True consistency, that of the prudent and the wise, is to act in conformity with circumstances and not to act always the same way under a change of circumstances. – John C. Calhoun
I am not one of those who believe that we are bound to vote supplies to cover a deficiency in the treasury whenever called on, without investigating the causes which occasioned it. – John C. Calhoun
I will not undertake to offer an opinion on the capacity of Hindustan to produce cotton. The region is large, and the soil and climate various, the population great and wages low; but I must be permitted to doubt the success of the experiment of driving us out of the market, though backed and patronized by English capital and energy. – John C. Calhoun
Our government is deeply disordered; its credit is impaired; its debt increasing; its expenditures extravagant and wasteful; its disbursements without efficient accountability; and its taxes (for duties are but taxes) enormous, unequal, and oppressive to the great producing classes of the country. – John C. Calhoun
What we want, above all things on earth in our public men, is independence. It is one great defect in the character of the public men of America that there is that real want of independence; and, in this respect, a most marked contrast exists between public men in this country and in Great Britain. – John C. Calhoun
War may make us great, but let it never be forgotten that peace only can make us both great and free. – John C. Calhoun
Remember, it is a deep principle of our nature not to regard the safety of those who do not regard their own. If you are indifferent to your own safety, you must not be surprised if those less interested should become more so. – John C. Calhoun
I am a planter – a cotton planter. I am a Southern man and a slaveholder – a kind and a merciful one, I trust – and none the worse for being a slaveholder. – John C. Calhoun
The strong should always permit the weak and aggrieved to talk, to bluster, and scold without taking offence; and if we had so acted, and exercised proper skill in the management of our affairs, Mexico and ourselves would, by this time, have quietly and peaceably settled all difficulties and been good friends. – John C. Calhoun
We ought not to forget that the government, through all its departments, judicial as well as others, is administered by delegated and responsible agents; and that the power which really controls, ultimately, all the movements, is not in the agents, but those who elect or appoint them. – John C. Calhoun
Every dollar of tax imposed on our exchanges in the shape of duties impairs, to that extent, our capacity to meet the severe competition to which we are exposed; and nothing but a system of high protective duties, long continued, can prevent us from meeting it successfully. It is that which we have to fear. – John C. Calhoun
When we contend, let us contend for all our rights – the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valour and the fortune of war will permit. – John C. Calhoun
I want no presidency; I want to do my duty. No denunciations here, or out of this House, can deflect me a single inch from going directly at what I aim, and that is, the good of the country. I have always acted upon it, and I will always act upon it. – John C. Calhoun
Where wages command labor, as in the non-slaveholding States, there necessarily takes place between labor and capital a conflict, which leads, in process of time, to disorder, anarchy, and revolution if not counteracted by some appropriate and strong constitutional provision. Such is not the case in the slaveholding States. – John C. Calhoun
A compromise is but an act of Congress. It may be overruled at any time. It gives us no security. But the Constitution is stable. It is a rock. – John C. Calhoun
It is a universal and fundamental political principle that the power to protect can safely be confided only to those interested in protecting, or their responsible agents – a maxim not less true in private than in public affairs. – John C. Calhoun
The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority. – John C. Calhoun