Daniel Webster Quotes
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How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
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There is something about men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightening, whirlwind, or earthquake, that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.
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Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will' undertake its safety, and nothing can save it, if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.
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If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn.
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We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.
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If an angel should be winged from Heaven, on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents that would glow on his lips would be, Beware! Be cautious! You have everything to lose; nothing to gain. We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by the unrestrained and deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism.
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Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for general security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race.
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We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and the parting day linger and play on its summit!
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Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights.
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Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.
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America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.
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There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.
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Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to country, every wave rolls it and gives it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas, there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make up the minds and opinions of the age.
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Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light.
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No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.
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Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety.
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Thank God, I also am an American!
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The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
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It is no monopoly in any other sense than as a man's own house is a monopoly. But a man's right to his own invention is a very different matter. It is no more a monopoly for him to possess that, than to possess his own homestead .
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The States are nations.
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Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it. Leave evils which exist in some parts of the country, but which are beyond your control, to the all-wise direction of an over-ruling Providence. Perform those duties which are present, plain and positive. Respect the laws of your country.
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Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.
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IF WE AND OUR POSTERITY SHALL BE TRUE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, IF WE AND THEY SHALL LIVE ALWAYS IN THE FEAR OF GOD AND SHALL RESPECT HIS COMMANDMENTS, IF WE AND THEY SHALL MAINTAIN JUST MORAL SENTIMENTS AND SUCH CONSCIENTIOUS CONVICTIONS OF DUTY AS SHALL CONTROL THE HEART AND LIFE, WE MAY HAVE THE HIGHEST HOPES OF THE FUTURE FORTUNES OF OUR COUNTRY. OUR COUNTRY WILL GO ON PROSPERING.
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Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered; and the diffusion of knowledge, so astonishing in the last half-century, has rendered innumerable minds, variously gifted by nature, competent to be competitors or fellow-workers on the theatre of intellectual operation.
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A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.
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The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions
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Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.
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Our profession is good, if practiced in the spirit of it; it is damnable fraud and iniquity when its true spirit is supplied by a spirit of mischief-making and money catching.
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The materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.
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On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like "another morn," "Risen on mid-noon;" and the sky on which you closed your eye was cloudless.
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Daniel Webster
- Born: January 18, 1782
- Died: October 24, 1852
- Occupation: Former United States Senator
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