Josiah Strong Quotes

Americans invented not simply a new form of government but an entirely new concept of politics.

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.

Nobody expects democracy to be efficient--individual freedom was the primary purpose of our founders - but it should function at least a little

Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of government except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that liberty of thought and action for which they were established.

The federal constitution is perhaps the greatest of human experiments.

... the grand depository of the democratic principles of the Government ...

As for us BRITONS, thank Heaven, we have a better Sense of Government deliver’d to us from our Ancestors. We have the Notion of A PUBLIC and A CONSTITUTION; how a Legislative, and how an Executive is model’d.

Democracy is the superior form of government, because it is based on a respect for man as a reasonable being.

A democracy is a compromise by its nature. It's not a dictatorship.

I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory.

The Founding Fathers gladly sacrificed government that could provide speedy, effective, cohesive, and internally consistent policies. They opted for one that had a maximum number of veto points and checks and balances and protections against tyranny by particular officials or tyranny by selfish majorities.

The genius of American government consists of the creative tension between conservatives on the one hand and liberals on the other hand..

We need a strong state but we need a democratic one.

All free governments are party governments.

Institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both.

The existence of parties is not necessary to a free government.

How necessary for modern liberty a national representative government is—a representative system comprehending the whole state

A confederated republic joins the happiest kind of Government with the most certain security to liberty.

A republic is little better than a government of devils