American Heritage Lecture Quotes

"many in the south once believed that it was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world..."

John C. Calhoun

"the [Constitutional] Convention meant to leave slavery in the states as they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the States themselves." "the character of the Government has been changed...from a federal republic, as it originally came from the hands of its framers, into a great national consolidated democracy"

John C. Calhoun (South: national gov is ignoring states rights and trampling the "true constitution)

"the North has acquired a decided ascendancy over every department of this Government, and through it a control over all the powers of the system" concurrent majority: "give to each division or interest, through its appropriate organ, either a concurrent voice in making and executing the laws. or veto on their execution."

John Calhoun (separation of powers/checks and balances)

"if the Constitution were all we had, politicians would be incapable of getting organized to accomplish even routine tasks. Every day, for every bill or compromise, they would have to start from scratch, rounding up hundreds of individual politicians and answering to thousands of squabbling constituencies and millions of voters. By itself, the Constitution is a recipe for chaos"

Jonathan Rauch (parties help organize gov)

"and as I have regarded power, in unsteady and unskillful hands, as a great evil, so I have called that man misguided, and an invader of public peace, who...has inflated the fanciful and superficial with erroneous ideas of retaining prerogatives, which, by their own free suffrages, they had voluntarily relinquished."

Judith Sargent Murray

"there is no calculating the disorders which may result from realizing the series of subordination..." "I cannot think that the art of legislation is within the knowledge of every man. He whose mind is filled with agricultural or commercial pursuits, whose education and subsequent occupation has been principally directed to a particular business or profession cannot, I have conceived, obtain sufficient leisure to investigate, with the requisite attention, the great art of government."

Judith Sargent Murray (representation is schemed to keep people at a distance)

"I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments."

Lincoln (keep the union together)

"we all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing." "the shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep is a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty..."

Lincoln's parable

"hence, it becomes a matter of great importance, that public opinion should in all cases be correct; and arranged on the side of virtue..."

Lyman Beecher

"by faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community"

Madison's definition of faction

"the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands...may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny"

Madison, Federalist #47

"as there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form" but..."a dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions"

Madison, Federalist #55

"the powers of the legislature are defined and limited..." "the constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it." "[not striking down unconstitutional laws] would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence..."

Marbury V. Madison

"It is natural to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist."

Montesquieu (problem of size)

"the constitution of 1787 is supposed to have created a government of 'separated powers.' It did nothing of the sort. Rather it created a government of separated institutions sharing powers."

Richard Neustadt

"rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dates to rebel against the laws of republic ought to suffer death."

Samuel Adams reaction to Shay's rebellion

"since the surrender of the armies of the confederate States of America a little has been done toward establishing this government upon the true principles of liberty and justice; and but little if we stop here. We have broken the material shackles of four million slaves...But in what have we enlarged their liberty of thought? In what have we taught them the science and granted them the privilege of self-government?...By what civil weapon have we enabled them to defend themselves against oppression and injustice? call you this liberty? call you this a free republic where four millions are subject but not citizens?

Thaddeus Stevens

"we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many...."

Jackson as President: Veto of the Bank Bill

"but what a scene did we witness! the Majesty of the People had disappeared, and a rabble, a mob, of boys, negroes, women, children, scrambling, fighting, romping. what a pity, what a pity! No arrangements had been made, no police officers placed on duty, and the whole house had been inundated by the rabble mob."

Jackson's Inauguration

"all the political sentiment I entertain have been drawn, so fas as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence"

Abraham Lincoln

"the sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Alexander Hamilton (origin of rights)

"the mode of appointment of the chief magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure...I...hesitate not to affirm that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent."

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #68

"No legislative act...contrary to the Constitution can valid. To deny this, would be the affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above the master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their power do not authorize but what they forbid."

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #78

"for why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?"

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #84

"the truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS."

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #84

:Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; they slavery-subordination to the superior race-is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth..."

Alexander Stephens

"those who are to be vested with [judicial power] are to be placed in a situation altogether unprecedented in a free country. They are to be rendered totally independent, both the people and of the legislature."

Brutus

"the territory of the United States is of vast extent; it now contains near three millions of souls, and is capable of containing much more than ten times that number. Is it practicable for a country, so large and so numerous as they will soon become, to elect a representation, that will speak their sentiment, without their becoming so numerous as to be incapable of transacting public business?"

Brutus #1 (problem of size)

"history furnishes no example of a free republic, any thing like that extent of the United States." "In a republic, the manners, sentiments, and interests of the people should be similar. if this be not the case, there will be a constant clashing of opinions; and the representatives of one part will be continually striving against those of the other. This will retard the operations of government." "in so extensive a republic, the great officers of government would soon become above the control of the people...it is scarcely possible, in a very large republic, to call them to account for their misconduct, or to prevent their abuse of power."

Brutus #1 (small republic argument)

"when a building is to be erected which is intended to stand for ages, the foundation should be firmly laid. The constitution proposed to your acceptance, is designed not for yourselves alone, but for generations yet unborn. the principles, therefore, upon which the social compact is founded, ought to have been clearly and precisely stated, and the most express and full declaration of rights to have been made-but on this subject there is almost an entire silence."

Brutus #2

war is "an extension of politics by other means"

Carl Von Clausewitz

Blacks "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges with that instrument provides for and secures to citizens on the United States." "On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings." "on the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings" the writers of the declaration of independence "perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery"

Chief Justice Roger Taney (Dred Scott case)

"political parties created modern democracy and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties"

E.E. Scattschneider (political parties)

"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability."

Federalist #62

"energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. it is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprise and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy..."

Federalist #70

"the actual state of popular opinion will ever be hostile to the real and efficient securities of the public liberty"

Fisher Ames

"of all the flattery, the grossest (gross indeed to blasphemy0 is, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; that the opinion of a majority like that of the Pope, is infallible." "we are sliding down into the mire of democracy, which pollutes the morals of the citizens before it swallows up their liberties"

Fisher Ames on the "Mire of Democracy"

"masters treat their sick, infant, and helpless slaves well, not only feeding and affection, but from motives of self-interest." "we do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments 'derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.' the women, the children, the negroes, and but few of the non-poverty holders were consulted, or consented to the Revolution, or the governments that ensued from its success..." In the North, "they hold that all men, women, and negroes, and smart children are equals, and enticed to equal rights...the experiment which they will make, we fear, is absurd..."

Fitzhugh

"interpreted as it ought be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT"

Fredrick Douglas-what to the slave is the fourth of July

"the negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world...when the labors of the day are over, and free in mind as well as body; for the master provides food, raiment, house, fuel, and everything else necessary to the physical well-being of himself and family."

George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All!

"the spirit of party agitates with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, [and] kindles the animosity of one part against another"

George Washington (on political parties)

"I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned in any country...what a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious"

George Washington's reaction to Shay's rebellion

"the confederation itself is defective, and requires to be altered. it is neither fir for war nor peace." "the fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress" "another defect in our system is want of method and energy in the administration" the national government needs "power sufficient to write the different members together, and direct the common forces to the interest and happiness of the whole."

Hamilton's letter to James Duane

find leaders with "courage and magnanimity enough to serve [the people] at the peril of their displeasure."

Hamilton, Federalist #71

avoid leaders with "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity."

Hamilton, Federlaist #68

"the difference between [North and South] is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people..." "yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated...why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South."

James Henry Hammond

"the rights in question are reserved by the manner in which the federal powers are granted." "there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude." "experience proves the inefficiency of the bill of rights on those occasions when its control is most needed. repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every state."

James Madison (concerns about the bill of rights)

"I framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must free enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."

James Madison, Federalist #51

"...The House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people."

James Madison, Federalist #57

"let us, then, fellow-citizens, united with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things." "we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists"

Thomas Jefferson

"I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of press, protection against armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land..." "a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference...

Thomas Jefferson (on the bill of rights)

"My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of those duties becomes more and more pleasing"

Thomas Jefferson (what roles should the representatives have?)

"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth." "the mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of the pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. it is the manners and spirit of a people which preserves a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

Thomas Jefferson on the Virtue of the American Farmer

"a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government"

Thomas Jefferson's reaction to Shay's rebellion