United States

“ 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. ”

“ One of the fruitful sources, as I hold it, of the errors which prevail in our country, is the theory that this is a Government of one people; that the Government of the United States was formed by a mass. The Government of the United States is a compact between the sovereign members who formed it; and, if there be one feature common to all the colonies planted upon the shores of America, it is desire for community independence. ”

“ Look at the United States, where, without any apparent force or effort, every thing goes on prosperously; every one is happy and contented: and this is because the public wishes and interests are in fact the ruling power. ”

“ The United States would stand, as no other nation has ever stood in the world—predominant and unselfish—on the highest ideals ever reached in human government. It is a vision as splendid as the Holy Grael. ”

“ Steam, transportation, industrial development, city life, business organization, expansion across the continent—these are the factors that have made of the United States a nation utterly apart from the nation of which those who signed the Declaration of Independence and fought the Revolution dreamed. ”

“ As to the political part of my mission, I humbly claim that the United States may pronounce what is or should be the law of nations—such as they can recognize consistently with the basis upon which their own existence is established, and consistently with their own republican principles. ”

“ The United States are therefore, in this respect, the most advanced of all the great nations, in a direction in which all are advancing, and in the United States we see just how much this tendency to personal and political freedom can of itself accomplish. ”

“ The United States stood there among the great powers of the earth, strong and respected. The Republic had no foreign foe to fear; its growth in population and wealth, in popular intelligence and progressive civilization, the wonder of the world. There was no visible limit to its development ”

“ That republic, the United States of America, full of wisdom and of strength, exhibits this phenomenon, and each day their prosperity shows an increase which astonishes other nations. Thus it was reserved for the New World to teach the Old that existence is possible and peaceable under the rule of liberty and equality. ”

“ The history of the United States during the century has been one of unparalleled progress, and the great republic stands forth at the threshold of the 20th cen- tury a mighty power pre-eminent in all the elements that make a nation great. With more than 70,000,000 of people, with marvelous strength and resources, with wide-extended trade and commerce, she presents a splendid contrast to the feeble republic of 100 years ago. ”

“ Thus, in as comprehensive a manner as possible, is presented the present general situation and its evident tendencies, which bring us to the special consideration of the present condition of the country, which, of all countries, is destined to play the most prominent part in the third order of civilization—the United States of America. ”

“ The great truth that government was made for the people and not the people for government has already been established in the practice and by the example of these United States, and we can do no other than contemplate its further exemplification by a sister republic with the deepest interest. ”

“ We are here citizens of a great, prosperous, magnificent Nation. We have common interests. We are here charged with the common duties to perpetuate, if we can, the prosperity and to maintain the honor of this great Republic. [Applause.] We are here to-night in the enjoyment of free government. We are here in the individual possession of better opportunities of development, of a larger prosperity, and of more individual comfort than are possessed by any other people in the world. ”

“ And when I think of the United States first in an arrangement like this, I am thinking of what is best for the world. ”

“ The institutions and laws of the United States, in their inception, represented the spirit of a people who were actuated by the highest concepts of human duty, and who sought to establish a political system which should realize the highest ideals. ”

“ In the meanwhile we on this side of the Atlantic cannot do better than study, under the most favourable and fortunate conditions, the story of the great constitutional adventure which has given us the United States of America. ”

“ To its hospitable and ever-inviting shores people of all nations and climes have come, so that in two centuries the principal country of it has grown to be a Nation of more inherent strength than any country of the Old World, and to rank among its nations as a first class Power, both feared and respected.
The United States of America, all genuine Americans believe, will become the United American States. ”

“ True, we are associated with what is called the United States of America, in a territorial capacity, and acknowledge that authority and submit to its rule; we are really under the constitution of the United States. ”

“ Believe me Sir, it is no small task to bring to a conclusion the great objects of a United Government viewed in different points by thirteen Independent Sovereignties; United America must have one general Interest to be a Nation, at the same time preserving the particular Interest of the Individual States. ”

“ Nothing is more striking to an European traveller in the United States than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On a comprehensive summing up of the processes and present and hitherto condition of the United States, with reference to their future, and the indispensable precedents to it, my point, below all surfaces, and subsoiling them, is, that the bases and prerequisites of a leading nationality are, first, at all hazards, freedom, worldly wealth and products on the largest and most varied scale, common education and intercommunication, and, in general, the passing through of just the stages and crudities we have passed or are passing through in the United States. ”

“ But back to this eighteenth century must we go to learn the forces, the national ideas, the political theories, under the domination of which the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. ”

“ Wherever, at the head of some new undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association. ”

“ There are one or two existing states to which men have looked for some open recognition of their duty to mankind as a whole, and of the necessarily provisional nature of their contemporary constitutions. The United States of America constitute a political system, profoundly different in its origin and in its spirit, from any old-world state ”

“ Their influence will hardly be felt, while the greater number of lucrative and honorable places, in the gift of the United States, will establish an influence which will prevail in every part of the continent. ”

“ The United States form not only a republic, but a confederation; ”

“ A liberal and enlightened policy, a knowledge of national rights, duties, and interests, a familiarity with foreign governments, and diplomatic history, and a wide survey of the operations of commerce, agriculture, and manufactures, seem indispensable to a lofty discharge of his functions. [174] A knowledge of the peculiar interests, and products, and institutions of the different states of the Union, is doubtless of great value ”

“ Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS—our inferior one varies with the place. ”

“ Gentlemen, in their reasoning, have placed the interests of the several states, and those of the United States, in contrast; this is not a fair view of the subject; they must necessarily be involved in each other. What we apprehend is, that some sinister prejudice, or some prevailing passion, may assume the form of a genuine interest. ”

“ My countrymen, this Government is that which I love to think of as my country; for not acres, or railroads, or farm products, or bulk meats, or Wall Street, or all combined, are the country that I love. It is the institution, the form of government, the frame of civil society, for which that flag stands, and which we love to-day. [Applause.] It is what Mr. Lincoln so tersely, yet so felicitously, described as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; a government of the people, because they instituted it—the Constitution reads, [12] "We, the people, have ordained;" ”

“ The capital and leading object of the constitution was, to leave with the States all authorities which respected their own citizens only, and to transfer to the United States those which respected citizens of foreign or other States: to make us several as to ourselves, but one as to all others. ”

“ When these peoples have reached the power and development which the United States of America enjoys; when the citizens and the public authorities keep within the bounds imposed by the legitimate demands of liberty and justice and the requirements of order and progress ”

“ we trace the hand of the Almighty in framing the constitution of our land, and believe that the Lord raised up men purposely for the accomplishment of this object, raised them up and inspired them to frame the constitution of the United States. ”

“ I observed that the equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. ”