Inspirational Quotes on Government

“My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.”

“'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world - as far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it.”

“While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.”

“It is among the evils, and perhaps not the smallest, of democratic governments, that the people must feel before they will see. When this happens, they are roused to action. Hence it is that those kinds of government are too slow.”

“Government is not mere advice; it is authority, with power to enforce its laws.”

“The aggregate happiness of society, which is best promoted by the practise of a virtuous policy, is, or ought to be, the end of all government.”

“The very idea of the power and right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”

“There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true. But in governments of a popular character, and purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent it bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

“In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude. Every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly, without thinking, and consequently will judge of effects without attending to their causes.”

“Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, under no form of government are laws better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.”

“There is a natural and necessary progression, from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny; and arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”

“The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.”

“Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.”

“Law is king of all.”

“The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.”

“Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty.”

“The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.”

“It is not birth only, nor propinquity of blood, that makes a king lawfully to reign above a people professing Christ Jesus and his eternal verity; but in his election must the ordinance, which God has established in the election of inferior judges, be observed.”

“Let a thing here be noted, that the prophet of God sometimes may teach treason against kings, and yet neither he nor such as obey the word, spoken in the Lord's name by him, offend God.”

“And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of order, the Fountain of justice, and the Protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government, and give it all possible success and duration, consistent with the ends of His providence.”