Government

"Le despotisme tempéré par l'assassinat, c'est notre magna charta."

"Say to the seceded States—Wayward sisters, depart in peace!"

"Invisa numquam imperia retinentur diu."

"What a man that would be had he a particle of gall or the least knowledge of the value of red tape. As Curran said of Grattan, "he would have governed the world.""

"Omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset."

"In the parliament of man, the Federation of the world."

"We preach Democracy in vain while Tory and Conservative can point to the opposite side of the Atlantic and say: "There are Nineteen millions of the human race free absolutely, every man heir to the throne, governing themselves—the government of all, by all, for all; but instead of being a consistent republic it is one widespread confederacy of free men for the enslavement of a nation of another complexion.""

"Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people."

"A National debt is a National blessing."

"The people's government made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people."

"He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

"We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty."

"States are great engines moving slowly."

"Adeo ut omnes imperii virga sive bacillum vere superius inflexum sit."

"Oh, we are weary pilgrims; to this wilderness we bring A Church without a bishop, a State without a King."

"Yet if thou didst but know how little wit governs this mighty universe."

"I am for Peace, for Retrenchment, and for Reform,—thirty years ago the great watchwords of the great Liberal Party."

"Well, will anybody deny now that the Government at Washington, as regards its own people, is the strongest government in the world at this hour? And for this simple reason, that it is based on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people."

"And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."

"When bad men combine, the good must associate."

"Consider in fact, a body of six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous persons, set to consult about "business," with twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, assiduously listening to them, and checking and criticising them. Was there ever, since the world began, will there ever be till the world end, any "business" accomplished in these circumstances?"

"There are but two ways of paying debt—increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out."

"There was a State without kings or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had elected, and equal laws which it had framed."

"Who's in or out, who moves this grand machine, Nor stirs my curiosity nor spleen: Secrets of state no more I wish to know Than secret movements of a puppet show: Let but the puppets move, I've my desire, Unseen the hand which guides the master wire."

"I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honor."

"The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wild disorder the citadel of misrule."

"The country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering."

"The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob."

"Fellow-citizens: Clouds and darkness are around Him; His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds; justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne; mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens! God reigns and the Government at Washington lives."

"When constabulary duty's to be done A policeman's lot is not a happy one."

"Unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation."

"No sooner does he hear any of his brothers mention reform or retrenchment, than up he jumps."

"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."

"Excise, a hateful tax levied upon commodities."

"The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop."

"Salus populi suprema lex."

"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding females."

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free."

"That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

"All your strength is in your union, All your danger is in discord."

"The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity."

"The government of the Union, then, is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them and for their benefit."

"To make a bank, was a great plot of state; Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate."

"States are not made, nor patched; they grow: Grow slow through centuries of pain, And grow correctly in the main; But only grow by certain laws, Of certain bits in certain jaws."

"Nescis, mi fili, quantilla sapientia regitur mundus."

"There is what I call the American idea. * * * This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy,—that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom."

"Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people."

"Slavery is in flagrant violation of the institutions of America—direct government—over all the people, by all the people, for all the people."

"Do you know who is responsible?" "Why of course, it's the government!" "Jill, 'the government' is several million people."

"Government should exist only to try to protect the rights of every individual, not to redistribute the property, manipulate the economy, or establish a pattern of society."