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Chief Executive
01-10-2006, 03:02 PM
From Martin Van Buren's First Inaugural Address March 4, 1837:

Though not altogether exempt from embarrassments that disturb our tranquillity at home and threaten it abroad, yet in all the attributes of a great, happy, and flourishing people we stand without a parallel in the world. Abroad we enjoy the respect and, with scarcely an exception, the friendship of every nation; at home, while our Government quietly but efficiently performs the sole legitimate end of political institutions—in doing the greatest good to the greatest number—we present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere to be found.

From William Henry Harrison's First Inaugural Address March 4, 1841:

When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master.

007
01-10-2006, 03:29 PM
From Martin Van Buren's First Inaugural Address March 4, 1837:

Abroad we enjoy the respect and, with scarcely an exception, the friendship of every nation; at home, while our Government quietly but efficiently performs the sole legitimate end of political institutions—in doing the greatest good to the greatest number—we present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere to be found.

My how things have changed.

I'm not sure how great of a President Van Buren was, but he sure laid it down in this quote. Too bad we couldn't uphold the ideals presented in 1837.

Ah, the good old days...

JVO
01-10-2006, 04:52 PM
007: I thought the exact same thing. I guess it was a simpler, gentler time back then. If only America was as isolated now as it was back then.

I think W. H. Harrison was the Pres who died because he gave a 3 hour Inaugural address in the freezing cold. I guess Darwin took care of him.