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American Political Thought

Terms in this set (46)

"And hence, the tendency to a universal state of conflict, between individual and individual; accompanied by the connected passions of suspicion, jealousy, anger and revenge,-- followed by insolence, fraud and cruelty;--and, if not prevented by some controlling power, ending in a state of universal discord and confusion, destructive of the social state, and the ends for which it is ordained. This controlling power, wherever vested, or by whomsoever exercised, is Government."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"If reversed,-- if their feelings or affections were stronger for others than for themselves, or even as strong, the necessary result would seem to be, that all individuality would be lost; and boundless and remedies disorder and confusion would ensue."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"But government, although intended protect and preserve society, has itself a strong tendency to disorder and abuse of its powers, as all experience and almost every page history testify. The cause is to be found in the same constitution of our nature which makes government indispensable."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"The powers which it is necessary for government to possess, in order to repress violence and preserve order, cannot execute themselves. They must be administered by men in whom, like others, the individual are stronger that the social feelings."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"Nor can it be done by limiting the powers of government, so as to make it too feeble to be made an instrument of abuse; for, passing by the difficulty of so limiting its powers, without creating a power higher than the government itself to enforce the observance of the limitations, it is a sufficient objection that it would, if practical, defeat the end for which government is ordained, by making it too feeble to protect and preserve society."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"The powers necessary for this purpose will ever prove sufficient to aggrandize those who control it, at the expense of the rest of the community."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"For this purpose, a struggle will take place between the various interests to obtain a majority, in order to control the government."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"When once formed, the community will be divided into two great parties,--a major and minor,--between which there will be incessant struggles on the one side to retain, and on the other to obtain the majority,--and, thereby, the control of the government and the advantages it confers."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"A perfect government of the kind would be once which would embrace the consent of every citizen or member of the community; but as this is impracticable, in the opinion of those who read the numerical as the only majority, and who can perceive no other way by which the sense of the people can be taken,--they are compelled to adopt this as the only true basis of popular government, in contradistinction to governments of the aristocratical or monarchial form."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"The minor and subject party would become the major and dominant party, with the same absolute authority and tendency to abuse power; and the major and dominant party would become the minor and subject party, with the same right to resist through the ballot-box; and, if a state of things must be necessarily be temporary."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"Thus, in the very first stage of the process, the government becomes the government of a minority instead of a majority;--a minority, usually, and under the most favorable of circumstances, of not much more than one-fourth of the whole community."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"The government would gradually pass from the hands of the majority of the party into those of its leaders; as the struggle became more intense, and the honors and emoluments of the government the all-absorbing objects."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"To perfect society, it is necessary to develope the faculties, intellectual and moral, with which man is endowed."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal;--than which nothing can be more unfounded and false."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"Each will naturally insist on taking the course he may think best;--and, from pride of opinion, will be unwilling to yield to others."
John C. Calhoun, "A Disquisition on Government."
"On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interests can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal of the firmness and efficiency of government."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 1.
"If it had been found impracticable, to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends to a liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences has received great improvement."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 9.
"There are two methods of curing the mischief of faction: The one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: The one by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 10.
"The means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected, ought to possess the means by which it is attained."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 23.
"With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distant interest in society; and according to their situation and talkers will be indiscriminately the objects of the confidence and choice of each others and of other parts of the community."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 35.
"It is said to be necessary that all classes of citizens should have some of their own number in the representative body, in order that their feelings and interests may be the better understood and attended to."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 35.
"If we resort for a criterion, to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly of indirectly from the great body of the people; and is administered by persons folding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 39.
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 51.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on the government would be necessary."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 51.
"A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 51.
"The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 52.
"Under these reasonable limitations, the door of this part of the Federal Government is open to merit of every description, other native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith."
James Madison, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 52.
"Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 70.
"Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 78.
"The judiciary on the contrary has no influence over either the sword the purse, no direction either of the strength of society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will, but merely judgement. . ."
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 78.
"The truth is, after all the declamation we have heard, that the constitution is itself in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights, in Great Britain, form its constitution, and conversely the constitution of each state its bill of rights. And the proposed constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of right of the union. Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government?"
Alexander Hamilton, "The Federalist Papers." Federalist 84.
"To instruct democracy, to reinvigorate if possible its beliefs, to purify its morals, to regulate its movements, to substitute little by little the science of public affairs for its inexperience, the knowledge of its true interests for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to times and places; to modify it according to circumstances and men: such is the first of the duties imposed in our time upon those who direct society."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"A new political science is necessary for a wholly new world."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"In France, the tax inspector of the State collects municipal taxes; in America, the tax inspector of the township collects the state tax."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"For want of great parties, the United States swarms with small ones, and public opinion splits into an infinite number of pieces over questions of detail."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"In the United States, there is no religious hatred, because religion is universally respected and no sect is dominant; no class hatred, because the people is everything, and nobody dare any more fight with it; and finally, no public misery to exploit, because the material state of the country offers such an immense career to industry that it suffices to leave a man to himself for him to produce prodigies."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"If, therefore, the men who govern aristocracies sometimes seek to corrupt, the leaders of democracies prove themselves to be corrupt."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"The customs have gone even further than the laws."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"Legislative instability is an evil inherent in democratic government because it is in the nature of democracies to bring men to power."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"I know of no country where there prevails, in general, less independence of mind and less true freedom of discussion than in America."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"Under the absolute government of a single man, despotism, in order to reach the soul, crudely strikes the body, and the soul, escaping these blows, rises gloriously above it, but in the democratic republics, tyranny does not proceed this way; it leaves the body alone and goes straight to the soul."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"It is despotism that can do without faith, but not liberty."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"Chance has brought them together on the same ground, but it has mixed them up together without being able to merge them, and each one pursues his destiny separately."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"The Negro in the United States has lost even the memory of his country."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
"Slavery does not therefore attack the American confederation directly by way of its interests, but indirectly by way of its mores."
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America."
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