Nation Quotes
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The strong should always permit the weak and aggrieved to talk, to bluster, and scold without taking offence; and if we had so acted, and exercised proper skill in the management of our affairs, Mexico and ourselves would, by this time, have quietly and peaceably settled all difficulties and been good friends.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Without thinking or reflecting, we plunge into war, contract heavy debts, increase vastly the patronage of the Executive, and indulge in every species of extravagance, without thinking that we expose our liberty to hazard. It is a great and fatal mistake.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
England has not wholly escaped the curse which must ever befall a free government which holds extensive provinces in subjection; for, although she has not lost her liberty or fallen into anarchy, yet we behold the population of England crushed to the earth by the superincumbent weight of debt and taxation, which may one day terminate in revolution.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
It is admitted on all sides that we must equalize the revenue and expenditures. The scheme of borrowing to make up an increasing deficit must, in the end, if continued, prove ruinous.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
There is not an example on record of any free state holding a province of the same extent and population without disastrous consequences. The nations conquered and held as a province have, in time, retaliated by destroying the liberty of their conquerors through the corrupting effect of extended patronage and irresponsible power.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
How can this full, perfect, just and supreme voice of the people, embodied in the Constitution, be brought to bear, habitually and steadily, in counteracting the fatal tendency of the government to the absolute and despotic control of the numerical majority?
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am aware how difficult is the task to preserve free institutions over so wide a space and so immense a population, but we are blessed with a Constitution admirably calculated to accomplish it. Its elastic power is unequaled, which is to be attributed to its federal character.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Every increase of protective duties is necessarily followed, in the present condition of our country, by an expansion of the currency, which must continue to increase till the increased price of production, caused by the expansion, shall be equal to the duty imposed, when a new tariff will be required.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
He is blind indeed who does not see, in the signs of the times, a strong tendency to plunge the Union as deep in debt as are many of the States, and to subjugate the whole to the paper system.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
None but a people advanced to a high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable in a civilized condition of forming and maintaining free governments, and among those who are so far advanced, very few indeed have had the good fortune to form constitutions capable of endurance.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
It has been lately urged in a very respectable quarter that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty all over the globe, and especially over this continent - even by force, if necessary. It is a sad delusion.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I hold that there is a mysterious connection between the fate of this country and that of Mexico; so much so that her independence and capability of sustaining herself are almost as essential to our prosperity and the maintenance of our institutions as they are to hers.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Measures of policy are necessarily controlled by circumstances; and, consequently, what may be wise and expedient under certain circumstances might be eminently unwise and impolitic under different circumstances. To persist in acting in the same way under circumstances essentially different would be folly and obstinacy, and not consistency.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I would rather be an independent senator, governed by my own views, going for the good of the country, uncontrolled by any thing which mortal man can bring to bear upon me, than to be president of the United States, put there as presidents of the United States have been for many years past.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
There is but one nation on the globe from which we have anything serious to apprehend, but that is the most powerful that now exists or ever did exist. I refer to Great Britain.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
It is a fundamental rule with me not to vote for a loan or tax bill till I am satisfied it is necessary for the public service, and then not if the deficiency can be avoided by lopping off unnecessary objects of expenditure or the enforcement of an exact and judicious economy in the public disbursements.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
We ought not to forget that the government, through all its departments, judicial as well as others, is administered by delegated and responsible agents; and that the power which really controls, ultimately, all the movements, is not in the agents, but those who elect or appoint them.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
In my opinion, any navy less than that which would give us the habitual command of our own coast and seas would be little short of useless.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
If not met promptly and decidedly, the two portions of the Union will gradually become thoroughly alienated, when no alternative will be left to us, as the weaker of the two, but to sever all political ties or sink down into abject submission.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the way which has led nations to greatness.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
In 1828 we raised the duties, on an average, to nearly fifty per cent, when the debt was on the eve of being discharged, and thereby flooded the country with a revenue, when discharged, which could not be absorbed by the most lavish expenditures.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
The day that the balance between the two sections of the country - the slaveholding States and the non-slaveholding States - is destroyed is a day that will not be far removed from political revolution, anarchy, civil war, and widespread disaster.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
War, in our country, ought never to be resorted to but when it is clearly justifiable and necessary; so much so as not to require the aid of logic to convince our understanding nor the ardour of eloquence to inflame our passions. There are many reasons why this country should never resort to it but for causes the most urgent and necessary.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Be assured that, as certain as Congress transcends its assigned limits and usurps powers never conferred, or stretches those conferred beyond the proper limits, so surely will the fruits of its usurpation pass into the hands of the Executive. In seeking to become master, it but makes a master in the person of the President.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
The danger in our system is that the general government, which represents the interests of the whole, may encroach on the states, which represent the peculiar and local interests, or that the latter may encroach on the former.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
The country is filled with energetic and enterprising men, rendered desperate by being reduced from affluence to poverty through the vicissitudes of the times. They will give an impulse to smuggling unknown to the country heretofore.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
When the period arrives - come when it may - that this government will be compelled to resort to internal taxes for its support in time of peace, it will mark one of the most difficult and dangerous stages through which it is destined to pass.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am impressed with the belief that our naval force ought not to cost more in proportion than the British. In some things they may have the advantage, but we will be found to have equally great in others.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Where wages command labor, as in the non-slaveholding States, there necessarily takes place between labor and capital a conflict, which leads, in process of time, to disorder, anarchy, and revolution if not counteracted by some appropriate and strong constitutional provision. Such is not the case in the slaveholding States.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
What is it but a cunningly devised scheme to take from one State and to give to another - to replenish the treasury of some of the States from the pockets of the people of the others; in reality, to make them support the governments and pay the debts of other States as well as their own?
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am not one of those who believe that we are bound to vote supplies to cover a deficiency in the treasury whenever called on, without investigating the causes which occasioned it.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
It is a remarkable fact in the political history of man that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government which has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have all been the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
There is no direct and immediate connection between the individual citizens of a state and the general government. The relation between them is through the state. The Union is a union of states as communities and not a union of individuals.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am utterly opposed to all equivocation or obscure expressions in our public acts. We are bound to say plainly what we mean to say. If we mean negotiation and compromise, let us say it distinctly and plainly instead of sending to the President a resolution on which he may put whatever interpretation he pleases.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am, on principle, opposed to war and in favor of peace because I regard peace as a positive good and war as a positive evil.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
When we contend, let us contend for all our rights - the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valour and the fortune of war will permit.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I want no presidency; I want to do my duty. No denunciations here, or out of this House, can deflect me a single inch from going directly at what I aim, and that is, the good of the country. I have always acted upon it, and I will always act upon it.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
Let a durable and firm peace be established and this government be confined rigidly to the few great objects for which it was instituted, leaving the States to contend in generous rivalry to develop, by the arts of peace, their respective resources, and a scene of prosperity and happiness would follow, heretofore unequaled on the globe.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I am a planter - a cotton planter. I am a Southern man and a slaveholder - a kind and a merciful one, I trust - and none the worse for being a slaveholder.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I will not attempt to show that it would be a great evil to increase the patronage of the Executive. It is already enormously great, as every man of every party must acknowledge, if he would candidly express his sentiments.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
A revolution in itself is not a blessing. The revolution accomplished by the French people is, indeed, a wonderful event - the most striking, in my opinion, in history; but it may lead to events which will make it a mighty evil.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, in this respect, a most marked contrast exists between public men in this country and in Great Britain.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
I know that there is a great diversity of opinion as to who, in fact, pays the duties on imports. I do not intend to discuss that point. We of the staple and exporting States have long settled the question for ourselves, almost unanimously, from sad experience.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
So long as the Oregon question is left open, Mexico will calculate the chances of a rupture between us and Great Britain, in the event of which she would be prepared to make common cause against us. But when an end is put to any such hope, she will speedily settle her difference with us.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
By nature, every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed,, and be subject to such limitations as they may impose.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun
To make a division of power effectual, a veto in one form or another is indispensable. The right of each to judge for itself of the extent of the power allotted to its share, and to protect itself in its exercise, is what, in reality, is meant by a division of power.
Quote by -John C. Calhoun