Martin Van Buren
- "I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men . . . in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor." —Martin Van Buren on Example
- As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.
- For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitutionas it was designed by those who framed it.
- All communities are apt to look to government for too much. Even in our own country, where its powers and duties are so strictly limited, we are prone to do so, especially at periods of sudden embarrassment and distress.
- It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.
- No evil can result from its inhibition more pernicious than its toleration.
- On receiving from the people the sacred trust twice confided on my illustrious predecessor, and which he has discharged so faithfully and so well, I know that I can not expect to perform the arduous task with equal ability and success.
- The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.
- The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies.
- There is a power in public opinion in this country"and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers"which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.
- To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.
- Unlike all who have preceded me, the Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event, I feel that I belong to a later age and that I may not expect my countrymen to weigh my actions with the same kind and partial hand.
- Mutual forbearance and reciprocal concessions: thro their agency the Union was established " the patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it.
- Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe.
- The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought
- I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men... in receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.
- All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.
Jackson, Andrew
John Quincy Adams
Monroe's Tour of New England
- "A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue." —James Monroe on Fatigue
- National honor is the national property of the highest value.
- First Inaugural Address(March 4, 1817)
- The mention of Greece fills the mind with the most exalted sentiments and arouses in our bosoms the best feelings of which our nature is capable.
- Message to Congress (December 1822)
The Monroe Doctrine (December 2, 1823)
- The American continents ... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
- In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do.
- We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
- A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.
- If America wants concessions, she must fight for them. We must purchase our power with our blood.
- If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.
- In this great nation there is but one order, that of the people, whose power, by a peculiarly happy improvement of the representative principle, is transferred from them, without impairing in the slightest degree their sovereignty, to bodies of their own creation, and to persons elected by themselves, in the full extent necessary for the purposes of free, enlightened, and efficient government.
- It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.
- Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete.
- Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all -- liberty!
- Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.
- The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
Madison, Jame
(b. March 16, 1751; d. June 28, 1836) Father of the U.S. Constitution, coauthor of The Federalist, draftsman of the Bill of Rights, and fourth President of the United States (1809–1817).
Thomas Jefferson