Quotes by John C. Calhoun

“I am aware how difficult is the task to preserve free institutions over so wide a space and so immense a population, but we are blessed with a Constitution admirably calculated to accomplish it. It...”

“What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, i...”

“I hold that there is a mysterious connection between the fate of this country and that of Mexico so much so that her independence and capability of sustaining herself are almost as essential to our...”

“Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the way which has led nations to greatness.”

“I am a planter - a cotton planter. I am a Southern man and a slaveholder - a kind and a merciful one, I trust - and none the worse for being a slaveholder.”

“I know that there is a great diversity of opinion as to who, in fact, pays the duties on imports. I do not intend to discuss that point. We of the staple and exporting States have long settled the ...”

“It has been lately urged in a very respectable quarter that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty all over the globe, and especially over this continent - even by ...”

“There is often, in the affairs of government, more efficiency and wisdom in non-action than in action.”

“It is a remarkable fact in the political history of man that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government which has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have...”

“War may be made by one party, but it requires two to make peace.”

“The country is filled with energetic and enterprising men, rendered desperate by being reduced from affluence to poverty through the vicissitudes of the times. They will give an impulse to smugglin...”

“Were there no contrariety of interests, nothing would be more simple and easy than to form and preserve free institutions. The right of suffrage alone would be a sufficient guarantee. It is the con...”

“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”

“True consistency that of the prudent and the wise is to act in conformity with circumstances and not to act always the same way under a change of circumstances.”

“When we contend, let us contend for all our rights - the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the term...”

“The day that the balance between the two sections of the country - the slaveholding States and the non-slaveholding States - is destroyed is a day that will not be far removed from political revolu...”

“True consistency that of the prudent and the wise is to act in conformity with circumstances and not to act always the same way under a change of circumstances.”

“Protection and patriotism are reciprocal.”

“The neighboring tribes are becoming daily less warlike, and more helpless and dependent on us … [T]hey have, in a great measure, ceased to be an object of terror, and have become that of commiserat...”

“If it be conceded, as it must by every one who is the least conversant with our institutions, that the sovereign power is divided between the states and general government, and that the former hold...”