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
Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... 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.
Philosophic argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that
When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing less spotless than itself.
He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton.
A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness.
I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like "another morn," "Risen on mid-noon;" and the sky on which you closed your eye was cloudless.
If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn.
An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy.
All creeds are fallible and uncertain evidences of evangelical piety.
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.
The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in a few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless.
Power naturally and necessarily follows 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.