John C. Calhoun Quotes
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What is a permanent loan but a mortgage upon the wealth and industry of the country? It is the only form of indebtedness, as experience has shown, by which heavy and durable encumbrance can be laid upon the community.
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Once established with Great Britain, it would not be difficult, with moderation and prudence, to establish permanent peace with the rest of the world, when our most sanguine hopes of prosperity may be realized.
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Let a durable and firm peace be established and this government be confined rigidly to the few great objects for which it was instituted, leaving the States to contend in generous rivalry to develop, by the arts of peace, their respective resources, and a scene of prosperity and happiness would follow, heretofore unequaled on the globe.
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None but a people advanced to a high state of moral and intellectual excellence are capable in a civilized condition of forming and maintaining free governments, and among those who are so far advanced, very few indeed have had the good fortune to form constitutions capable of endurance.
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If not met promptly and decidedly, the two portions of the Union will gradually become thoroughly alienated, when no alternative will be left to us, as the weaker of the two, but to sever all political ties or sink down into abject submission.
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True consistency, that of the prudent and the wise, is to act in conformity with circumstances and not to act always the same way under a change of circumstances.
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So long as the Oregon question is left open, Mexico will calculate the chances of a rupture between us and Great Britain, in the event of which she would be prepared to make common cause against us. But when an end is put to any such hope, she will speedily settle her difference with us.
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I know that there is a great diversity of opinion as to who, in fact, pays the duties on imports. I do not intend to discuss that point. We of the staple and exporting States have long settled the question for ourselves, almost unanimously, from sad experience.
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It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.
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The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.
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There is no direct and immediate connection between the individual citizens of a state and the general government. The relation between them is through the state. The Union is a union of states as communities and not a union of individuals.
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War, in our country, ought never to be resorted to but when it is clearly justifiable and necessary; so much so as not to require the aid of logic to convince our understanding nor the ardour of eloquence to inflame our passions. There are many reasons why this country should never resort to it but for causes the most urgent and necessary.
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When we contend, let us contend for all our rights - the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valour and the fortune of war will permit.
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How can this full, perfect, just and supreme voice of the people, embodied in the Constitution, be brought to bear, habitually and steadily, in counteracting the fatal tendency of the government to the absolute and despotic control of the numerical majority?
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In its exterior relations - abroad - this government is the sole and exclusive representative of the united majesty, sovereignty, and power of the States, constituting this great and glorious Union. To the rest of the world, we are one. Neither State nor State government is known beyond our borders. Within, it is different.
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By nature, every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments, whether founded on majorities or minorities, must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed,, and be subject to such limitations as they may impose.
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I want no presidency; I want to do my duty. No denunciations here, or out of this House, can deflect me a single inch from going directly at what I aim, and that is, the good of the country. I have always acted upon it, and I will always act upon it.
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I am utterly opposed to all equivocation or obscure expressions in our public acts. We are bound to say plainly what we mean to say. If we mean negotiation and compromise, let us say it distinctly and plainly instead of sending to the President a resolution on which he may put whatever interpretation he pleases.
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Without thinking or reflecting, we plunge into war, contract heavy debts, increase vastly the patronage of the Executive, and indulge in every species of extravagance, without thinking that we expose our liberty to hazard. It is a great and fatal mistake.
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In my opinion, any navy less than that which would give us the habitual command of our own coast and seas would be little short of useless.
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The country is filled with energetic and enterprising men, rendered desperate by being reduced from affluence to poverty through the vicissitudes of the times. They will give an impulse to smuggling unknown to the country heretofore.
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A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.
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Were there no contrariety of interests, nothing would be more simple and easy than to form and preserve free institutions. The right of suffrage alone would be a sufficient guarantee. It is the conflict of opposing interests which renders it the most difficult work of man.
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It is no less the duty of the minority than a majority to endeavour to defend the country.