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
A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.
A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social system, and encourages propensities destructive to its happiness. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation.
No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?
From the accession of Henry the Seventh to the breaking out of the civil wars, England enjoyed much greater exemption from war, foreign and domestic, than for a long period before, and during the controversy between the houses of York and Lancaster. These years of peace were favorable to commerce and the arts. Commerce and the arts augmented general and individual knowledge; and knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty.
..if the Northern states refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side.
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.
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.
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.
A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.
We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.
Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.