen. Pershing was commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force
in World War!.[
6
What this country needs is a really goodfive-centcigar.
—THOMAS RILEY MARSHALL, remark in the U.S. Senate, reported
in the New York Tribune. Jan. 4, 1920
[Vice President Marshall, a former governor of Indiana, reportedly made this
remark to John Crockett, chief clerk of the Senate, during a tedious Senate debate on the needs of the nation. See under VICE PRESIDENCY for another astute
Marshall observation.)
7
TOLERANCE
e
• £i-5= «i£y-'
<
— -
,..V.~„--: .
W5
V
,
—HELEN KELLER, Optimism, 1903
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering
than outright rejection.
—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., letter
from Birmingham city jail, 1963
9
TRAVEL
[Traveling] makes men wiser but less happy.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
1 0
No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby—so helpless and so
ridiculous.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Journal, 1833
1 1
�Races &) Peoples
419
in his history, but his hero, a man of peace, was evidently modeled on the Ojibway leader of that name who founded the Iroquois Confederacy.
The poem has inspired a number of parodies, including The Song of Milkanwatha by George A. Strong, included in Franklin P. Adams, Innocent Merriment, 1942: "When he killed the Mudjokivis, / Of the skin he made him
mittens, / Made them with the fur side inside, / Made them with the skin side
outside; / He, to get the warm side inside, / Put the inside skin side outside; /
He, to get the cold side outside, / Put the warm side fur side inside. / That's
why he put the fur side inside, / Why he put the skin side outside, / Why he
turned them inside outside."]
All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave
him but little, that little let him enjoy.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech, July 17, 1858
L ^ ^ o i ^ M ^ ^ ^
L e a g u e /
Boston, Mass., Feb. 12, 1862
The relation subsisting between the white and colored people of this country
is the great, paramount, imperative and all-commanding question for this age
and nation to solve.
—FREDERICK DOUGLASS, speech, Church of the Puritans,
New York City, May 1863
(See also W. E. B. Du Bois, below.]
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights
upon it.
—JOSEPH THE YOUNGER, An Indian's View
of Indian Affairs, in The North American Review,
no. 269, vol. 128, 1879
(More at EQUALITY and TALK.]
There are surely bad races and good races . . . and the Irish belong to the category of the impossible.
—HENRY JAMES, letter to Mrs. Henry James, Sr.,
Feb. 7, 1881
(More quotes on the Irish are at NATIONS.]
In all the relations of life and death, we are met by the color line.
—FREDERICK DOUGLASS, speech, Convention of Colored Men,
Louisville, Ky., Sept. 24, 1883
The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.
—PHILIP H. SHERIDAN,
remark to the Comanche chief Toch-a-way, Jan. 1869
(According to various accounts of the time, Gen. Sheridan uttered this retort to
the chief at Fort Cobb in Indian Territory after Toch-a-way identified himself
as a "good Indian." The remark was widely reported and popularly condensed
to: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Sheridan denied that he had ever
made the comment, and it is possible that the quote became attached to him
because of his reputation as an Indian fighter. Or, some believe, the culprit
may have been a subordinate, possibly Capt. Charles Nordstrum. Certainly,
the sentiment was not original to Sheridan. Ralph Keyes reports in Nice Guys
Finish Seventh that Rep. J. M. Cavanaugh of Montana told the House on May
2£ of the previous year, " I have never in my life seen a good Indian (and I have
^en thousands) except when I have seen a dead Indian."]
1
�216
Government
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others?
-Ibid.
[Jefferson was optimistic. He answered the question affirmatively, characterizing the new American form of government as "the world's best hope." But at
the same time, he accepted resistance to government as natural and sometimes desirable,- see RESISTANCE and REVOLUTION.1
The care-of human;.rlifeNin^ihappm
omyjegmmate.'obie
^ T H O M A S JEFFERSON, message to the citizens of
Washington County, Maryland, March 31, 1809
ter to F. A. van der Kemp, March 22, 1812.]
The world is too much governed.
P. BLAIR, motto
of the Washington Giobe, Dec. 1830
[Blair, editor of the Argus of Western America in Kentucky, was summoned to
Washington in 1830 to found a newspaper that would express the views of
Pres. Andrew Jackson and his supporters. See also O'Sullivan below.]
4
—FRANCIS
Itis^ir^the-people's'eons
ple^madefby<.the people;jand answerablectO'the-peoplie.
^
—DANreL-WEBsrafrFpeech,
U.S. Senate, Jan. 26, 1830
[Webster was replying to Sen. Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, and indirectly to Vice President John C. Calhoun. They had proposed that states had
the right within their boundaries to nullify any federal law. Webster countered
that the Constitution belonged not to individual states but to the people. See
GETTSYBURG ADDRESS and the note on Lincoln's reference to "government of
the people, by the people, for the people."]
All government is evil. . . . The best government is that which governs least.
—JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN, The United States Magazine
and Democratic Review, 1837
[This view was prevalent in the era—see Emerson below, for example—and
prevalent especially among Democrats. See above for the motto Francis Blair
chose for the Washington Globe. The motto of the Democratic Review was:
"That government is best which governs least." Among Democrats, mistrust
of central government was allied with support for states' rights, and this alliance with Southern views eventually cost the party dearly.
For a response to the least-is-best concept, see Walter Lippman below. For a
modern Republican view, see Ronald Reagan under AMERICA & AMERICANS.]
The less government we have, the better.
Politics, in Essays:
Second Series, 1844
[In the same year, Thoreau, in the opening of his essay Civii Disobedience,
used the quote, "That government is best which governs least"; see John L.
O'Sullivan above.]
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON,
In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, The Young American,
in Addresses and Lectures, 1849
�Government
GOODNESS
GOVERNMENT
215
See ETHICS & MORALITY; KINDNESS; VIRTUE
See also BUSINESS; CITIES (Pocatello; Washington, D.C);
CONGRESS; DEMOCRACY; ECONOMICS; INSTITUTIONS;
MAJORITIES & MINORITIES; MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES;
POLITICS & POLITICIANS; PRESIDENCY, THE; SUPREME COURT
1
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is
but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
—THOMAS PAINE, Common Sense, 1776
2
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence,- the palaces of kings are
built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
—Ibid.
The happiness of society is the end of government.
—JOHN ADAMS, Thoughts on Government, 1776
3
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious
4
to others.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Note on the State of Virginia, 1784
In coming years, Jefferson came to see a broader role for government; see beow. See also Jefferson at THE PEOPLE.)
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will
not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
—ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Federalist, No. 15, 1787-88
I
5
What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? 6
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men,
the great difficulty lies in this,- you must first enable the government to control
the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
—JAMES MADISON, Federalist No. 51, 1788
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain 7
ground.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON,
letter to Col. Edward Carrington, 1788
[This may be the genesis of another quotation commonly but apparently incorrectly attributed to Jefferson: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." See
Wendell Phillips at FREEDOM.)
8
The whole art of government consists in being honest.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Works, VI
The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey established government.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sept. 17, 1796
9
What more is necessary to make us wise and happy people? Still one thing
more, fellow citizens—a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate
their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government,
and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
1 0
�206
1
Future, The
You ain't heard nothin' yet, folks.
— A L JOLSON, The Jazz Singer, 1927
(This was the first talking motion picture. The line was ad-libbed.]
2 I'll think of it all tomorrow at Tara. . . . After all, tomorrow is another day.
—MARGARET MJTCHELL, Gone with the Wind, 1935
3 In a foreseeable future we shall be smothered by our own numbers.. . . Preoccupation with survival has set the stage for extinction.
—JOHN STEINBECK, Sweet Thursday, 1954
4 Time and space—time to be alone, space to move about—these may well be
the greatest scarcities of tomorrow.
—EDWIN WAY TEALE, Autumn Across America, 195$
5 The coming century is probably going to be one in which the amount of suffering reaches its maximum.
—LINUS PAULING, quoted in The New York
Times, obituary, August 21, 1994
[For a place striving to prevent the future, see VERMONT, the quote from
Charles Kuralt.]
. H I
r
.
,
nj.. M i n n
�Future, The
205
The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.
-Ibid.
["nirner, a young scholar—just thirty-two years old—at the University of Wisconsin, recognized the significance of a little noticed passage in a bulletin from
the Superintendent of Census for 1890: "Up to and including 1880, the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so
broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be
a frontier line. . . . It can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census
reports." But "Rimer foresaw that the expansionist spirit of Americans would
continue: "He would be a rash prophet who should assert that the expansive
character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been its
dominant fact, and, unless this training has no effect upon people, the American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise."]
If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starhght. There was
nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries
are made.
—WILLA GATHER,
MyAntonia, 1918
[This is Nebraska—Black Hawk in the novel, Red Cloud in reality.]
We stand today at the edge of a new frontier.
—JOHN F. KENNEDY, presidential nomination acceptance
speech, Democratic National Convention, Los Angeles,
July 15, 1960
[More at POLITICAL SLOGANS.]
FUTURE, THE
See also ENVIRONMENT, THE
i
Iiknowvno:way:of;judong^the>future*but by the-pastr
—PATRICK HENRY, speech, Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
—THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter
to John AHaiihs, August 1, 1816
We shall be obliged to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, TYavel in Concord,
in Excursions, 1863
Thoreau was reacting to the wholesale cutting of timber and the view that this
rind of timbering is a basic right, "as if individual speculators were to be allowed
to export the clouds out of the sky, or the stars out of thefirmament,one by one."]
The day will come when no badge or uniform or star will be worn.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, quoted in Lewis Mumford,
Have Courage!, in American Heritage magazine, Feb. 1969
The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—WALT WHITMAN, Song of the Broad-Axe, 1856
I have seen the future and it works.
—LINCOLN STEFFENS, letter
to Marie Howe,
after visiting Russia, April 3, 1919
[In his Autobiography, published in 1931, Steffens states that he made almost
the same remark to Bernard Baruch at about the same time: " I have been over
into the future and it works:" Steffens used the observation repeatedly.]
1
�202
Free Speech
worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The "Four Freedoms"
speech is quoted on a plaque in the stairwell of the Statue of Liberty. In 1839
John L. O'Sullivan, who coined the phrase, "manifest destiny," also spoke of
the American mission to spread four freedoms; his four were "freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality.")
Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.
-Ibid.
Liberty is so much latitude as the powerful choose to accord to the weak.
—LEARNED HAND, speech, University of Pennsylvania Law
School, May 21, 1944
Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.
—TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, Camino Real. 1953 tif
Freedom is not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have securitytj
and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather an antecedent to all of these, for f
without it, we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.
—HENRY STEELE COMMACER, Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent, 1954%
5
And this nation, for all its hopes and boasts, will not be fully free until all its I f .
citizens are free.
—JOHN F. KENNEDY, civil rights speech to the nation,
June 11, 1963
.
!
6 Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by i | |
the oppressed.
—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,
^
letter from Birmingham city jail, 1963 .r
[See A. Philip Randolph, above.)
.
«
FREE SPEECH
M
See also CONSTITUTION, THE^tf
C N O S I ; F E D M P E S THE? *
E S R HP R E O ; R S ,
7 The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely ,
shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.
•'A*'
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Schenck v. U.S., 1919
[In the case at hand, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the conviction of
Charles T. Schenck, secretary of the Socialist party, for distributing a circular :
intended to encourage men to peacefully resist military recruitment. The decision set the precedent that the First Amendment freedoms of press and
speech may be abridged when they constitute "a clear and present danger" to
the community. Holmes emphasized the imperatives of war, but the doctrine
was used in the 1930s and 1940s to sustain convictions of people considered to
be politically subversive.)
When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may
come to believe . . . that the ultimate good desired is better reached by the free
trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.... That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution.
—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR., dissent, Abrams v. U.S., 1919
[George F. Kennan, longtime U.S. ambassador to Russia, pointed out: "The
truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas—compli- .
cated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation
and abuse," American Diplomacy: 1900-1950(1951). See also TRUTH.
Note that Justice Holmes's opinion is a dissent—one of many. He was
dubbed "the Great Dissenter.")
�Foreigners
197
dissent, Federal Power Commission and New
York Power Authority v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, 1960
[Justice Black sided with the Indians in their losing suit to prevent the Niagara
Power Authority from taking part of their reservation. He continued most eloquently: "The record does not leave the impression that the lands of their
reservation are the most fertile, the landscape the most beautiful or their
homes the most splendid specimens of architecture. But this is their home—
their ancestral home. There they, their children, and their forebears were born.
They, too, have their memories and their loves. Some things are worth more
than money and the costs of a new enterprise. I regret that this court is the government agency that breaks faith with this dependent people." Chief Justice
Earl Warren and Justice William O. Douglas joined in this opinion.)
HUGO'BLACK,
lie^u^nfeyer negotiated
• ^ ^ ^ E K ^
Jan. 20, 1961
A policy that can be accurately, though perhaps not prudently, defined as one
of "peaceful coexistence."
—JAMES W. FULBRIGHT, speech
in the U.S. Senate, March 27, 1964
["Peaceful co-existence" gradually became the desired conclusion to the Cold
War. According to political lexicographer William Safire, the phrase may be of
Russian origin. It surfaced at the Ninth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in
the form "peaceful and friendly co-existence." An early U.S. citation comes
from a press conference with Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 30, 1954;
both a reporter and the president used the phrase. The phrase became frontpage news when it was used by the Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev in a
speech on January 6, 1961, just prior to the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.)
The struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.
—RONALD REAGAN, speech to the National Association of
Evangelicals, March 9, 1983
[Pres. Reagan here was characterizing the conflict between the U.S. and Russia
in the last years of the Cold War. In the same speech, he called Russia "an evil
empire," borrowing the name of the galactic enemy in the 1977 film Star Wars
by George W. Lucas, Jr. Naturally, two weeks later, when Reagan proposed constructing a space-based missile-defense system—the Strategic Defense Initiative—the system was immediately dubbed "star wars.")
FOREIGNERS
See also FOREIGN POLICY; NATIONS;
RACES & PEOPLES; TRAVEL
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence . . . the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake,- since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.
—GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sept. 17, 1796
[Thomas Jefferson, too, held a baneful view of foreigners, at least those in
cities; see under CITIES, j
They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than
they pronounce.
—MARK TWAIN, The Innocents Abroad, 1869
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
—EMMA LAZARUS, The New Colossus:
Inscription for the Statue of Liberty, 1883
[More at AMERICAN HISTORY: MEMORABLE MOMENTS.)
�Jordan Tamagni
0 1 / 2 1 / 9 8 0 4 : 3 9 : 1 9 PM
Record Type:
To:
Record
Michael Waldman/WHO/EOP
cc:
Subject: Bible
Not much yet.
Genesis 1 2:2
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
Exodus 3 3 : 1 3
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to
find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people."
Matthew 7:21-27
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice
is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25The rain came d o w n , the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that
house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
26But everyone w h o hears these words of mine and does not put them into
practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
27The rain came d o w n , the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that
house, and it fell with a great crash."
Genesis 35:11
And God said to him, "I am God Almighty [1]; be fruitful and increase in number. A
nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your
body.
Deuteronomy 4:6
Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the
nations, w h o will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people."
Hebrews 11:10
For he was looking forward to the city w i t h foundations, whose architect and builder is
God.
Peter 2:7
�Now to you w h o believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The
stone the builders rejected has become the capstone
�CM
CHAPTER XVIII
Jackson anil Liberty
P R I O R TO THE Jackson Administration Francis Scott
Key looked upon politics as sordid and repulsive. But after
Jackson entered the White Hou&e, a great political controversy arose which not only bound him with a strong bond of
affection to tbe old warrior, but also captured his interest in
A
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03
politics. It was the famous upheaval over Nullification.
The tariff act of 1828 had been obnoxious to the South;
and in 1830 Senator Robert Y. Hayne enunciated tbe doctrine of Nullification that a State bad tbe right to ignore
any act of Congress which did not please the State. "The
South," declared tbe Senator, "is acting on a principle she
as always held sacred — resistance to unauthorized taxation."
Daniel Webster, in bis immortal reply to the South CarIplinian, presented the Constitutional view of the Nationalists
that the people had declared tbe Constitution to be tbe
ipreme law of the land; that the right to decide on tbe validof acts of Congress rested in the Judiciary; and that the
lumption by tbe several States of ibis authority would de>
y the foundations of the Republic. Key, an ardent patriot
id a Nationalist at heart, was delighted with Senator Webr's logic and majestic eloquence. The closing tribute to the
a and Stripes — the flag which Webster called "the glori297
�FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
OJS ensign of the republic"' — brought a particular thrill to
of President Jackson gave immeasurable encouragement to
298
TO
299
H the soul of the poet lawyer. Up to this time the old patriot had
the Poet of the Flag:
:
When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last
time, the sun ir! heaven, may I not see him shining
on the broken and dishonored ("raiments or" a onceglorious Union: on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civti leads, or drenched,
it may be, in fraternal blood 1 Let their last feeble and
lingering glance rather behold the glorious ensign of
the republic, now known and honored throughout the
earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies
streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased
or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its
motto no such miserable inJerrogatory as ' \Vhat is all
this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and
folly, "Liberty., first, and Union afterwards"; but
everywhere, spread all over the land, and in every wind
under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
even- American heart—"Liberty and Union, now and
forever, one and inseparable!"
not expressed himself publicly on the question of Nullifica-
t tion. Since he bad come from the South, many of lhe Southern
politicians thought that he would sympathize with the Nullifiers. But at the Jefferson Day banquet in Washington, when
l he was called upon for a toast, he stood up, like a Banquo
I looking at an ugly spectre; and hurled defiance at the Nullir fierft with the thrilling toast: "Our Federal Union: It must be
^preserved!" It was a prophetic utterance: four bloody years
|; of war — to be witnessed by Taney, but not by Jackson and
:
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: Key <—were necessary for its fulfillment.
President Jackson's defiance of the Nullifiers enraged
;the South — especially the hotheads in South Carolina — and
Jthe insistence of the Southern leaders in favor of Nullification
I'"grew each day fiercer and more determined. Key detested
• the theory of Nullification. Like Jackson and Taney,, he saw
the danger in the doctrine that a State could resist a law mere-
threatened tbe Republic. There were some men, like Senator:!
£ ly because the law was distasteful. But, relying on Providence
Benton, who were unable to detect any sign of approaching!
CO
Among the statesmen of the day there was a wide differ-^
ence of opinion regarding the seriousness of the dangers that;
CO
If in time of peril to give America men of patriotism and cour-
calamity. These men hooted at the very idea that America
[ age like General Washington and General Jackson, the pious
was in peril. There were others like Justice Story, who wer
[.'lawyer felt confident that the Constitution would endure.
so greatly alarmed that ther cried out that nothing but
miracle could save the Union from destruction. Francis Scot
>UJ
single star would ever be removed from the Star-Spangled
Key did not underestimate the seriousness of the situatio
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Even though Civil War should come, he predicted that not a
[iBanner. Gazing into the future, be gave utterance to his pre-
He admitted, as the troubled weeks passed, that be was wojc
| diction that while clashes would occur between the States, the
ried by the prospect of fratricidal war. But in April, 1830 ?
Ifitorms would be calmed, and the Union would be preserved.
a few months after Webster's reply to Hayne — an utteranc
"But," he asked, speaking of the troubles between the North
�300
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
and the South, "do they portend a dissolution of our Union?" j
"No!" he replied. "The tree of Liberty may be shaken by
these blasts, but its roots are in all our hearts, and it will |
stand."
This prophecy Avas contained in an oration which Key
delivered in the rotunda of the Capito! on July 4, 1831. For
weeks a committee of prominent men had been planning tbe
Fourth of July celebration for Washington, including a patriotic ceremony at noon, at which the author of The StarSpangled Banner was to be the speaker. This was to be followed by a banquet in the afternoon and fireworks at night.
m
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Before noon of that day a large crowd had assembled at
the Capitol. Atop tbe stately building the American flag
floated in the breeze. The meridian salute gave notice for the
opening of the exercises. The cylindrical walls of the rotunda:
beneath the great dome echoed the martial tones of the United'.
States Marine Band.
:
Mayor John P. Van Ness of Washington, a former Con-!
gressman from New York, who was chairman of the committee^
CO
O)
CM
of arrangements, called the meeting to order. He first called!
on Edward Van Ness to read the Declaration of Independer
He then introduced the lawyer from Georgetown as the oratoi|
of the day.
CD
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Francis Scotl Key, slender of build, vibrant with energy^
now approaching fifty-two, stepped forward like one half
years. It had been nearly seventeen years since he had writtoij
the National Anthem. With each passing year he had becom«1
more widely known not only as the author o f a popular patri"!
otic song but also as a man of dynamic personality.
301
In bis opening remarks, Key said that the crowd before
|)j)im had assembled for the purpose of discharging a holy
jury. Wt h^mfm&^^
amimm^ dodged.
For some minutes the speaker described the scene in the
^Continental Congress in 1776, when the Declaration of IndeIpendence was unrolled and the members of the Congress
iged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,
[lis, he said, was a scene of grandeur, and the names of the
ners have gone forth to an admiring world and will be
aded down lo distant generations. "They sleep," he said,
i honored graves, a rescued land their monument, and their
aes engraven on the hearts of their countrymen." All of
had passed away except one —the venerable Charles
roll of Carollton, now approaching ninety-four, whose
ay» had been prolonged so "that he might see the rich fruits
a patriot's labors and that the world might see, in the
ateful homage of a thankful people, the reward that awaits
labors."
The theme of Key's speech was "The Blessing of Liberw
He referred to the United States as a l ? r ^ i m f r $ a i t U
id^and" rich in the gifts of Heaven. He me^ioneH^the inU—Orction Delivered by f rands S. Key, Esq., m the Rotunda ol the Ccpiioi,
July 4, IS;,I. Rart Book Room, Library of Congress. Subsequenl references to Key's address u t irom the same source.
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heritance of this favored portion of the earth as one of
lised up by God for the special purpose of establishing this
blessings of Providence. "But human happiness," he declar
epublic:
"requires more than any land, however enriched by Natu
and adorned by art, can give."
Another blessing which calJed for thanksgiving was
rescue of America from the grip of Great Britain. "But,
Key declared, "had this been a l l , had nothing further b
effected for the security and happiness of a delivered peop]
it might have proved a short-lived joy. Too often have su
struggles terminated, even when successful, only in a cha
of masters. Too often some new misrule has started up inthe weakness and disorder of a period of revolution, rnore^
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intolerable than that which was overthrown."
No dictatorship had appeared in thie country. At the out
break of the Revolution, the patriot leaders looked ahead
the close of the war. At tbe ven- moment when they were p i
ning resistance to the British Crown, they declared not onl;
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"what they meant to put down" but also "what they meant toj
set up." Consequently they succeeded. "Had their meas:
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been dictated by less wisdom or courage, they would h ave|
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made it a much less work, a far inferior project. They mi
have determined upon resistance, blindly leaving it to circu
stances to guide them in its course and in its results." Th
might have given allegiance to some other Power, in consid
ration of protection. Or they might have established a
dynasty, calling the head of some favored family to
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throne. For either of these schemes "very respectable autb
ities" could be found. But the Founding Fathers had bei
That a people could govern themselves—a people
neither born nor bred to such a business — would
never have been the opinion ot men who took their
views from the learning of that day, which had been
made the pensioned advocate ot power. In those days,
if a writer was inclined to defend popular governments,
there were not many parts of the world where it could
be done with safety; while the doctrines that denounced such governments had hosts of retainers,
everywhere maintained and richly rewarded
Under such circumstances, and in such times, no ordinary
men could have put forth the Declaration of American
Independence. And the men who made this fearless
appeal to God and the world, in behalf of the long
violated and almost forgotten rights of mankind, were
no ordinary men. They were fitted by Providence to
the exigency to which they were called. There were
men oi learning among them, but they were also men
of -wisdom. There were many others summoned from
their farms and workshops, to whom politics was, in a
great measure, a new study. But they brought to it
strong minds and devoted hearts, and, bowing to no
human authority, determined to work out its questions
for themselves. They were net ignorant of man and
the aflfairs of the world, and they knew perfectly the
men the\ represented and the things around them.
With such qualifications it is not wonderful that they
mastered their subject, and became legislators and
statesmen, such as the world has rarely witnessed.
From such men, no evil of sophistry could hide the
truth; and no fear of man could deter them trom maintaining it. Hence we see in the declaration of their
purpose that bold and eloquent avowal of the great
principles of Truth and Freedom to which we have
been listening. Hence they put at issue, in the holy
strife upon which they were entering, the establishr
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FRANCIS SCOTT K E Y
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
ment of a government which shoulii rest upon no other
foundation than the wi'l of the people.
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orate, we are indebted for the wisdom which devised and secured to the land they had delivered the blessing of a free
^ Constitution. This was the crown of their labours — this is the
' crown of our rejoicing."
The orator explained how the wisdom of the memfc
of the Continental Congress was manifested in American vit
tory. "It was the avowal of these principles and this purpose,"
he maintained, "that sanctified their Cause, justified theut
appeal to Heaven, and gave it its success." In the Cor
Cause the Nation was welded together. The people saw
"their dearest rights were to be sustained or lost forever|
Thus did the Colonies become a Nation of Patriots. "'
friends of Civil Liberty were awakened. They saw that up
our fields was to be decided the fate of Nations, the destiny i
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Man. The benevolent of every land gave us their sympatl
and prayers, some gave us > a gift never to be forgotten}
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themselves." And so he agreed with the poet that suchi
Cause is seldom unsuccessful:
Power usurp'd
Is weakness when oppos'd: conscious of wrong,
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight.
But men that once conceive the glowing thought
Of Freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for—spirit, strength.
The scorn of danger and united hearts:
The surest presage of the good they seek.
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At this point the orator allued to the difficulties that conlironted the framers of the Constitution in 1787. "They were
kilo common difficulties that presented themselves," he de|clared, "when the principles tbey had proclaimed were to be
brought into a system, adapted to the situation and circumces of the community for which it was intended." Accor|ding to Francis Scott Key, these problems were happily
Ived. "The people," he explained, "were to form a General
|Goveniment of limited and defined powers, intended to se|cure the common interest — the States to be independent reblics, in all other respects having exclusive power in whatsoever concerned their separate interests." But, the orator
titinued, it waa not to he expected that the boundaries of
ver could be defined with such a degree of exactness that
1*11 doubt and controversy would forever be prevented. Huliaan language." he asserted, "cannot make nice distinctions
j|irith perfect accuracy, and if weresortto the spirit of an inament for its construction, we enter a still broaderfieldof
putation."
,4
Thereupon Key urged that the Federal Government be
"It is, therefore," exclaimed Francia Scott Key, "thatj
invite you this day to remember not only the defeat of Us
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pt free from encroachments by the States, and that the
lies be protected from Federal usurpation:
pation but the establishment of Freedom —that we are
only relieved from a yoke of bondage, but exalted
kings — and that to the men whose deeds we this day comi
From the nature of institutions thus organized, it
follows of necessity that they must in some measure
be exposed to two opposite dangers. The one is, that
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FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
as the tendency oi power is ever encroaching, the
General Government may become a vast consolidated
dominion, with immense resources and unlimited patronage, dang-ercus to the power oi the States and the
rights of the people. The other is that the States will
gradually weaken the powers of the General Gcvernment and dissolve the Union.
It is not easy to see how these dangers could have
been removed, or more effectually guarded against.
It must be left (as it is) to the good sense of the people
to exercise their vigilance towards both. Experience
will determine (if it has not aheady done so) which is
the most to be apprehended and how the tendencies of
each are to be checked. On whichever side encroachments may appear, let a double guard be set to arrest
its progress, and let us patiently wait the correcting
voice of the peopie. expressed as the Constitution prescribes. We must become a very different people from
those who devised this Constitution, if, with the remedy in our hands and the dangers foreseen, they are
permitted to come upon us.
lived these hopes and fears — and most unworthy of
our inheritance, degenerate sons of our Fathers shall
we be, if we suffer it to perish in our hands.
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The speaker now referred to the trials of the young ]
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public. Fifty-five years had passed since tbe Contine
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Congress proclaimed American independence.
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tution had been found to be our bulwark of freedom,
nothing less than "degenerates" were those citizens who fa3<
to uphold i l :
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Here the lawyer from Georgetown extolled America as
[ prosperous country. With pride in his native land and his
erican citizenship, Key declared that the United States
ajoyed the respect of every Nation in the world.
1 ^ t h « r t , ^ y ^ g j n ^ ^ t ^ ^ r ^
to
with respect, as the Nation that will "neither do nor
suffer wrong"? And are not the oppressed of the world
thronging to our happy shores, to behold and partake
, our joy? Are not our people improving like their
^country? Growing not only in physical but intellectual
tstrength? Where is benevolent enterprise more active
| and untiring? Where are the charities of lite more
^cherished, and where does Religion, the great promoter
| of happiness, achieve more successfully her peaceful
triumph ?
-V-'A.v. ^
MavJwe,notltakeghope.and courage fromJhe past?
Step by step the poet lawyer prepared his audience for
logy of Andrew Jackson.
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j j e ^ ^ s a f e . Our scheme o f v ^ y e r n m e n f w ^ ' f l o o k e d
upon by the world as an experiment. The friends of
Arbitrary Power predicted its failure, the friends of
Freedom regarded it with apprehension. I t has out- |
I f thus improved and improving in other things, are
we deteriorating in patriotism? Is our country (ess
Hloved, as it becomes more worthy of our love? This
I is the preserving virtue oi republics. Thii was most
' conspicuousiy the virtue of Americans: shining not
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FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
only among the chiefs and leaders oi the Nation, but
pervading all classes of the people and animating the
humblest follower in the ranks, Splendid instances oi
this in our history will recur to your memories. The
men of those days were in nothing more remarkable
than in their disinterested devotion to the public good.
The workings oi selfish ambition, so natural to the corrupt heart of man, were subdued to the all-absorbing
love of country. Sacrifices of personal interests and
feelings to the Common Cause seemed not only submitted to, but to be sought for; and the zeal and energy
of those days were seen, not in seeking the honors and
emoluments of offi-e, but in the faithful discharge of
its duties.
Key was now ready to compare Jackson with
Washington. "Are these virtues still extant?" he inquii
"Is there no generous enthusiasm to follow these bright
rm ...
amples? Can we point to no instance of high official stat
seeking the man who would not seek it? Can we find no
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drawing the eyes of an admiring and grateful country u j
him only by the splendor of his services?" He was re
of course, to answer these questions. "Yes, my countryme
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be exclaimed, "we have such a man. It may yet be said \
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JACKSON AND LIBERTY
309
Arc the dangers, to which I have alluded as threatening the perpetuity of our institutions, more formidable at present tban in past periods of our history?
There are (as there often have been) agitation and
loud complaints of oppression ir. some of our States.
But do they portend a dissolution of our Union? Is
there any portion of'our country that will not bear
much wrong, and bear it long, before so desperate a
remedy is resorted to? Let them appeal to the great
body of their countrymen ; and let them patiently abide
the result of that appeal. To determine upon the justice of their complaints may require time.... But it
can not be believed that the Nation, when it sees undoubted evidence of the unjust and unequal operation
of a system, will desire or permit any portion of the
country to bear burthens for another. Patriotism, like
charity, (of which virtue it is a branch) will teach the
complainers to "suffer long and be kind." And the
same virtue will teach their opponents to bear with
their complaints, examine them emphatically, and net
"seek their own" (particularly through doubtful questions) to the injury of their brethren. This is the Constitutional remedy for wrongs. It is a safe one: and,
sooner, or later, it is a sure one. The people . . . may
occasionally err, but they always mean to do right,
and give them time and information, and they will
seldom do otherwise. These agitations will be thus
calmed. Th
men, and we have a people, wiee and patriotic, who dc
to honor h i m . ' "
So much for the danger of weakening the General GovIt was at this juncture that Key alluded to the clamoj
is
the South f o r Nullification. With President Jackson's oat]
allegiance to the Constitution — "Our Federal Union: It
icnt. Now the opposite danger: that the General GovernQt might become "a vast consolidated dominion, with imise resources and unlimited patronage, dangerous to the
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he preserved!' —ringing in his ears, strengthening his
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in the solidarity of the Nation, Key exclaimed:
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er of the States and the rights of the people." An illusation of this peril was to be seen in the demand for internal
�310
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
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improvements. Iu 1830 Congress passed an act to btiild a
highway in Kentucky. President Jackson vetoed it, llms chal-
311
who inherit an estate generally prize it and enjoy it
less than the ancestor who earned i t ; and we who inherit Freedom mav learnjo value it less than the men
lenging the principle of internal improvements advocated by;
John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. The
* veto indicated to Mr. Calhoun that he was losing his influence in the Democratic party; and indeed the President, by;
his attitude on the Kentucky road, did rob Calhoun of his fa-;
most^v..
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'forius'-to-'doi This,is-neverft^eJcW
vorite policies and "weakened him so much that his enemies;
dared to proceed to destroy him utterly." Francis Scotl Keyj
commended the President for vetoing the Kentucky road bilLl
He saw the grave danger that lay in placing unlimited powerfj
in the hands of the President. In praising General Jacksoni
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for curbing internal improvements at the expense of the Fed«;
eral Government be declared:
Let us remember that it has been said "The Union
must be preserved"—and that he who said it hath
already done much to maintain it.
Having paid a glowing tribute to the old warrior in
White House, Key now moved toward his conclusion. Urgent^
ly he appealed for patriotism:
The speaker now came to the climax of his oration. I f
edom flourishes in this country, will the rest of the world
: on in apathy? His answer was an eloquent appeal to the
rican people to keep burning the fire that had been kinby their Fathers in 1776:
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No. my countrymen, we hold a rich deposit in trust
for ourselves and for all our brethren of mankind. It
is the fire of Liberty. If it becomes extinguished, our
: darkened land will cast a mournlu) shadow over the
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FRANCIS SCOTT K E Y
JACKSON A N D LIBERTY
nations—if it lives, its blaze will enlig-hten and gladden the whole earth. Already hath its pure flame
ascended, and kindled more than one noble strife. The
kingdoms of the earth are moved. The friends of man
are awakened, and the arm of the patriot is strong and
his heart steadfast, as he thinks of our glory . . . We
hold too this deposit from God, who warmed the hearts
of our Fathers with a sense of their rights and their
duties, and heard their appeal — and we hold it for
Him, to sustain it for His great purpose in bestowing
i t — the good of man.
Is it not a glorious privilege to be permitted to
labour in such a cause and for such a consummation?
To see that in promoting the freedom and the happiness of the world, by sustaining our own, we work
with the bounteous Giver of Good in effecting His purposes of love to man;.and that we work for Him —
for the glory of His name and the welfare of His creation. He it is who rules the nations and reigns tn the
hearts of men. May we look to H i m that we may
understand and feel and fulfill the high duties He has
placed before us. And as the worid advances tc this
sure period of its destined blessedness, and as people
after people put forth their strength and join the Holy
Family of Nations that love us as brethren and "'earn
war no more," shall not this, our land, and this, our
day, be "freshly remembered"? And that which is now
celebrated as the birthday of Freedom to a Nation be
honoured as the birthday of Freedom to the World?
And so, convinced that the world is growing better, Fr«n|
cis Scott Key had faith in the prophecy that men would bea
their swords into plowshares and their spears into pninir
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hooks. He prophesied that the world would establish a "Hoi;
313
family of Nations"'—bound together by love; not by law
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by armaments
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to make Isaiah's dream come true:
In the crowd that had gathered in the rotunda there were
few, vf any, of the followers of Henry Clay. Indeed, Mr. Clay's
However darkly we may speculate upon the future
destiny of nations, we have a light shining on distant
days which cannot mislead us—the holy light of
prophec3 . This tells us of the coming of a brighter day
than has ever shone upon a fallen world — a day when
roan will find no foe in man — when "nations will leam
war no more" — but live together in love as members
of one great family upon earth under the care of the :J
common Father of us all. There are signs in the times j
in which we live, which indicate the dawning of that
day of brightness.
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friends considered the Fourth of July celebration as a shrewd
i political trick —a scheme to promote the candidacy of President Jackson for reelection. As a matter of fact, the National
Republicans had arranged f o r a Fourth of July celebration of
their own, entirely apart from that arranged by Mayor Van
Ness and his committee. Duff Green, no longer a friend of
Jackson, revealed that the Democrats had placed the arrangements f o r the Fourth of July celebration in the hands of a
"Jackson committee"; that the ceremonies were partisan, not
In an eloquent conclusion Key pictured the gloric
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| patriotic; and that the friends of Mr. Clay had "no option
privilege that is his who engages in the cause of internatic
|: but to celebrate it by themselves." Accordingly, at the time
peace:
|Key was delivering his oration in the Capitol, Philip Richard
�314
FRANCIS SCOTT K E Y
Fendall, an enemy of President Jackson, was delivering an|
oration in tbe City Hall to tbe friends of Henry Clay.
In the late afternoon the Jacksonians held a dinner in
Carusi's assembly hall. It was an elegant affair. Among tho8<j|
t at the banquet table were members of the Cabinet, foreign dip|
lomats, and others prominent in Washington society.
Marine Band added to the gaiety of the occasion.
The banquet was followed by a great array of toastsj
each accompanied by a salute from the artillery. First can
thirteen toasts specially arranged by the committee. A musi4
cal selection accompanied each toast. Key's anthem was
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tenth on the list. The following were the toasts and songs
accompanied them: (1) The Day: the principles it has con|
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secrated are extending throughout the world; Hail Columbia^
(2) Our Country; Yankee Doodle; (3) the Union of
States and the preservation of our Liberties: they are ir
arable; The Meeting of the Waters; (4) The President of
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United States; Jackson's March; (5) The Memory of Wa
ington and Jefferson; Roslin Castle; (6) Lafayette: Marseil
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laise Hymr.; (7) Charles Carroll and our Revolutions
Fathers; Auld Lang Syne; (8)
The People; Jefferson'^
March; (9) Our Foreign Relations; Hail to the Chief; (lo|
The Army and Navy; The Star-Spangled Banner; (11)
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
315
, a toast to "Tbe Two .Anniversaries of July: equally dear
|tibe friends of self-govemment and of a strong and wise
in the United States and in France."
|j. The Charge d'Affaires of the Portuguese Embassy, when
lied upon by the Mayor, showed his familiarity with Key's
i when he said in a toast to the President of the United
lies: "And may, as long as the world shall last, the Starogled Banner continue to shij>e as the prosperous emblem
die happiest confederation!"
Then folloived an array of toasts from the Secretary
; War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Postmaster General,
I the Acting Secretary of the Treasury; from Amos Kendall
I W. B. Lewis, members of the Kitchen Cabinet; and from
ftcort of others. A letter was read from Attorney General
ney, expressing his regret that he was prevented from ailing the banquet by important engagements in Annapolis.
During the long program virtually all the officials in tbe
linistration were honored. To the poet lawyer a toast was
[fcred by Dr. Robert Mayo: "To Francis S. Key, Orator of
i Day, and Author of The Star-Spangled Banner: his eloace and poetry alike inspired by the loftiest spirit of
jtism."
Free Press: Franklin's March: (12) General InformatioiS
I Two days later—-July 6, 1831 —the Jackson leaders
Washington's March; (13) The Fair: Gallantry is bom f j
tjhe District of Columbia who lived west of Rock Creek met
defend them; Come Haste lo the Wedding.
pie Lancaster school house in Georgetown. Dr. Charles A.
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After the thirteen toasts had been drunk. Mayor Van 1
called on M. Serrurier, Minister from France. He respc
Btty presided. Resolutions were presented by Francis
I Key, praising Andrew Jackson's record as President and
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FRANCIS SCOTT K E Y
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pledging hearty cooperation in the campaign for his reele
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
Hymn for July 4, 183a
tion. Referring to Jackson's candidacy as "the great cause <
the people," Key recommended that a committee of
voters be appointed by Dr. Beatty to give support to the
paign. In addition to Key, Col. Thomas Corcoran, Jar
Dunlop and General John Mason spoke in support of
resolutions. After the resolutions were adopted. Key wji
named on the committee of fifty. It was still ten months befoti
the Democratic Convention. But tbe pious lawyer, who her
fore had cried out so frequently against party spirit, was i
one of the first politicians to take the stump for Gene
Jackson.
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In the Spring of 1832 the President was nominated j
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Baltimore. Mr. Clay was chosen as the candidate of-
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National Republicans. As the parties were launching
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campaigns, a tariff act was passed by Congress imj
additional duties on imported goods. Again the people
Before the Lord we bow,
The God who reigns above,
And rules the world belcw,
Boundless in pow'r and love.
Our thanks we bring,
In joy and praise
Our hearts we raise
To heav'n's high King.
II
The nation thou hast blest
May well thy love declare.
Enjoying peace and rest,
Protected b}' thy care.
For this fair land,
For this bright day.
Our thanks we pay.
Gifts of thine handl
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As the Fourth of July approached again, the poet lav
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was called upon to write a hymn to be sung by the child
of the Sunday Schools of Georgetown on .Independence
In this hymn— a fine example of patriotic ardor and|
spirit of thanksgiving— Key wrote that America was
enjoying "peace and rest," and implored the "God ol
Sires" to continue to vouchsafe His never-failing aid to
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favor'd land." This is the hymn which was sung at the <
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bration by the children of Georgetown:
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Our fathers sought thee, Lord!
And on thy help relied:
Thou heard'st and gav'st the word,
And all their need supplied.
Led by thy hand
To victory,
They hail'd a free
And rescued land.
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God of our Sires 1 that hand
Be now, as then, display'd
To give this favor'd land
Thy never-failing aid.
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FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
Still may it
Thyfix-'<Jabode!
Be thou, our God 1
Thy people, we!
319
White House, Key was elated by the tremendous marilies. But in midst of the rejoicing there came distressing
from the South. On November 24, 1832, the South
arolina Convention, called to consider the Nullification
linance, declared that the tariff acts were "null, void, and
May ev'ry mountain height,
Each vale and forest green,
Shine in thy word's pure light.
And it's rich fruits be seen 1
May ev'ry tongue
Be tun'd to praise,
And joined to raise
A grateful song!
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Earth! hear thy Maker's voice.
The great Redeemer own !
Believe, obey, rejoice,
Bright is the promis'd crown.
Cast down thy pride,
Thy sin deplore.
And bow before
The Crucified.
VII
And when, in pow'r He comes,
O! may our native land,
From all it's rending tombs
Send forth a glorious band,
A countless throng
Ever to sign
To heav'n's high King.
Salvation's song!
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The campaign between President Jackson and Mr.
ended with an overwhelming victory for the old warrior
law, nor binding upon this -State, its officers or citizens."
Ordinance not only directed the Legislature to take meato prevent the enforcement of the tariff acts within the
ale, but set forth that, i f the federal Government attempted
enforce the law, the people of South Carolina would hold
aselves "absolved from all further obligation to maintain
preserve their political connection with the people of the
ker States."
President Jackson, claiming that bis reelection expressed
: people's approval of his attitude on Nullification, decided
- issue a Proclamation setting forth his views on the subject.
! Congress convened on December 3rd; but the President's
essage made no allusion to the imminence of Civil War.
rertheless, on the very day that his Message was read in
igress, the brave old patriot was preparing his appeal lo
American people. It was almost midnight. Before his
place in the White House he sat puffing his pipe and medting. The Message had been prepared by his Secretary of
jate: but he would add the final touches. "Going over to the
3e on which always stood the picture of his Rachel, and
i Bible to which she had been devoted," says one of Jack18 biographers, "he wrote a conclusion to the Proclamation
*
I the nature of a touching appeal to the patriotic memories of
South Carolinians." On December 10, 1832, the old wai-
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FRANCIS SCOTT KEY
JACKSON AND LIBERTY
rior issued die historic Proclamation in answer to the defia
of South Carolina. The President denied the right of a I
to nullify an act of Congress; announced his resolve to
Nullification as treason; and warned that the authority ofi
ous lawyer at Georgetown, a zealous advocate of peace,
athed a sigh of relief when he heard that Senator Clayad proposed a compromise measure which won the support
?
Calhoun. Then, early in 1833, came the news
om Charleston that the Nullifiers had decided to suspend
: Ordinance of Nullification pending the discussions in Coness. And eventually the tariff bill sponsored by Senator
ay was passed by Congress and was signed by President
Jackson.
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National Government would be maintained at any cost
grim old patriot appealed to the American people to suet
him, and his Proclamation thrilled die Nation like a bi
call.
Francis Scott Key watched with increasing anxiety
dramatic procession of events. He wanted to do his pari
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Michael Waldman
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Michael Waldman was Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting from 1995-1999. His responsibilities were writing and editing nearly 2,000 speeches, which included four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. From 1993 -1995 he served as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination.</p>
<p>The collection generally consists of copies of speeches and speech drafts, talking points, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, handwritten notes, articles, clippings, and presidential schedules. A large volume of this collection was for the State of the Union speeches. Many of the speech drafts are heavily annotated with additions or deletions. There are a lot of articles and clippings in this collection.</p>
<p>Due to the size of this collection it has been divided into two segments. Use links below for access to the individual segments:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+1">Segment One</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+2">Segment Two</a></p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Michael Waldman
Office of Speechwriting
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-1999
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Segment One contains 1071 folders in 72 boxes.
Segment Two contains 868 folders in 66 boxes.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Research Requests: Founding Father Quotes [2]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 42
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36404"> Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763296">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F Segment 2
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Preservation-Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
6/3/2015
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
7763296
42-t-7763296-20060469F-Seg2-042-016-2015