In A Republic The First Rule For

It Is Very Difficult To Reconcile The American Ideal Of A Sovereign People Capable Of Owning And Managing Their Own Government With An Inability To Own And Manage Their Own Business.

In The Discharge Of The Duties Of This Office, There Is One Rule Of Action More Important Than All Others. It Consists In Never Doing Anything That Someone Else Can Do For You.

Governments Do Not Make Ideals, But Ideals Make Governments. This Is Both Historically And Logically True. Of Course The Government Can Help To Sustain Ideals And Can Create Institutions Through Which They Can Be The Better Observed, But Their Source By Their Very Nature Is In The People. The People Have To Bear Their Own Responsibilities. There Is No Method By Which That Burden Can Be Shifted To The Government. It Is Not The Enactment, But The Observance Of Laws, That Creates The Character Of A Nation.

If The Government Gets Into Business On Any Large Scale, We Soon Find That The Beneficiaries Attempt To Play A Large Part In The Control. While In Theory It Is To Serve The Public, In Practice It Will Be Very Largely Serving Private Interests. It Comes To Be Regarded As A Species Of Government Favor And Those Who Are The Most Adroit Get The Larger Part Of It.

You Know, I Have Found In The Course Of A Long Public Life That The Things I Did Not Say Never Hurt Me.