Quotes on American Government

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent.

This American government - what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government... The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.