Domestic policy

“ The civil rights proposals I made to the 80th Congress, I now repeat to the 81st Congress. They should be enacted in order that the Federal Government may assume the leadership and discharge the obligations dearly placed upon it by the Constitution.
I stand squarely behind those proposals.
Our domestic programs are the foundation of our foreign policy. The world today looks to us for leadership because we have so largely realized, within our borders, those benefits of democratic government for which most of the peoples of the world are yearning. ”

“ While allowing all possible latitude to subordinate members in the management of their domestic affairs, it reconciles and harmonizes the conflicting and sometimes antagonistic interests of different sections, concentrates on works of vast commercial and national importance the collective powers of all, directs the foreign policy of the government for the general good, and arrays the power of the people for the common protection and defence. ”

“ Our object will be - the maintenance of peace - the scrupulous and honourable fulfilment, without reference to their original policy, of all existing engagements with Foreign Powers - the support of public credit - the enforcement of strict economy - the just and impartial consideration of what is due to all interests - agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial. ”

“ The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defence. In these are comprehended the regulation of commerce,—that is, the whole system of foreign intercourse,—the support of armies and navies, and of the civil administration. ”

“ With no other object than the public good, the enduring fame, and permanent prosperity of my country, I have pursued the convictions of my own best judgment. The impartial arbitrament of enlightened public opinion, present and future, will determine how far the public policy I have maintained and the measures I have from time to time recommended may have tended to advance or retard the public prosperity at home and to elevate or depress the estimate of our national character abroad. ”

“ It is by such knowledge that local prejudices and jealousies are surmounted, and that a national policy extending its fostering care and protection to all the great interests of our Union, is formed and steadily adhered to.
A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought to be particularly necessary. Equally necessary is it that we should for a just estimate of our resources, revenue, and progress in every kind of improvement connected with the national prosperity and public defense. ”

“ The president-elect has already announced the policy of his government, which is to be an instrument of progress, its underlying impulses the maintenance of peace and the protection of the interests and rights of all citizens. Questions of sanitation, education, immigration, agriculture, and railroad construction are to receive attention, and everything that may 456contribute to the national well-being will have careful consideration. ”

“ It is that policy which seeks to use the power of this great Republic for the advantage and benefit of private interests; it is that policy which takes money out of the pockets of the people to put it into the pockets of a favored few; it is that policy which, wherever it has prevailed, in every age and every country, has poisoned the very fountains of legislation. ”

“ I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy. The first thing is to foster the strength of the Empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby producing two of the great elements of national power—namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which are moral elements—and to reserve the strength of the Empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occasions abroad. ”

“ How much more sublime is the idea of forming a great nation, by a chain of republicks, subordinate to publick good, than by a chain of satraps subordinate to imperial will, or of chartered companies subordinate to selfish avarice? Such a system stands upon national interest. No people, except ourselves, have seriously attempted to make this interest the basis of civil government. ”

“ In contests of this nature, where a considerable body of people who have attempted to free themselves of the control of the superior government have reached such point in occupation of territory, in power, and in general organization as to constitute in fact a body politic; having a government in substance as well as in name; possessed of the elements of stability and equipped with the machinery for the administration of internal policy and the execution of its laws ”

“ This favorite American policy is what America has never tried; and this odious foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign states have never pursued. Sir, that is the truest American policy which shall most usefully employ American capital and American labor, and best sustain the whole population. With me it is a fundamental axiom, it is interwoven with all my opinions, that the great interests of the country are united and inseparable; that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will prosper together or languish together ”

“ We began to arm before we knew for what we were arming, before we had a national policy, before we knew what we wanted or how to get it. Our problem to-day is to determine upon that policy, to create out of the constituent elements forming American public opinion a national policy, determined by our situation and needs, limited by our power, and in conformity with our ideals. ”

“ One Government can collect and avail itself of the talents and experience of the ablest men, in whatever part of the Union they may be found. It can move on uniform principles of policy. It can harmonize, assimilate, and protect the several parts and members, and extend the benefit of its foresight and precautions to each. In the formation of treaties it will regard the interest of the whole, and the particular interests of the parts as connected with that of the whole. ”

“ The primary objects sought in political association are internal order, security from foreign attack, the authoritative and just adjustment of domestic differences and grievances, and a certain opportunity for individual development; and these several objects are really reducible to two, because internal order cannot be preserved among a vigorous people, in case no sufficient opportunity is provided for individual development or for the adjustment of differences and grievances. ”

“ But, as all foreign sources must be liable to interruptions too inconvenient to be hazarded, a provident policy would favor an internal and independent source, as a reasonable exception to the general rule of consulting cheapness alone. ”

“ Our policy is wisely to govern ourselves, and thereby to set such an example of national justice, prosperity, and true glory as shall teach to all nations the blessings of self-government and the unparalleled enterprise and success of a free people. ”

“ Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious, or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad ”

“ This new league of amity and of mutual confidence and support into which the people of the Republic have entered happily affords inducement and opportunity for the adoption of a more comprehensive and unembarrassed line of policy and action as to the great material interests of the country, whether regarded in themselves or in connection with the powers of the civilized world. ”

“ In internal policy: democratic administration, ditto education and army, economic reconstruction, rationing, public control of monopolies, especially mines and power, right of association and wage boards, public health, rights for civil servants, agricultural development and settlement preferably on reclaimed land, taxation of war profits, income-tax, death duties graduated but not confiscatory, freedom of conscience, freedom of the Press, freedom of meeting—all sorts of freedom. ”

“ Which of these two elements in our population will secure the ascendency and dictate our foreign policy, or which will contribute more largely to the decision, will be determined chiefly by the course of our internal evolution and especially by our economic development. ”

“ If we continue united, we may counteract a policy so unfriendly to our prosperity in a variety of ways. By prohibitory regulations, extending, at the same time, throughout the States, we may oblige foreign countries to bid against each other, for the privileges of our markets. ”

“ Recognized as we have been by the United States a free, sovereign, and independent nation, it becomes our imperious duty to pursue such a course of policy and legislation as will at once command the respect and confidence of other nations, while our internal safety and prosperity will be secured. A fair and liberal policy should be extended to all nations who may desire to establish commercial relations with us, or who may deem it proper to introduce their fabrics or commodities into our country. ”

“ Independent of these means of promoting the general welfare, we shall at once see, in our negotiations with foreign powers, the vast superiority of a nation combining numbers and resources over states of small extent, and divided by different interests. If we are to negotiate for commercial or other advantages, the national government has more authority to speak, as well as more power to influence, than can belong to a single state. It has more valuable privileges to give in exchange, and more means of making those privileges felt by prohibitions, or relaxations of its commercial legislation. ”

“ The next man will give you some further information. 'The Government has a policy—a wise one—and sticks to it. This policy is—tranquillity: keep this hive of excitable nations as quiet as possible; encourage them to amuse themselves with things less inflammatory than politics. ”

“ A genuinely national policy must, of course, be based upon a correct understanding of the national interest in relation to those of its neighbors and associates. That American policy did obtain such a foundation during the early years of American history is to be traced to the sound political judgment of Washington and Hamilton. ”

“ Under their guidance the national policy became a policy of conciliation and compromise at any cost, and the national idea was deprived of consistency and dignity. It became equivalent to a hodge-podge of policies and purposes, the incompatibility of whose ingredients was concealed behind a smooth crust of constitutional legality and popular acquiescence. ”

“ By adopting such a policy they would more certainly secure for themselves the value of their possessions, and at the same time promote their progress in civilization and prosperity, than by endeavoring to perpetuate the present state of things in the Territory. ”

“ For it must be substituted an economic policy which will secure to the nation, and the individual the opportunities and the benefits of the existing organization, while at the same time seeking the diffusion of those benefits over a larger social area. ”

“ Every nation, consequently, whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability, may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of their wiser neighbors. ”

“ I congratulate you that you have come here to the nation's capital to discuss and consider subjects which are properly of national concern; that you have not come to ask the national government to do anything which you ought to do yourselves at home in your separate states, but to consider the exercise of the great commerce power of the nation, the power which from the beginning of our government has been fittingly placed in the hands of the national administration. ”

“ That all should be satisfied with any one order of things is not to be expected, but I indulge the pleasing persuasion that the great body of our citizens will cordially concur in honest and disinterested efforts, which have for their object to preserve the General and State governments in their constitutional form and equilibrium; to maintain peace abroad, and order and obedience to the laws at home; to establish principles and practices of administration favorable to the security of liberty and property, and to reduce expenses to what is necessary for the useful purposes of government. ”

“ The public safety, and the relative interests of states; political establishments, the pretensions of party, commerce, and arts, are subjects which engage the attention of nations. The advantages gained in some of these particulars, determine the degree of national prosperity. The ardour and vigour with which they are at any one time pursued, is the measure of a national spirit. When those objects cease to animate, nations may be said to languish; when they are during a considerable time neglected, states must decline, and their people degenerate. ”

“ In this inquiry, my lords, it will be necessary to consider not only the state of domestick affairs, increase or diminution of our debts, the security or violation of our liberties, the freedom or dependence of our senates, and the prosperity or declension of our trade, but to examine the state of this nation, with regard to foreign powers; to inquire, whether we are equally feared and equally trusted now as in former administrations; whether our alliances have contributed to secure us from our inveterate and habitual enemies, or to expose us to them ”