President

“ The President is at the head of your armies. Let one of his generals, flushed with victory and proud in command, presume to trample on the rights of your most insignificant citizen: indignant of the wrong, he will demand the protection of your tribunals, and, safe in the shadow of their wings, will laugh his oppressor to scorn. ”

“ We stand together again at the steps of this symbol of our democracy—or we would have been standing at the steps if it hadn't gotten so cold. Now we are standing inside this symbol of our democracy. Now we hear again the echoes of our past: a general falls to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge; a lonely President paces the darkened halls, and ponders his struggle to preserve the Union; the men of the Alamo call out encouragement to each other; a settler pushes west and sings a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the unknowing air. ”

“ President, - I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States. ”

“ President, a most wonderful financier at the head of our treasury department. He sits quietly by in the cabinet, and witnesses the contest between his colleague and the president; sees the conflict in the mind of that colleague between his personal attachment to the president on the one hand, and his solemn duty to the public on the other; beholds the triumph of conscientious obligation; contemplates the noble spectacle of an honest man, preferring to surrender an exalted office with all its honors and emoluments, rather than betray the interests of the people ”

“ We watch our President acting for us, telling us news about what we are like, sorting men out around him the way ninety million people would sort them out if they were there to do it.
The President's appointments may be said to be in a way the breath of the nation.
A nation has to breathe, and the plain fact seems to be that certain kinds of people have to be breathed out of a nation and other kinds of people have to be breathed in. The way a President appoints men to office is his way of letting a nation breathe. ”

“ It consisted in the fact that the first President of this Republic furnished in himself, by his character, the principles he followed, the motives that inspired him and the wisdom of his policies, the most perfect model of a republican chief magistrate in the history of the world—a President to whose teachings and example all his successors—indeed, all those wielding public power in this Republic—could with the utmost confidence look for safest guidance. Surely, no other nation has ever been so signally blessed. ”

“ What our President seems to be for in America, is to do up a nation in one specific, particular man who expresses everybody.
This man deals with each other specific man, his aggressions and services, as a nation would if a nation could be one specific man.
The President of the United States is the Comptroller of the people's vision, by seeing a part and dealing with a part as a part of a whole, he governs the people. ”

“ President, I wish to make an appeal to those great, patriotic statesmen on this floor, who, by their love of principle, by their unswerving honesty, unseduced by the blandishments of executive power, unawed by threats of violence, stand here to defend the rights of the people upon this floor, and will stand here forever. ”

“ Our American system makes the President the centre and focus of political life. He is at once Prime Minister and independent executive. He blends the functions of what in parliamentary government is the head of the Cabinet, and what in other government is the head of the State. He is a vital part of the legislative power without being amenable to its control or dependent on its life. He is the framer of policies and the arbiter of parties. All this makes the election of President the central chord and the arterial force of our broad political action. ”

“ Whenever the American people want to remember what the President of the United States ought to be, and whenever a President in our time wishes to make it clear to his mind with what rules he should regulate his conduct, upon what principles he should act, by what motives he should be guided, what methods he should adopt in directing affairs and in managing the machinery of the Government, they will find it all written in characters of light in the first President's teachings and example. ”

“ The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them. Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you. ”

“ I thank the vice president for his leadership, and the Congress for its support, in building a government that is leaner, more flexible, a catalyst for new ideas, and most of all, a government that gives the American people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives.
We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer. My fellow Americans, we have found a third way. We have the smallest government in 35 years, but a more progressive one. We have a smaller government but a stronger nation. ”

“ They remember what voices of gratified patriotism, what shouts of enthusiastic hope, what acclamations rent the air, how many eyes were suffused with tears of joy, how cordially each man pressed the hand of him who was next to him, when, standing in the open air, in the centre of the city, in the view of assembled thousands, the first President of the United States was heard solemnly to pronounce the words of his official oath, repeating them from the lips of Chancellor Livingston. ”

“ In answer to this letter the President observed, "while the eyes of America, perhaps of the world, are turned to this government, and many are watching the movements of all those who are concerned in its administration, I should like to be informed, through so good a medium, of the public opinion of both men and measures, and of none more than myself;—not so much of what may be thought commendable parts, if any, of my conduct, as of those which are conceived to be of a different complexion. ”

“ Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago. ”

“ And here, in America, workmen, cigar-cutters, for instance like me, have a word to say in everything. They share in the elections, take part in the voting, and choose—a President.
And what do you think that is? A President is nothing more nor less than the supreme head of the whole country. And America, so I have heard, is ten times as large as the whole of Europe. ”

“ The president, it is true, presides over the whole; his eye surveys the whole extent of the system in all its movements. But has he power to enter into the courts, for example, and tell them what is to be done? Or may he come here, and tell us the same? Or when we have made a law, can he withhold the power necessary to its practical effect? He moves, it is true, in a high, a glorious sphere. It is his to watch over the whole with a paternal eye ”

“ The office of President is, in point of honor, profit, trust, and influential patronage, so infinitely superior to any other place attainable in this Government, that, in the pursuit and disposal of it, all minor considerations will be forgotten, every thing will be made to bend, in order to subserve the ambitious views of the candidates and their friends. ”

“ Our government may be said to be the organized will of all the people. The people govern in this country, and the men and the means by which they govern all combined may be said to be the government. But do not ever forget this fact: the President is not a master, but a servant. The President, Senators, congressmen, and judges, in the Nation; the Governors, State Senators, and State Representatives in the States are only agents or servants of the people to carry out the people's will. ”

“ Take unto yourself his experience and moderation, and say to all that he is in great honour and dignity with God, and that he is a president with great power, and mighty in his office. To him alone throughout the whole world is the power of repentance assigned. Does he seem to you to be powerful? ”

“ Others have been married and still lived, but it has remained for you, Mr. President, young as you are, to pose as a newly wedded president and to take your new mother-in-law into the cabinet with you. ”

“ Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this Chamber as we are meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty--this last, best hope of man on Earth. ”

“ And a president worthy of his station, would honor our rude occupation as much as his own, and share with pleasure the humblest wholesome meal. What is a president after all, but the servant we employ to look after our affairs, to be respected according to his competence and faithfulness, and the amount of service he does? ”

“ Our noble President has bowed to the will of the Supreme Power and by the guidance and sustaining spirit of that Power will, I trust, lead our country successfully through the great and fearful struggle and place it upon a firm and more enduring basis. ”

“ I am very glad indeed to have this opportunity to address the two Houses directly and to verify for myself the impression that the President of the United States is a person, not a mere department of the Government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power, sending messages, not speaking naturally and with his own voice—that he is a human being trying to coöperate with other human beings in a common service. After this pleasant experience I shall feel quite normal in all our dealings with one another. ”

“ Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. ”

“ It is such a government that the genius of our people requires--such an one only under which our States may remain for ages to come united, prosperous, and free. In pursuance of a constitutional provision requiring the President from time to time to give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, I have the satisfaction to announce that the close of the year finds the United States in the enjoyment of domestic tranquillity and at peace with all the nations. ”

“ To hold the exalted office of President of the United States, to occupy the place of Washington, of Jefferson, of Lincoln, to be looked to for leadership in public questions, to be the first citizen in this great land is not a trifling but a gigantic ambition, worthy of all honest striving but involving, in the ordinary sense, no supreme issue. ”

“ This inauguration ceremony marks a new beginning, a new dedication within our Government, and a new spirit among us all. A President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.
Two centuries ago our Nation's birth was a milestone in the long quest for freedom, but the bold and brilliant dream which excited the founders of this Nation still awaits its consummation. I have no new dream to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream. ”

“ President, the question is whether the men who framed the Constitution, or the people who adopted it, meant to confer that power among the limited and restrained powers of the sovereign nation that they were creating. ”

“ No one felt it more than the President. I saw him repeatedly, and he fairly groaned at the inexplicable delay in the advent of help from the loyal States. ”

“ And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display. I have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion, nor have I attempted any train of elaborate argument. I have wished only to speak my sentiments, fully and at length, being desirous, once and for all, to let the Senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not likely to be suddenly changed. ”

“ After so much experience it can not be said that absolute unchecked power is safe in the hands of any one set of representatives, or that the capacity of the people for self-government, which is admitted in its broadest extent, is a conclusive argument to prove the prudence, wisdom, and integrity of their representatives.
The people, by the Constitution, have commanded the President, as much as they have commanded the legislative branch of the Government, to execute their will. ”

“ The question of the last Presidential election arose before the Country—one of those great questions that are not appreciated, I regret from my heart, by the American Nation, when we elect a President, a man who has more power for his time than any enthroned Monarch in Europe. We organize a Government and place him in front as the head and the Chief of the Government. ”