American Union

“ Their excuse is that the American Union, and the great purpose which it declares itself called upon to accomplish, is of such vast importance, of such infinite significance in the eyes of all the Free States, for the whole of humanity, and for all the nations of the world, that they could not allow themselves to be other than interested in its full accomplishment as in an affair that concerned themselves. ”

“ Recurring to these principles, which constitute the organic basis of union, we perceive that vast as are the functions and the duties of the Federal Government, vested in or intrusted to its three great departments--the legislative, executive, and judicial--yet the substantive power, the popular force, and the large capacities for social and material development exist in the respective States, which, all being of themselves well-constituted republics, as they preceded so they alone are capable of maintaining and perpetuating the American Union. ”

“ I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. ”

“ I believe, as surely as that there is a God, that our safety, our political happiness and existence, depend on the union of the States; and that, without this union, the people of this and the other States will undergo the unspeakable calamities which discord, faction, turbulence, war, and bloodshed have produced in other countries. The American spirit ought to be mixed with American pride, to see the Union magnificently triumphant. Let that glorious pride, which once defied the British thunder, reanimate you again. ”

“ The resulting Federal Union was a combination of strength and freedom such as the world had never seen. With this for its organic form, with its spiritual lineage drawn from the Puritan, the Quaker and the Cavalier, with Anglo-Saxon stock for its core, yet with open doors and assimilating power for all races, and with a continent for its field of expansion,—the American people became the leader and the hope of humanity. ”

“ In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that, which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. ”

“ The action of the American Union extends to the regulation of the action of individuals in [Pg 71] these free States, so that a Greater American Union of Free States exists de facto. To bring into existence a Greater American Union de jure, it needs, first, the public and express recognition by the American Union of itself as the Justiciar State, and of each of the separate Insular regions within proper territorial limits, as a Free State in just connection and union with the American Union ”

“ Moreover, if in what has been said we are correct, the relationship at present existing between the American Union and the Insular regions, is that of de facto Justiciary Union, and the American Congress, under the lead of President McKinley and President Roosevelt, has acted, with reference to these regions, according to the principles of the American system. ”

“ If the confederation really preserved the idea of union until the good sense of the nation adopted a more efficient system, this service alone entitles that instrument to the respectful recollection of the American people, and its framers to their gratitude. ”

“ Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the constitution, as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a people, and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the states, both northern and southern. ”

“ Let it not be forgotten, at the same time, that a great part of the territory of these large and extensive states, which they now hold in possession, and over which they now claim and exercise jurisdiction, were crown lands, unlocated and unsettled when the American revolution took place—lands which were acquired by the common blood and treasure, and which ought to have been the common stock, and for the common benefit of the Union. ”

“ For with respect to those things which immediately concern the union, and for which the union was purposely established, and is intended to secure, each state is to the United States what each individual is to the state he lives in. ”

“ It was reserved for the American Union to test the advantages of a government entirely dependent on the continual exercise of the popular will, and our experience has shown that it is as beneficent in practice as it is just in theory. ”

“ My duty tonight is to report on the state of the Union--not the state of our government, but of our American community; and to set forth our responsibilities, in the words of our Founders, to form a more perfect union.
The state of the Union is strong. Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We have created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million of them in basic industries, like construction and automobiles. America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the 1970s. ”

“ These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? ”

“ He stated their resources, descanted upon the advantages of union daily drawing closer and closer as external danger pressed upon them, and their capacity for defense. He appealed to the patriotism of his compeers, portrayed the beauties of liberty with her train of blessings of law, science, literature, arts, prosperity and glory; and concluded with these beautiful thoughts: "Why, then, sir, do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic! Let her arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to re-establish the reign of peace and law. ”

“ We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America. ”

“ In revising the existing tariff of duties, should you deem it proper to do so at your present session, I can only repeat the suggestions and recommendations which upon several occasions I have heretofore felt it to be my duty to offer to Congress. The great primary and controlling interest of the American people is union—union not only in the mere forms of government, forms which may be broken, but union rounded in an attachment of States and individuals for each other. ”

“ Our American railoads, now exceeding twenty-four thousand miles completed, have greatly advanced the power, prosperity, and progress of the country, whilst linking it together in bonds of ever-increasing commerce and intercourse, and tending by these results, to soften or extinguish sectional passions and prejudice, and thus perpetuate the union of the states. ”

“ Probably all teachers of American history will admit that broadly stated the course in American history and government should be organized with special emphasis on the national period, and should represent an attempt to show how out of the diversity of the colonial period there finally emerged the spirit of federal union, and how American history largely centers around the erection of a sovereign federal state, in face of English opposition, and the maintenance of the union, in the face of internal dissensions, and finally, the growth and expansion of the United States as a world power. ”

“ The new name announced not the birth but the maturity of the party, and the definite establishment of its principles and general lines of policy. The ends for which the Whigs laboured were: first, to maintain the integrity of the Union; second, to make the Union thoroughly national; third, to maintain the republican character of the Union; fourth, while utilizing to the full the inheritance from and through Europe, to develop a distinctly American type of civilization; fifth, to propagate abroad by peaceful means American ideas and institutions. ”

“ Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world! ”

“ In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth. ”

“ The United States form a young republic, a confederacy which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence. ”

“ The cement of this Union is in the heart-blood of every American. ”

“ It is worthy of remark, that not only the first, but every succeeding Congress, as well as the late Convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union. ”

“ Of the condition of the domestic interests of the Union—its agriculture, mines, manufactures, navigation, and commerce—it is necessary only to say that the internal prosperity of the country, its continuous and steady advancement in wealth and population and in private as well as public well-being, attest the wisdom of our institutions and the predominant spirit of intelligence and patriotism which, notwithstanding occasional irregularities of opinion or action resulting from popular freedom, has distinguished and characterized the people of America. ”

“ These were the circumstances which made it apparent to Americans that the Federal Constitution had come not a day too soon, which welded the nation together like an armor-plate of steel against foes on every hand, and taught the need of union as it never could have been taught amid surroundings of prosperity and peace. ”

“ We have undertaken a new order of things; yet we progress to it under the framework and in the spirit and intent of the American Constitution. We have proceeded throughout the Nation a measurable distance on the road toward this new order. ”

“ It leaves them not in death, but follows them into that higher realm, where, with Washington and Franklin, and their noble compatriots, they look down with undying affection upon their country, and offer up prayers that the Union and the constitution may be perpetual. For, recollect, my fellow-citizens, that it is the constitution that makes the Union, and unless that immortal instrument, bearing the name of the Father of his Country, shall be maintained entire in all its wise provisions and sacred guarantees, our free institutions must perish. ”

“ On the contrary, candor compels me to declare that at this time there is no Union as our fathers understood the term, and as they meant it to be understood by us. The Union which they established can exist only where all the States are represented in both Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regulate its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction, apply with equal force to all the people of every section. ”