Good government cannot be found on the bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in the past when low ta...x rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions up to the standard in repairs, extensions, equipment, and accommodations. I refuse, and the Republican Party refuses, to endorse that method of sham and shoddy economy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smoo...th,--certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter- friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic i...s a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A Republican by principle and devotion, I will, until my death, oppose all Royalists ... and all enemies of my Government and the ...Republic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Governments like natural bodies have their time of growing perfection and declining, and according to their constitutions, some ho...ld out longer, and some decay sooner than otherse, but all in their beginnings and infancies are subject to so many infirmities and imperfections, that what Solomon said of a monarchy, "Woe to that kingdom whose prince is a child," may be more justly said of a new republic and we may with as much reason say, "Woe be to that people that live under a young government."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our system of government, in spite of Vietnam, Cambodia, CIA, Watergate, is still the best system of government on earth. And the ...greatest resource of all are the 215 million Americans who still have within us the strength, the character, the intelligence, the experience, the patriotism, the idealism, the compassion, the sense of brotherhood on which we can rely in the future to restore the greatness to our country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is an enormous chasm between the relatively rich and powerful people who make decisions in government, business, and finance... and our poorer neighbors who must depend on these decisions to alleviate the problems caused by their lack of power and influence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »