Republic

“ When you understand clearly the meaning of the words "autocracy," "democracy" and "republic," you will favor the republic as the best form of government. It should then be your solemn duty as well as your high privilege to exert every effort and utilize every legitimate influence to assure a republic as the form of government under which you live. ”

“ Behold a republic, gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor to the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes—a republic whose history like the path of the just—"is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." ”

“ Behold a republic, in which civil and religious liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavour and in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a neighbour's injury—a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a crown. ”

“ For the privilege of being robbed and beaten in the name of laws we never heard of and which we had no part in making, though this country is called a Republic! A Republic!—Bah!—A Republic where more than half the people cannot read! ”

“ Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward" ”

“ In a republic, the people are every thing, and a particular individual nothing. In a monarchy, the monarch is every thing, and the people nothing. And the true character of the government is stamped, not by the forms of the appointment to office alone, but by its practical operation. ”

“ I believe in our Government of the People, by the People and for the People, a government whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a Sovereign Nation of many Sovereign States, a Democracy in a Republic, a perfect Union, one and inseparable. ”

“ It is the golden mean, the republic—the standard form of government, strictly and literally adhered to—which gives just the right amount of participation by the people in governmental affairs and causes the political plant to thrive and reach its best development and its full fruition. ”

“ In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. ”

“ How diminutive the mind that could look with reverence to the beings that gave it birth, when the republic, sole heiress of philanthropy and freedom—the great republic, offered herself as the fond and universal parent. ”

“ All over that little republic, so begun in sorrow and travail, there came in after-years the dimples and the smiles of the prosperous child who would one day rise in the lap of the mother-country, and, asserting its rights by means of Patrick O' Fallen Henry and others, place a large and disagreeable fire-cracker under the nose of royalty, that, busting the awful stillness, should jar the empires of earth, and blow the unblown noses of future kings and princes. ”

“ If the government of the Republic picked him saying, "You are wanted, your country takes you"— if the Republic put a stethoscope to his heart and looked at his teeth and tested his eyes and said, "You are a citizen of the Republic and a sound [Pg 43] animal in all parts and functions—the Republic takes you"— then to-day the baskets of flowers are all for the Republic, the roses, the songs, the steamboat whistles, the proclamations of the honorable orators— they are all for the Republic. ”

“ The republic is so rich and so prosperous, and its future, from some stand-points, so fair, that it seems invidious, perhaps, to mar the picture and reveal a frightful evil slowly developing in its bosom. ”

“ All these evidences of the adaptability of the republic successfully to meet unlooked-for emergencies, to harmonize the incoherent elements from other lands, to establish the blessings of liberty, of education and of individual rights, and to successfully solve the problems which had baffled the philosophers and statesmen throughout the ages, are proof that the republic is not only the best, but the standard form of government. ”

“ Compare it to what you now have in the way of worldly honor. What do you care for that bit of striped bunting and those beggarly rebels who have presumed to declare a republic? What is a republic, anyway, and what function has it in a gentleman's life, pray? What have we to do with the common people? What are their aspirations to you? What affiliations have you for that low-born gardener, turned pirate and buccaneer to ravage our coasts, dishonor our flag? ”

“ What darkness is to the sight, autocracy is to government; what dazzle is to the eye, democracy is to government; what light is to the eye, the republic is to government.
What drought is to the soil, autocracy is to government; what a flood is to the soil, democracy is to government; what moisture is to the soil, the republic is to government.
What three wheels or less are to transportation, autocracy is to government; what five wheels or more are to transportation, democracy is to government; what four-wheel vehicles are to transportation, the republic is to government. ”

“ Thus the ideal of a true republic, of a government of laws made and executed by the people, of which bards have sung and prophets dreamed, and for which martyrs have suffered and heroes died, may yet be possible to us, and the great experiment of this Western World be indeed a Model, instead of a Warning to the nations. ”

“ If the people of all nations could be awakened to the tremendous truth that a republic is the only form of government that has solved governmental problems successfully and given wholesome and desirable results, it would compensate in part for the awful sacrifice and carnage of this tragic time. ”

“ The patriot, the philosopher, and the statesman, look to this spot, where the legislative authority of the Republic has an uncontrolled operation, for that perfect system of laws, which shall at once develope the wisdom of the government, and display the justice and benevolence of its policy. ”

“ They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. ”

“ If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. ”

“ To state the matter shortly, royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. ”

“ A true republic, the function of which is administration in the interests of the whole community—in contrast to a pure democracy, which in last analysis is the rule of the demos or a majority in its own interests—should be, and often is, the medium of selection for the technical task of government of those best qualified by antecedents, character and education, in short, of experts. ”

“ In a republic the first rule for the guidance of the citizen is obedience to law. ”

“ The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the march of society with its Principal Cause — its concurrent or Auxiliary Causes — and its inferior governable mass or matter, the human flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole scheme. ”

“ These heroes established the first republic, and demonstrated that a government in which the legally expressed will of the people is sovereign and supreme is the safest, strongest, securest, noblest and the best. ”

“ So underneath the laws and the institutions of each modern nation, underneath the monarchy and the republic, there is another and unseen state, with sentiments not yet become popular, and with ideas not yet confirmed in actions, not organized into institutions, ideas scarcely legal, certainly not respectable. ”

“ our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule." ”

“ A republic in an over-civilised, highly-centralised, bureaucratically-governed country, with a religiously hollow, hasty, violent, excitable, and explosive people, seems of all social experiments the least hopeful: and that is all that can wisely be said of it at present. ”

“ But the forms of government which have most prevailed, are designated by the terms, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, or republic. These words severally indicate by what persons, and in what manner, the governing power of a state is exercised. This power is usually called the sovereign, or supreme power. Where kings rule, they are called sovereign; and where the power is in the hands of the people, the people are sovereign. ”

“ It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR A FAVORED CLASS OF IT: otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of Republic. ”

“ We should return at once, with all of the humility and penitence of the prodigal son, to a strict and literal adherence to the republic, the golden mean between autocracy and democracy, and encourage the people of each of the other countries of the world to go forward from the form of government that they now have to a republic. ”

“ This country is frequently spoken of as a democracy, and yet the men who established our government made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy, gave very clear definitions of each term, and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic.
Surely no one has more valid authority to use governmental terms, or to make definitions of those terms, than the men who evolved the best form of government the world has ever known. ”

“ Elsewhere than in Genoa we search in vain for a parallel for the existence of a body of citizens distinct from the government—with their own laws, magistrates, and independent authority—a state within a state, a republic within a republic. ”

“ If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic. ”

“ The republic is a definite, accurate thing with fixed limitations. Take away one or more of the four elements of a republic, and you have some degree of autocracy. Add one or more to the four elements of a republic, and it merges into democracy.
The law of degree also applies to forms of government. The more extreme the autocracy, the more vicious the government; and, on the other hand, the more extreme the democracy, the more vicious the government: but the more strictly and literally the republic is adhered to, the better the government. ”

“ On its ruins the Republic has been established anew, and now it reckons in its service and among its champions the best intellects and the noblest characters in France; while the masses of the people, taught by the bitter lessons of adversity, are also content to enjoy the benefits of ordered liberty and peaceful progress under its benign sway. ”

“ Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire, a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where he had expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a sort of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, Camille, Desmoulins, Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. ”

“ "A song for our banner?"—The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand—divided we fall!"—
It made and preserves us a nation! ”

“ Gentlemen, the citizens of this republic cannot sever their fortunes. A common fate awaits us. In the honor of upholding, or in the disgrace of undermining the Constitution, we shall all necessarily partake. Let us then stand by the Constitution as it is, and by our country as it is, one, united, and entire; let it be a truth engraven on our hearts, let it be borne on the flag under which we rally, in every exigency, that we have ONE COUNTRY, ONE CONSTITUTION, ONE DESTINY.
Gentlemen, of our interior administration, the public lands constitute a highly important part. ”