73 quotes found
"Issue the orders Sir, and I will storm Hell."
"Forward, my brave fellows, forward! Carry me into the fort. If I am to die, I want to die at the head of the column!"
"Dear Gen'l, -- The fort & garrison with Col. Johnston are ours. Our officers & men behaved like men who are determined to be free."
"Facts are stubborn things."
"He is firm in constitution, as in resolution; industrious, indefatigable, determined and persevering; fixed in opinion, and unbiased in judgment; not over accessible, but studious to reward merit. He is a rock against which the waves of calumny and malice, moved by the gusts of passion natural to envy, have dashed; have washed its sides: he is still immovable on his base. He is in some degree susceptible of adulation, as is every man who has an honest thirst for military fame. He endures fatigue and hardship with fortitude uncommon for a man of his years. I have seen him, in the most severe night of the winter of 1794, sleep on the ground, like his fellow-soldiers, and walk around the camp at four in the morning, with the vigilance of a sentinel."
"…They also make a distinction between a warrior and a murderer, which, as they explain it, is not much to our advantage. It is not, say they, the number of scalps alone which a man brings with him that prove him to be a brave warrior. Cowards have been known to return, and bring scalps home, which they had taken where they knew was no danger, where no attack was expected and no opposition made. Such was the case with those Christian Indians on the Muskingum, the friendly Indians near Pittsburg, and a great number of scattered, peaceable men of our nation, who were all murdered by cowards. It is not thus that the Black Snake, the great General Wayne acted; he was a true warrior and a brave man; he was equal to any of our chiefs that we have, equal to any that we have ever had…"
"The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans."
"The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people."
"Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
"The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them."
"You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the only earthly object of my affection.... I have now one request to make,... deny me not. Afford me the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before internment."
"I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."
"I shall not again be a candidate for the Presidency...I shall be 65 on the 23rd April next, and I had determined upon my line of life from the remnant of days with which a kind Providence might bless me, discarding every idea of the Presidency...I can now leave public life, I trust, with credit. Should I become President, the case may be very different, after I shall have worn myself out with the toil and anxiety of the office."
"All agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission for more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any human being it has been the prolific source of great evils to the master, to the slave, and to the whole country. It has alienated and estranged the people of the sister States from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased. Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far graver importance than any mere political question, because should the agitation continue it may eventually endanger the personal safety of a large portion of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that event no form of government, however admirable in itself and however productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the family altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation, which since the recent legislation of Congress is without any legitimate object."
"I am the last President of the United States!"
"The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this important subject. The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution."
"It is said that serious apprehensions are to some extent entertained (in which I do not share) that the peace of this District may be disturbed before the 4th of March next. In any event, it will be my duty to preserve it, and this duty shall be performed. In conclusion it may be permitted to me to remark that I have often warned my countrymen of the dangers which now surround us. This may be the last time I shall refer to the subject officially. I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country."
"Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed."
"Liberty must be allowed to work out its natural results; and these will, ere long, astonish the world."
"What is right and what is practicable are two different things."
"That same year, a group of frustrated antislavery Whigs, Free Soiler and other antislavery political types joined forces to establish the Republican Party. They put up John C. Fremont, senator from California, as their first political nominee, and William Dayton, ex-Whig senator from New Jersey to join him on the ticket in 1856. The Republican duo put up a respectable fight, carrying eleven states—all from the North or Midwest—and 33 percent of the popular vote, but ultimately lost to James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania Democrat with an impressive pedigree that included secretary of state, ambassador to the UK and Russia, US senator, and member of the House of Representatives. Despite his extraordinary reputation and experienced resume, Buchanan struggled to deal with the fault lines that were breaking the country apart and became the eighth president in a row to serve one term or less. It would take another twenty-eight years for a Democrat to win the White House."
"Mister Toombs was willing to dissolve the Union to save slavery, Mister Phillips, to save liberty; while Mister Seward, denounced and derided by both, declared that the deepest instinct of the American people was for union. Reserved rights. State rights, limited powers, the advantages of union and disunion, were the cucumbers from which we were busily engaged in distilling light, overlooking the fact of nationality in discussing the conditions of union. We were speculating upon costume. We gravely proved that the clothes were the clothes of a woman, or of a child, without seeing that whatever the clothes might be there was a full-grown man inside of them. "The Constitution is a contract between sovereign States", shouted Mister Toombs, "let Georgia tear it and separate". "The Constitution is a league with hell", calmly replied Mister Phillips, "let New York cut off New Orleans to rot alone". "Oh, dear! it"s a dreadful dilemma", whimpered President Buchanan. "States have no right to secede, and the United States have no right to coerce. Oh, dear me! it"s perfectly awful! I"m the most patriotic of men, but what shall I do? what shall I do?" Separate! Cut off! Secede! It was of a living body they spoke, which, pierced anywhere, quivered everywhere."
"Violence reached the floor of the United States Senate, where Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely beat Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner with his cane. Southern sympathizers sent Brooks new canes. Members began carrying knives and pistols into the Chamber. Meanwhile, the Nation's Chief Executive, James Buchanan, did nothing."
"There is a wrong impression about one of the candidates. There is no such person running as James Buchanan. He is dead of lock-jaw. Nothing remains but a platform and a bloated mass of political putridity."
"It has been suggested that the President intentionally left those forts in a bad condition, that South Carolina might seize them before his successor had time to take means for their safety. I cannot believe it; I will not believe it, for it would make Mr. Buchanan a more odious traitor than Benedict Arnold. Every drop of blood that shall be shed in the conflict would sit heavy on his soul forever."
"I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation. For myself, I shall feel lonely in the midst of Paris, for here I shall have no Friend with whom I shall commune as with my own thoughts."
"No one has a right to grade a president — even poor James Buchanan — who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions."
"Flabby James Buchanan, long an aspirant for the Democratic presidential nomination, now easily obtained it. The "Black Republicans," as their enemies called them, made a lively campaign. "Free soil, free speech, and Frémont" was the slogan, but slavery in the territories was the only real issue. Many Southern leaders warned the country that if Frémont were elected the South would secede; and when John M. Botts, an independent Virginia Whig, called this an idle threat, the Richmond Enquirer advised him to leave the state lest he "provoke the disgrace of lynching." A sectional showdown in 1856 was prevented by Buchanan's carrying every slave state except Maryland, together with Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana, which gave him 174 electoral votes to Frémont's 114. But the "Pathfinder" polled an impressive popular vote, 1,340,000 to Buchanan's 1,838,000. Ominous figures, because all but 1,200 of Frémont's votes came from the non-slaveholding states."
"Poor, foolish Buchanan! He had hoped for a peaceful term of office, but the Dred Scott case unleashed the worst passions of pro- and anti-slavery when his administration was less than a week old."
"This is what the "New Deal" means to me, an era of acute social consciousness and realization of mutual responsibility, a time of reciprocal helpfulness, of greater understanding and willingness to work together for the good of all."
"Relations between the United States and the Third Reich opened in 1939 on a distinctly sour and strident note. It began when Harold L. Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, speaking to a Zionist Society dinner in Cleveland at the end of 1938, declared Hitler had taken Germany back to "a period when man was unlettered, benighted, and brutal." The November pogrom demonstrated Hitler counted "the day lost when he can commit no crime against humanity." Ickes attacked Ford and Lindbergh for accepting decorations from the "same hand" that was "robbing and torturing thousands of fellow human beiongs.""
"What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice... An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause."
"It is impossible to carry the American people along with you on a program of caution to forestall a threatening position."
"In the early days our forefathers could cut down a forest or exhaust the fertility of a farm and then blithely move to a new forest or a new farm... The highest concept of statesmanship was to make it possible for the eager, aggressive pioneer to possess, to despoil and then repeat the process indefinitely. ...[Shortsided and unchecked greed resulted in] denuded forests, floods, droughts, a disappearing water table, erosion, a less stable and equable climate, a vanishing wildlife."
"What we were striving for was a kind of modified form of communism."
"Ickes symbolized for black (and many white) Americans the engaged, moral reformer, committed to the cause of assuring the underdog an elevated status in the American system. In 1936 he told a gathering of black Americans that he had "always felt it to be my privilege, no less than my duty, to do everything in my power to see that the Negro was given that degree of justice and fair play to which he is entitled." It was his sense of "fair play" which led him to support Marian Anderson in her celebrated conflict with the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939 and to introduce her to a huge throng massed before the statue of Abraham Lincoln. The Journal of Negro Education remarked that the "brevity and force" of Ickes' speech that day was destined to rival Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Due largely to Ickes' efforts, a number of prominent blacks were brought into the administration during the thirties and forties to serve as race relations advisers in the New Deal departments and agencies."
"One man alone was clearly inadequate to keep the government honest when it came to race. [Clark] Foreman, in consultation with Ickes, sought to deal with these obstacles in two ways. The answer to inhospitality to outsiders was to press for the appointment of a racial adviser within each agency and department. The solution to the problem of multiple jurisdictions was to bring these advisers, or other representatives of the various federal offices, together on a regular basis to examine the way in which the New Deal policies were affecting blacks."
"The untransacted destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent — to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean — to animate the many hundred millions of its people, and to cheer them upward — to set the principle of self-government at work — to agitate these herculean masses — to establish a new order in human affairs — to set free the enslaved — to regenerate superannuated nations — to change darkness into light — to stir up the sleep of a hundred centuries — to teach old nations a new civilization — to confirm the destiny of the human race — to carry the career of mankind to its culminating point — to cause stagnant people to be re-born — to perfect science — to emblazon history with the conquest of peace — to shed a new and resplendent glory upon mankind — to unite the world in one social family — to dissolve the spell of tyranny and exalt charity — to absolve the curse that weighs down humanity, and to shed blessings round the world! Divine task! immortal mission! Let us tread fast and joyfully the open trail before us! Let every American heart open wide for patriotism to glow undimmed, and confide with religious faith in the sublime and prodigious destiny of his well-loved country."
"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."
"We have viewed, in a number of instances, the accommodating spirit of the common law. In other instances, its temper is decided and firm. The means are varied according to times and circumstances; but the great ends of liberty are kept steadily and constantly in view. Its foundations were laid in remote antiquity, have not been overturned by the successive invasions, or migrations, or revolutions which have taken place. The reason has already been hinted at: it contains the common dictates of nature, refined by wisdom and experience, as occasions offer, and cases arise. In all sciences, says my Lord Bacon, they are the soundest that keep closest to particulars. Indeed a science appears to be best formed into a system, by a number of instances drawn from observation and experience, and reduced gradually into general rules; still subject, however, to successive improvements, which future observation or experience may suggest to be proper. The natural progress of the human mind, in the acquisition of knowledge, is from particular facts to general principles. This progress is familiar to all in the business of life; it is the only one, by which real discoveries have been made in philosophy; and it is the one, which has directed and superintended the instauration of the common law. In this view, common law, like natural philosophy, when properly studied, is a science founded on experiment. The latter is improved and established by carefully and wisely attending to the phenomena of the material world; the former, by attending, in the same manner, to those of man and society. Hence, in both, the most regular and undeviating principles will be found, on accurate investigation, to guide and control the most diversified and disjointed appearances. How steadily and how effectually has the spirit of liberty animated the common law, in all the vicissitudes, revolutions, and dangers, to which that system has been exposed! In matters of a civil nature, that system works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of justice : in matters of a political nature, it works itself pure by rules drawn from the fountain of freedom."
"The executive power is better to be trusted when it has no screen. Sir, we have a responsibility in the person of our President; he cannot act improperly, and hide either his negligence or inattention; he cannot roll upon any other person the weight of his criminality; no appointment can take place without his nomination; and he is responsible for every nomination he makes... far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment."
"To the Constitution of the United States the term SOVEREIGN, is totally unknown."
"Man, fearfully and wonderfully made, is the workmanship of his all perfect Creator: A State; useful and valuable as the contrivance is, is the inferior contrivance of man; and from his native dignity derives all its acquired importance."
"Let a state be considered as subordinate to the people: But let everything else be subordinate to the state."
"By a State I mean, a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others."
"Our cause is just, Our union is perfect."
"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall."
"It is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives."
"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be. We claim them from a higher source—from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives."
"Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our property. 'Slavery is ever preceded by sleep.'"
"Honor, justice and humanity call upon us to hold and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty, which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children; but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. No infamy, iniquity, or cruelty can exceed our own if we, born and educated in a country of freedom, entitled to its blessings and knowing their value, pusillanimously deserting the post assigned us by Divine Providence, surrender succeeding generations to a condition of wretchedness from which no human efforts, in all probability, will be sufficient to extricate them; the experience of all states mournfully demonstrating to us that when arbitrary power has been established over them, even the wisest and bravest nations that ever flourished have, in a few years, degenerated into abject and wretched vassals."
"If it was possible for men who exercise their reason, to believe that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that Government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end."
"We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us."
"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."
"These excellent Letters, which contain much seasonable instruction, are said to be written by John Dickinson, Esq. the same eminent Author to whom thanks were most deservedly given, by the Committee for the Province of Pennsylvania, on the 21ft of July last, “for the great assistance they had derived from the application of his eminent abilities to the service of his country, in” (another) “performance," since published, intitled, “A new Essay" (by the Pennsylvanian Farmer) “on the constitutional Power of Great-Britain over the Colonies in America," &c. And the said Committee, with great justice and propriety, recommended that performance, “as highly deserving the perusal and serious consideration of every friend of liberty," &c."
"Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it."
"If there's a lesson to be taken from Braddock, it's that no community deserves to be abandoned. No community deserves to be left behind. And it can always get better. And in fact there's a moral obligation that it should."
"Lt. Gov. and Senate candidate John Fetterman struggled to answer questions during his debate with Mehmet Oz Tuesday night, an observation that is fair to point out"
"He caught my attention immediately when he highlighted illegal immigration and the open Southern border, the fact that he didn’t back down, well, he was criticized the same way I was as mayor. It was reminiscent of what I went through. I’ve been called names, a racist and a bigot. I fought my case all the way to the Supreme Court. Donald Trump will fight his case all the way to the White House."
"Donald Trump’s voice is resonating with average Americans who feel their voice has been lost by their party, I believe this will become a new Republican Party, one that we should embrace. We should be the party of working men and women, the party of America first."
"[Bob Casey] should be ashamed. He's hurt my family. And the commercial should come down. Shame on him."
"Those born within the Republic, whether black or white, are citizens by birth - natural born citizens. There is no such word as white in your Constitution. Citizenship, therefore, does not depend upon complexion any more than it depends upon the rights of election or of office. All from other lands, who by the terms of your laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens."
"I repel the suggestion made here in the heat of debate, that the committee or any of its members who favor this proposition seek in any form to mar the Constitution of the country, or take away from any State any right that belongs to it, or from any citizen of any State any right that belongs to him under that Constitution."
"I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen; but, sir, I may be allowed to say further that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power, or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States."
"Citizenship is the inheritance of the children of those who have taken part in the late revolution; but this is confined exclusively to the children of those who were themselves citizens."
"Citizenship by inheritance belongs to none but the children of those Americans, who, having survived the Declaration of Independence, acquired that adventitious character in their own right, and transmitted it to their offspring."
"As a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens."
"It's a little bit more of a challenge, I think, for women, but, if you're willing to put in the work and be committed and have a family and circle of support around you, you'll be able to do it, and thankfully, I do, so I can serve my district."
"I’ve always preferred the background."
"I really can’t get excited about it, Boland told a group of reporters upon her election as Pennsylvania’s first woman Representative. I would rather have Mr. Boland there, of course."
"Math can be a little scary, and sometimes there aren’t a lot of students who want to engage in math."
"Well, when you give them First In Math, there is an enthusiasm with the students because it is non-judgmental when they are solving math problems. And there is an excitement when you add the game skills to it. We have the stat sheets. We know that students are doing great when they do First In Math, but I want this to go statewide in Pennsylvania and then be a model for the rest of the country."
"If every school participated in First In Math, we’d see higher math skills for sure, more of an enthusiasm to engage in math to begin with, and then I think you’d see more engineers, more students that want to be astronauts. There are all these companies that are just looking for students that excel in math work, and we are getting there one step at a time. I can feel it. I really do."