“Carry out the republican principle of universal suffrage, or strike it from your banners and substitute ‘Freedom and Power to one half of society, and Submission and Slavery to the other.’”
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Category: Thought
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Patrick Henry
“Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
“What is our policy? I will say; ‘It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.’ You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: ‘Victory — victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.’”
“The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.”
“Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? Forbid it, Almighty God!”
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”