Frank Church Quotes

The more I think about the President’s declaration as to the right of ‘self-determination’, the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races. It is bound to be the basis of impossible demands on the Peace Conference and create trouble in many lands. What effect will it have on the Irish, the Indians, the Egyptians, and the nationalists among the Boers? Will it not breed discontent, disorder and rebellion? Will not the Mohammedans of Syria and Palestine and possibly Morocco and Tripoli rely on it?

If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them.

There is a wind of nationalism and freedom blowing round the world.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

It was the example of the United States that toppled most of the kingdoms and empires of the world. We did this by asserting the greatness of the human spirit.

The American revolution was a struggle for home rule but also for who should rule at home.

The American War must immediately appear to you a subject of historical curiosity. By the event of that war, an independent empire has arisen, boundless in extent, and removed from the reach of the arms---secure at least from the invasions of Europe; beginning its career with such ad-vantages as our communities in the old world never possessed; beginning almost from the point to which they have but arrived in the progress of nearly two thousand years.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

Even if we did achieve what we wanted with a very small state, we'd just be resetting the clock back to 1776, and it would roll forward exactly the same way again.

Empire and liberty.

My grand affair appears settled, for America is certain of her independence, humanity has gained her cause, and liberty will never be without a place of refuge.

America is the friend of all the liberties of the world. She is the guardian only of her own.

The blood of the Carrera cries for vengeance. Vengeance, fellow countrymen! Hatred eternal for the despots of South America... Chile is to be a mere colony of Buenos Aires, as she once was a colony of Spain... From the Argentine they send governors for your provinces, magistrates for your towns, generals and armies for you frontiers

If Brazil should decide on separation, let it be under your leadership, since you are bound to respect me, rather than under one of these adventurers.

Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. … It is not the wish of our government to impose upon you alien institutions.

To quell all nations - to dethrone all Kings, and plant the Tree of Liberty in our Irish land.

[American colonists] had no common national tradition except that against which they were revolting.

The wounds of my country will heal after the troubles of anarchy and bloody revolution. The peaceful Canadian will see happiness and liberty on the St. Lawrence. Everything converges towards that end, even the executions; the blood and tears spilled on the altar of liberty today of watering the roots of the tree on which will fly the flag marked with the two stars of the Canadas.

We’ve got to break away completely from the British, their King, their parliament, their government, their empire. And we will.

Rome shall not rule America.

Let's face it: without the French there would be no America...in other words, without them, there is no us.

Be it for the defense, or be it for the assertion of a nation’s liberty, I look upon the sword as a sacred weapon …. Abhor and stigmatize the sword? No, no, my lord, for at its blow a giant nation sprang from the waters of the Atlantic and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the fettered Colony became a daring free Republic—prosperous, limitless and invincible.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Union or death!

Unmanacle the slave… unsceptre the despot… erect an altar on the Inquisition’s grace, to raise a people to the altitude of freedom.