John Quincy Adams - Nation Quotes

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If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled.

John Quincy Adams
Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

John Quincy Adams
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes... of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.

John Quincy Adams
The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.

John Quincy Adams
Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.

John Quincy Adams
Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of a nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?

John Quincy Adams
And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.

John Quincy Adams
Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour?

John Quincy Adams
And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of order, the Fountain of justice, and the Protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government, and give it all possible success and duration, consistent with the ends of His providence.

John Quincy Adams
The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

John Quincy Adams
Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.

John Quincy Adams