As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their

will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of
the press, it will be worth defending.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their
selfish purposes.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who
deserts her in the hour of danger.

The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but
premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a
perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.

The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests.

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful
too often bend the acts of government
to their selfish purposes."

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and
shield of the law.

One man with courage makes a majority.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in
the hour of danger.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and
lasting terms.

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred.
He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

Never take counsel of your fears.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

"The right of resisting oppression is a natural right."

"If he [the President] speaks to Congress, it must be in the language of truth."


Elevate them guns a little lower.

"Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but
as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection
while he gives it."

"It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."

The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.

The ambition which leads me on is an anxious desire and a fixed determination to return to the
people unimpaired the sacred trust they have confided to my charge; to heal the wounds of the
Constitution and preserve it from further violation; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may,
that it is not in a splendid government supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratical
establishments that they will find happiness or their liberties protection, but in a plain system, void
of pomp, protecting all and granting favors to none, dispensing its blessings, like the dews of
Heaven, unseen and unfelt save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is
such a government that the genius of the people requires; such an [sic] one only under which our
states may remain for ages to come united, prosperous, and free.

However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration
of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the
republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the
separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to
be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.

I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state,
incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the
Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded,
and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in
our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the
most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best
calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their
selfish purposes

Being the dependents of the general government, and looking to its treasury as the source of all
their emoluments, the state officers, under whatever names they might pass and by whatever
forms their duties might be prescribed, would in effect be the mere stipendiaries and instruments
of the central power.

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for
exclusive privileges you will in the end find that ... the control over your dearest interests has
passed into the hands of these corporations.

I trust in due time to ... lay the perfidy, meanness, and wickedness of [Henry] Clay naked before
the American people. I have lately got an intimation of some of his secret movements, which, if I
can reach with positive and responsible proof, I will wield to his political, and perhaps his actual,
destruction.




If they [Mexicans] touch the hair of the head of one of our citizens, tell him [Commodore Dallas] to
batter down and destroy their town and exterminate the inhabitants from the face of the earth!
Author: Jackson, Andrew
Category: Mexico
Attribution: Andrew Jackson (17671845), U.S. president. Attorney General Benjamin Butler to
his wife Harriet, June 29, 1836.

Related by Attorney General Benjamin Butler to his wife when Jackson heard that Mexican
authorities had inflicted indignities on the American consul and residents of Tampico.

When a mans feeling and character are injured, he ought to seek a speedy redress.... My
character you have injured, and further you have insulted me in the presence of a court and large
audience. I therefore call upon you as a gentleman to give me satisfaction for the same. Author:
Jackson, Andrew
Category: dueling
Attribution: Andrew Jackson (17671845), U.S. president. Challenging Waightstill Avery to a
duel, August 12, 1788, Jackson Papers, Library of Congress.

Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise
increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for
patriotic affection and support.

The President is the direct representative of the American people ... [and is] elected by the people
and responsible to them.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any
more intrinsic right to official station than another.

[Governments] true strength consists in leaving individuals and states as much as possible to
themselvesin making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence, not in its control, but in
its protection, not in binding the states more closely to the center, but leaving each to move
unobstructed in its proper orbit.

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid
economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of
the government.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer ... form the great body of the people of the
United States, they are the bone and sinew of the countrymen who love liberty and desire
nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all
political power be substantially concentrated.



In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and
virtue, every man is entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these
natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive
privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of
societythe farmers, mechanics, and laborerswho have neither the time nor the means of
securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.


All who wish to hand down to their children that happy republican system bequeathed to them by
their revolutionary fathers, must now take their stand against this consolidating, corrupting money
power, and put it down, or their children will become hewers of wood and drawers of water to this
aristocratic ragocracy.

You must, to get through life well, practice industry with economy, never create a debt for
anything that is not absolutely necessary, and if you make a promise to pay money at a day
certain, be sure to comply with it. If you do not, you lay yourself liable to have your feelings
injured and your reputation destroyed with the just imputation of violating your word.

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the
republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear
the result.

I am fearful that the paper system ... will ruin the state. Its demoralizing effects are already seen
and spoken of everywhere ... I therefore protest against receiving any of that trash.

Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it
out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve
yourself in debt, and become no mans surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the
means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.

The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters
dead. Let this be had.

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that
corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights
of the people have been bartered for promises of office.

God will take care of you for me. I am my Gods. I belong to him, I go a short time before you, and
I want to meet all in heaven, both white and black.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or
corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and
deliberation will prove strong enough.

My political enemies I can freely forgive; but as for who abused me when I was serving my
country in the field, and those who attacked me for serving my countryDoctor, that is a different
case.

We can beat all Europe with United States soldiers. Give me a thousand Tennesseans, and Ill
whip any other thousand men on the globe!

I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my
obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.

If in madness of delusion, anyone shall lift his parricidal hand against this blessed union ... the
arms of thousands will be raised to save it, and the curse of millions will fall upon the head which
may have plotted its destruction.