H. L. Mencken, James Madison, John C. Calhoun

[♦ nivek ♦]

"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."

-- H. L. Mencken

(1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor, Essayist, Linguist, Lexicographer, and Critic

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/H...cken.Quote.F98B

 

 

"Since the general civilization of mankind,

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms

of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power

than by violent and sudden usurpations."

-- James Madison

(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

Source: Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.87 (Philadelphia, 1836), 6 June 1788

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J...ison.Quote.75C5

 

 

"To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws ..."

-- John C. Calhoun

(1782-1850) American statesman

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J...houn.Quote.7228