The decision of the Supreme Court in the income taxes cases deprived the National Government of a power which, by reasons of previ...ous decisions of the court, it was generally supposed that Government had. It is undoubtedly a power the National Government ought to have.... I therefore recommend to the Congress that both Houses, by a two-thirds vote, shall propose an amendment to the Constitution conferring the power to levy an income tax upon the National Government without apportionment among the States in proportion to population ... and second, the enactment, as part of the pending revenue measure, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, the inheritance tax, an excise tax upon all corporations, measured by 2 percent of their net income.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determ...ination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is obvious that the French Revolution was a vaster and more profound social upheaval, involving more violent conflict between c...lasses, more radical reorganization of government and society, more far-reaching redefinition of marriage, property, and civil law as well as of organs of public authority, more redistribution of wealth and income, more fears on the part of the rich and more demands from the poor, more sensational repercussions in other countries, more crises of counterrevolution, war, and invasion, and more drastic or emergency measures, as in the Reign of Terror. From very early in the French Revolution the American Revo lution came to seem very moderate. Thomas Jefferson, who was then in France, feared that the French were going to dangerous extremes as early as June 1789.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charit...y of friends, or a government pension,--provided you continue to breathe,--by whatever fine synonyms you describe these relations, is to go into the almshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an account of stock, and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater than his income. In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into chancery, make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to get up.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 »