“There is not upon the face of the earth today a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the United States of America. There are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal.”

— Voltairine de Cleyre

Anarchism & American Traditions (1908)

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Voltairine de Cleyre 78

American anarchist writer and feminist 1866–1912

John Marks Templeton (1912–2008) stock investor, businessman and philanthropist

The Quotable Sir John

“There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Column published in Guns and Ammo (1 September 1975)
1970s

“There are more whooping cranes in the United States of America than there are women in Congress.”

Joanna Russ (1937–2011) American author

Part 4, Chapter 8 (p. 61)
Fiction, The Female Man (1975)

“The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.”
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.

Tacitus book Annals

Book III, 27
Variant translations:
The more corrupt the state, the more laws.
And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.
Annals (117)

“I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other: citizen of the United States of America”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)
Context: It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your President. There have been good days and tough days. But every day I have been inspired by the greatness of our country and uplifted by the goodness of our people. I have been blessed to represent this Nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other: citizen of the United States of America, and so, my fellow Americans, for the final time: Good night. May God bless this house and our next President. And may God bless you and our wonderful country.

“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

A Generational Challenge to Repower America http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/a-generational-challenge_b_113359.html speech, July 17, 2008.

“Defeat would blot the Confederate States of America from the face of the earth. Confederate victory would destroy the United States and create a precedent for further balkanization of the territory once governed under the Constitution of 1789.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

James M. McPherson. "No Peace without Victory, 1861–1865" https://web.archive.org/web/20050404133343/http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/JMMcPherson.htm (2003), American Historical Association
2000s

“We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 29 The Unprotected
Context: We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances.
The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something, — has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. The only possible acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a human and immortal creature, which are given to him, comes to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing remains.
The number of those men who know how to use wholly irresponsible power humanely and generously is small. Everybody knows this, and the slave knows it best of all; so that he feels that there are ten chances of his finding an abusive and tyrannical master, to one of his finding a considerate and kind one. Therefore is it that the wail over a kind master is loud and long, as well it may be.

“No rising star in the political firmament ever shone more brightly than Oswald Mosley, none promised more surely to soar to the heavens – and none fell to earth with so deadening a thud. Never were such rich talents so wretchedly squandered. Never did success turn to failure so inscrutably.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Michael Foot, Mosley: the rise and fall of a would-be Caesar, Evening Standard, 22 October 1968.

“In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.”

Spiro Agnew (1918–1996) 39th Vice President of the United States

Speech in San Diego (11 September 1970).
Agnew's signature quip against everything perceived to be liberal, particularly the media at that time.

“There is not upon the face of the earth today a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the United States of America. There are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal.”

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Voltairine de Cleyre 78

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