All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.
Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.
The gentleman cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
I cannot believe that the killing of 2,000 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies a person for the various difficult and complicated duties of the Presidency.
How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!
Statistics are no substitute for judgment.
A man must be a born fool who voluntarily engages in controversy with Mr. Adams on a question of fact. I doubt whether he was ever mistaken in his life.
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
I’d rather be right than President.
If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a single year, or even for a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace.
Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.
I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rights, its usages and observances.
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
Honor and good faith and justice are equally due from this country toward the weak as toward the strong.
We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public’s advancement.
Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation.
Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.
The moment you accept God’s ordering, that moment your work ceases to be a task, and becomes your calling; you pass from bondage to freedom, from the shadow-land of life into life itself.