John C. Calhoun - Government Quotes

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The object of a Constitution is to restrain the Government, as that of laws is to restrain individuals.

John C. Calhoun
The error is in the assumption that the General Government is a party to the constitutional compact. The States... formed the compact, acting as sovereign and independent communities.

John C. Calhoun
Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.

John C. Calhoun
The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised.

John C. Calhoun
A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.

John C. Calhoun
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.

John C. Calhoun
It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation.

John C. Calhoun
Property is in its nature timid and seeks protection, and nothing is more gratifying to government than to become a protector.

John C. Calhoun
Government has no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of the government and the liberty of the citizen or subject in the political state.

John C. Calhoun