Quotes About Politics

It was testimony to the political genius of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that they diverted attention from the grisly realities of southern slavery by casting a lurid spotlight on Hamilton's system as the paramount embodiment of evil. They inveighed against the concentrated wealth of northern merchants when southern slave plantations clearly represented the most heinous form of concentrated wealth.

In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of; I think I have arguments that will easily convert her to mine.

If Madison in the 1780s was a philosopher king, Madison in the 1790s was a formidable practicing politician, and so skillful at cutting deals that he was dubbed the big knife.

From the First Philippic of Demosthenes, he plucked a passage that summed up his conception of a leader as someone who would not pander to popular whims. "As a general marches at the head of his troops," so should wise politicians "march at the head of affairs, insomuch that they ought not to wait the event to know what measures to take, but the measures which they have taken ought to produce the event.

George Clinton, his future political nemesis.

This left French politicians in the dark during critical moments in the bargaining.

Rawlins let loose a stemwinder of a speech that lasted forty-five minutes. His voice throbbing with emotion, he thundered, "I have been a Democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics. It is simply country or no country. I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise is passed.

Mocking Hancock as an inexperienced political lightweight, Republicans printed up a pamphlet entitled "Hancock's Political Achievements," a work that contained nothing but blank pages.

Hamilton said, he would follow the classic path of a populist demagogue: "I would mount the hobbyhorse of popularity, I would cry out usurpation, danger

Many southerners feared that the New Englanders were a rash, obstinate people, prone to extremism, and worried that an army led by a New England general might someday turn despotic and conquer the South. The appointment of George Washington would soothe such fears and form a perfect political compromise between North and South.

Hamilton did not think Burr would be a harmless, lackadaisical president. "He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing," Hamilton told Gouverneur Morris. From his legal practice, Hamilton knew that Burr had exorbitant debts and might be susceptible to bribes from foreign governments. He briefed Federalists about the scandals involving Burr and the Holland Company and the gross trickery behind the Manhattan Company.

Lincoln's political grammar always gravitated to the future tense.

All the romance of feeling that men in high places are above personal considerations and act only from motives of pure patriotism, and for the general good of the public has been destroyed. An inside view proves too truly very much the reverse. —ULYSSES S. GRANT to WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, September 18, 1867

I BELIEVE THIS GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENDURE, PERMANENTLY HALF SLAVE AND HALF FREE. I DO NOT EXPECT THE UNION TO BE DISSOLVED—I DO NOT EXPECT THE HOUSE TO FALL—BUT I DO EXPECT IT WILL CEASE TO BE DIVIDED. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Speech at the Republican convention, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858

Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.

Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.

Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

Please tell me you're Republicans.