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Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster Quotes

Former United States Senator

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Famous Daniel Webster Quotes

“I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy.”

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Author:Daniel Webster
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“Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will' undertake its safety, and nothing can save it, if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.”

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Book:Speech ... on moving for leave to introduce a bill to continue the bank of the United States for six years delivered in the Senate ... March 18, 1834
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“I believe that the Bible is to be understood and received in the plain and obvious meaning of its passages; for I cannot persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in any such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers can discover it.”

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Book:The papers of Daniel Webster: Correspondence
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“Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own.”

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Book:Speeches on various occasions
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“The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government.”

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Book:Webster and Hayne's speeches in the United States Senate, on Mr. Foot's resolution of January 1830: Also, Daniel Webster's speech, in the United States Senate, March 7, 1850, on the slavery compromise
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“Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.”

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Book:A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820. In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England. ...
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“No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?”

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Book:Dinner to the Hon. D. W. ... by the merchants, and other citizens of Philadelphia, December 2, 1846, with Mr. W.'s speech
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“We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.”

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Book:Speeches in Congress
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“Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light.”

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Book:The Union Text Book: Containing Selections from the Writings of Daniel Webster, The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washington's Farewell Address
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“Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.”

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Book:The Great Orations and Senatorial Speech of Daniel Webster
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“Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.”

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Book:Speeches and Forensic Arguments
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“There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

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Author:Daniel Webster
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“The hand that destroys the Constitution rends our Union asunder forever.”

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Book:The Union Text Book: Containing Selections from the Writings of Daniel Webster, The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washington's Farewell Address
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“Let our object be - our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument - not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.”

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Book:An Address Delivered at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843
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“Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights.”

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Book:The beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: selected and arranged, with a critical essay on his genius and writings
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“IF WE AND OUR POSTERITY SHALL BE TRUE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, IF WE AND THEY SHALL LIVE ALWAYS IN THE FEAR OF GOD AND SHALL RESPECT HIS COMMANDMENTS, IF WE AND THEY SHALL MAINTAIN JUST MORAL SENTIMENTS AND SUCH CONSCIENTIOUS CONVICTIONS OF DUTY AS SHALL CONTROL THE HEART AND LIFE, WE MAY HAVE THE HIGHEST HOPES OF THE FUTURE FORTUNES OF OUR COUNTRY. OUR COUNTRY WILL GO ON PROSPERING.”

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Book:Daniel Webster: The Completest Man
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“One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations - the relations between the creature and his Creator.”

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Book:THE WORKS OF DANIEL WEBSTER; VOLUME II
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“We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and the parting day linger and play on its summit!”

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Book:An Address Delivered at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843
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“On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they [the Colonies] raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared,-a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.”

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Author:Daniel Webster
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“..if the Northern states refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side.”

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Book:The Wanderer Case: The Speech of Hon. Henry R. Jackson of Savannah, Ga
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