"The colonists were struggling not only against the armies of a great nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind; for the world did not then believe that the supreme authority of government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. When they found, after a short trial, that the confederacy of States, was too weak to meet the necessities of a vigorous and expanding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with full power of self-preservation and ample authority for the accomplishment of its great object."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Presidents of the United StatesMurdered peopleRepublican Party (United States) politiciansPoliticians from ClevelandUnited States presidential candidates, 1880
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
James A. Garfield
James Abram Garfield (19 November 1831 – 19 September 1881) was the 20th president of the United States of America in 1881, and the second U.S. president to be assassinated. His term was the second shortest in U.S. history, after William Henry Harrison's. Holding office from March to September of 1881, President Garfield was in office for a total of just six months and fifteen days. A Republican, he supported civil rights and freedoms for African Americans.
128 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by James A. Garfield β
Related Quotes
"With unquestioning devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have 'followed the liβ¦"
"Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man iβ¦"
"I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening letters on the subject. Assassination can be no mβ¦"
"I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands."
"I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else."
"The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think."
"The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all β¦"
"I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came."
"The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its straβ¦"
"Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself,— that β¦"