Chosen people

“ If the youth are carefully educated—If the Principles of Morality are strongly inculcated on the Minds of the People—the End and Design of Government clearly understood and the Love of our Country the ruling Passion, uncorrupted Men will then be chosen for the representatives of the People. ”

“ And this is a choice not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of ages and of generations; it is a constitution, made by what is ten thousand times better than choice; it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social habitudes of the people, which, disclose themselves only in a long space of time. ”

“ We may readily grant that it is, in one sense or another, a doctrine for chosen spirits, but if history makes anything clear it is that chosen spirits are the necessary instruments of all progress and therefore the chief hope of society. ”

“ Thou who choosest kings from among shepherds, and who often unsealest the lips of a boy so that he glows with thy speech, thy choice is made by other tokens. Whom thou touchest, Lord, he is chosen; whom thou choosest, Lord, he is appointed. ”

“ In this new nation was realized the dream of the social philosophers and philanthropists of all ages: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, resting on the deep and solid foundations of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ”

“ As the chief desire of the individual calls out appetites and passions, which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the master-motive of the people, calls out certain classes of men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the constitution, institutions, and laws to correspond thereto. ”

“ The roots of America's greatness are embedded in the character of its citizens. From our Founders' passion for justice and equality to the social consciousness and humanitarian spirit of today's citizens, the character of our people has inspired the world. Undeniably, character does count for our citizens, our communities, and our Nation, and this week we celebrate the importance of character in our individual lives and in the life of our country. ”

“ Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation, and associates, and modes of action, and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment. ”

“ But we know you like to have your freedom to make your own life choices, so what we're going to do is find you three candidates we approve of, and you'll be completely free to choose whichever one you want. ”

“ The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul—our Protestant idea, the right of individual conscience and judgment—our republican idea, individual citizenship. ”

“ We profess, further, to be the elect of God—set apart elected, chosen by him to be his servants to accomplish his work upon the earth;—in the first place, to establish correct principles among ourselves, and then to teach these principles to others, no matter what they relate to, whether to family matters, to the state, to a town, a corporation, or a government,—no matter whether they relate to the Government of our own country, our own family, or a world. ”

“ Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country. No qualification of wealth, of birth, of religious faith, or of civil profession, is permitted to fetter the judgement or disappoint the inclination of the People. ”

“ He came not to destroy the elect, but to save them, as He Himself saith: I am come that they may have life and may have it more abundantly, [6] that they may have a life of holiness and peace, and have it more abundantly, after death, in joy eternal. It is My elect—not the proud, the fornicators, the greedy, the wrathful, the envious, the world-sick, [7] the foes of My word and My life—but it is My elect that hear and keep My word and suffer with Me in grace. ”

“ None amidst the gay, happy, silken crowd of your equals and followers can feel for you that single and overruling passion which makes you to me what all combined—country, power, wealth, reputation, an honest name, peace, common safety, the quiet of the common air, alike the least blessing and the greatest-are to all others! ”

“ What do you offer the people that is better than the principles or the promises of the old parties? I heard you speak once, but you did not answer this question—to my mind the only question that is vital. ”

“ Before, then, we examine the act by which a people chooses a king, it would be well to examine the act by which a people becomes a people; for this act, which necessarily precedes the other, must be the true foundation of society. ”

“ And I put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election is not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember, that virtue is not hereditary. ”

“ The great body of the people — that is, men, women and children — were never asked, or even permitted, to signify, in any formal manner, either openly or secretly, their choice or wish on the subject. ”

“ On deliberate choice, and from grounds of character, he has elected his part to live and die for, and dies with grandeur. This race has added new elements to humanity, and has a deeper root in the world. ”

“ We, indeed, want to breed scholars, artists, poets, historians, novelists, engineers, physicians, jurists, theologians, and orators; but, first of all, we want to breed a race of independent, self-reliant freemen, capable of helping, guiding, and governing themselves. ”

“ They have since formed a race of beings which has perpetuated itself, and spread into all the civilised parts of the world, everywhere preserving the same physiognomy, the same passions, the same character. ”

“ But it is so. We are not the marvellous choosers and deciders we think we are. IT chooses for us, and decides for us. Unless, of course, we are just escaped slaves, vulgarly cocksure of our ready-made destiny. ”

“ Will any reader doubt which of these two types of the school of order and justice, both of them noble, is the more valuable for the race, and the worthier and more stimulating ideal for the individual? ”

“ I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. ”

“ I am thinking of what these institutions of the people's own devising are doing toward the making of a homogeneous spirit, in which individual, disinterested, and varied achievement will have a liberty to grow—as perhaps in no other soil of earth. ”

“ In a sentence, they were honorable and exemplary members of that great mass of humanity which has the custody of the present and the future of the race—those who live by the sweat of their own brows or their own brains, and train their children to do likewise, those who maintain the true ideals of happiness and progress, those from whom spring all the workers and all the leaders of thought and action. ”

“ Virtuous choices gradually become the law of liberty. These facts are index fingers pointing toward large and loving, strenuous and sympathetic manhood. And toward such human types, as a matter of fact, the race has been moving. ”

“ We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people. ”

“ There is now no question of candidates; there is no question of men. Candidates and men, no matter who, are all insignificant by the side of the cause. It is the cause we sustain and would bear, as the ark of the covenant, on our shoulders. ”

“ Can men govern themselves? The affirmative is civilization—the negative is barbarism. The whole trend of modern life—the sweep of modern progress—is towards individual freedom and individual responsibility. ”

“ We may conceive an aristocracy choosing out, and gladly receiving into its own ranks as equals, every youth, every maiden, who was distinguished by intellect, virtue, valour, beauty, without respect to rank or birth ”

“ You are the children of the chosen out of many nations, masters of the world, and, under Heaven, the arbiters of human destiny. You shall rule the world as we have ruled it for a hundred years from now. ”

“ But what an indulgence must it have furnished to the national curiosity, which, seeing the origin of all things in individual character, justly regards the eminent characters of that day as the founders of every remarkable change which has shaped the constitution in our own! Public life has never before or since abounded in such variety, strength, and brilliancy of character. ”

“ I dare say that you have not forgotten how our rulers were chosen; and the process of selection may be carried a step further:—As before, they must be constant and valiant, good-looking, and of noble manners, but now they must also have natural ability which education will improve; that is to say, they must be quick at learning, capable of mental toil, retentive, solid, diligent natures, who combine intellectual with moral virtues ”

“ The representations [Pg 208] which express them within each of us have an intensity which no purely private states of consciousness could ever attain; for they have the strength of the innumerable individual representations which have served to form each of them. It is society who speaks through the mouths of those who affirm them in our presence; it is society whom we hear in hearing them; and the voice of all has an accent which that of one alone could never have. ”

“ Philosophers, moralists, preachers have united in saying: "Base your life upon a noble feeling, if you are to live aright; base the state upon a generous devotion of its members to some great ideal, if it is to prosper and be strong." ”

“ There was a time when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. ”

“ The devotion to ideas and principles, the zeal for the rights of others which go to make up the men of public spirit—those leading traits now appeared in him, and at once gave him a place among the champions of human freedom. ”

“ Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a people--Nature's generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them also the deep philosophers who think the thought in one generation that is to revolutionize society in the next. ”

“ This convention composed of men who possessed the confidence of the people, and many of whom had become highly distinguished by their patriotism, virtue and wisdom, in times which tried the minds and hearts of men, undertook the arduous task. ”

“ We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. ”

“ The proud swell of the heart, ever courting distinction, ever conscious of the value of rank, and that still more active principle assumed as the right of personal attraction, by which nature asserts her rights as superior to all artificial distinctions, lay dormant. ”

“ Everything is to be found, if the right people only are selected. Let them comprise youth, vigorous health, temperate habits, persevering industry, and morals based on sound Christianity, and their success and advancement in life is as certain as anything can be pronounced in this world of uncertainty. ”