Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Websterwas an American statesman who twice served in the United States House of Representatives, representing New Hampshireand Massachusetts, served as a U.S. Senator from Massachusettsand was twice the United States Secretary of State, under Presidents William Henry Harrison and John Tylerand Millard Fillmore. Along with James G. Blaine, he is one of only two people who have served as Secretary of State under three presidents. He also sought the Whig Party nomination for President three times: in 1836, 1840...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth18 January 1782
CitySalisbury, NH
CountryUnited States of America
Daniel Webster quotes about
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.
A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.
There is not a more dangerous experiment than to place property in the hands of one class, and political power in those of another... If property cannot retain the political power, the political power will draw after it the property.
Now is the time when men work quietly in the fields and women weep softly in the kitchen; the legislature is in session and no man's property is safe.
A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.
It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property; and to establish such distribution of property, by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest the great majority of society in the protection of the government.
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality.
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.
Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it ... It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.
On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.
We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.