American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782-June 17, 1866) was an American soldier, lawyer, politician and diplomat. After serving in the War of 1812, he became the Governor-General of the Territory of Michigan, where he made treaties with the Indians, organized townships and built roads. He was a U.S. Senator, 1845-48, 1849-57; Secretary of State under President James Buchanan, 1857-60; and the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1848. Lewis Cass stated: <Independent of its connection with human destiny hereafter, the fate of republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion, and a people who reject its...

Congress of the Confederation (September 10, 1782) in response to the need for Bibles, Congress endorsed Robert Aitken of Philadelphia to print a Bible. Robert Aitken was the publisher of The Pennsylvania Magazine, as well as the Journals of Congress. In colonial America, it was illegal to print the Bible without a license from the King, and the King had only granted licenses to printers in England. When the Revolutionary War interrupted trade with the King's authorized printer of the King James Authorized Bible, there was a shortage in America of Bibles, which were used in courts of justice, churches, schools,...

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782-March 31, 1850) was U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from South Carolina. He was the Secretary of War under President James Monroe; Secretary of State under President John Tyler; and Vice-President under both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He was a prominent supporter of "states rights," and in 1850, the year he died, he gave his last speech to the Senate regarding the Civil War that lay ahead: <The cords that bind the States together are not only many, but various in character....The strongest of those of a spiritual and ecclesiastical nature, consisted in...

Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782-October 24, 1852) was an American attorney, politician and diplomat. His political career spanned almost four decades. Considered one of the greatest orators in American history, he argued cases before the Supreme Court, served as Secretary of State for President William Henry Harrison, President John Tyler and President Millard Fillmore. He graduated from Dartmouth College, 1801; was admitted to the bar, 1805; elected U.S. Representative 1812; practiced law in Boston, 1816; argued 223 cases before the Supreme Court; was elected U.S. Representative, 1822; and was elected a U.S. Senator, 1827. By a resolution of the Senate,...

Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson (1781) wrote in his Notes of the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: <God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of...