The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen ... Embellished with Six Engravings

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Joseph Allen, and sold by Grigg & Elliot, 1840 - Presidents - 244 pages
 

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Page 168 - Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.
Page 172 - Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from. external annoyance; when we may take such an" attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may...
Page 161 - But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest — here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole. The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter, great additional resources of maritime and commercial...
Page 175 - ... the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence ; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. Relying on its kindness in this, as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations...
Page 162 - While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united mass of means and efforts, greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a...
Page 171 - ... of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.
Page 166 - Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you, in the most solemn manner, against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
Page 172 - The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible.
Page 164 - No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must, inevitably, experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced.
Page 169 - As a very important source of strength and security cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it...

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