“I firmly came out in favor of the independence of nations and sovereignty for the republics. At the same time, I support the preservation of the union state and the integrity of this country. The developments took a different course. The policy prevailed of dismembering this country and disuniting the state, which is something I cannot subscribe to.”

— Mikhail Gorbachev

1990s, Resignation Address (1991)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Mikhail Gorbachev 65

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1931

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“If we strive only for national reconstruction but neglect to struggle for sovereignty and territorial integrity, national independence will certainly not be recognized and our country will be reduced to an autonomous state.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Source: The August Revolution (1946) (excerpts), p.68

“Well, I have been a strong supporter of ending discrimination, and particularly focusing on hate crimes and workplace bias and the like. And in our country, the issue of same-sex marriage, which is a -- is a matter left to each state, each state sets the rules -- is proceeding on a state-by-state basis. I think that is the best way for it to proceed. I have not supported same-sex marriage. I have supported civil partnerships and contractual relationships”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Speech and Townterview with Australian Broadcasting Company http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/11/150516.htm (7 November 2010)
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“There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty, even that we shall begin to lose our national identity. These fears, I need hardly say, are completely unjustified and exaggerated. We shall, of course, be accepting the common procedures of Community life, just as we accept those of other organizations which we have joined. But within the framework of a developing Community the identity of national states will be maintained.”

Edward Heath (1916–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–1974)

Speech in Wilton Park, Sussex (21 June 1971), quoted in The Times (22 June 1971), p. 5
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“To make the whole Korean peninsula nuclear-free was the behest of the great President Kim Il-sung, and it is the consistent stand of the government of our Republic. The nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula arose as a result of the United States constantly threatening the sovereignty and security of our people. Sovereignty is the lifeline of a country and nation. We have possessed nuclear deterrent to protect our sovereignty from the blatant nuclear threat of the United States and its increasingly hostile policy.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Response to questions from Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency (13 October 2011) http://naenara.com.kp/en/news/news_view.php?22+1477

“This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertaining to a State — to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States;" but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

“It is totally unnecessary for the gentleman to remind me of my coming from a slaveholding state. I know whence I came, and I know my duty, and I am ready to submit to any responsibility which belongs to me as a senator from a slaveholding state. I have heard something said on this and a former occasion about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance. I owe allegiance to two sovereignty, and only two: one is the sovereignty of this Union, and the other is the sovereignty of the state of Kentucky. My allegiance is to this Union and to my state; but if gentlemen suppose they can exact from me an acknowledgement of allegiance to any ideal or future contemplated confederacy of the South, I here declare that I owe no allegiance to it; nor will I, for one, come under any such allegiance if I can avoid it.”

Henry Clay (1777–1852) American politician from Kentucky

Speech in the Senate, February 14, 1850, in response to a speech by Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi, who had "lectured" Clay on the allegiance which he owed to the South as a senator from a Southern state. From The Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay (Vol. 3); ed. Calvin Colton: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1857.

“We are partners in this country, and partners in the development process of the state. Christmas is observed as a national holiday.”

Bisher Al-Khasawneh (1969) Prime Minister of Jordan

Source: Bisher Al-Khasawneh (2021) cited in: " PM greets Christians on Christmas https://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/pm-greets-christians-christmas" in The Jordan Times, 26 December 2021.

“This new-democratic republic will be different from the old European-American form of capitalist republic under bourgeois dictatorship, which is the old democratic form and already out of date. On the other hand, it will also be different from the socialist republic of the Soviet type under the dictatorship of the proletariat which is already flourishing in the U. S. S. R., and which, moreover, will be established in all the capitalist countries and will undoubtedly become the dominant form of state and governmental structure in all the industrially advanced countries. However, for a certain historical period, this form is not suitable for the revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. During this period, therefore, a third form of state must be adopted in the revolutions of all colonial and semi-colonial countries, namely, the new-democratic republic. This form suits a certain historical period and is therefore transitional; nevertheless, it is a form which is necessary and cannot be dispensed with.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On New Democracy (1940)
Original: (zh-CN) 这种新民主主义共和国，一方面和旧形式的、欧美式的、资产阶级专政的、资本主义的共和国相区别，那是旧民主主义的共和国，那种共和国已经过时了；另一方面，也和苏联式的、无产阶级专政的、社会主义的共和国相区别，那种社会主义的共和国已经在苏联兴盛起来，并且还要在各资本主义国家建立起来，无疑将成为一切工业先进国家的国家构成和政权构成的统治形式；但是那种共和国，在一定的历史时期中，还不适用于殖民地半殖民地国家的革命。因此，一切殖民地半殖民地国家的革命，在一定历史时期中所采取的国家形式，只能是第三种形式，这就是所谓新民主主义共和国。这是一定历史时期的形式，因而是过渡的形式，但是不可移易的必要的形式。

“The prevailing trend – from the Atlantic sea to the Ural mountains – seems to move towards a paramount blow up of nationalities. Such a trend – alive in the souls also under the centralized structures of strong multinational states – has been to weaken the Eastern socialistic countries. It appeared in the former Soviet Union, in the Yugoslav republics, and in Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Eastern regimes”

Nico Perrone (1935) Italian historian and writer

Source: Fjernt fra Maastricht, p. 11

“One of the fruitful sources, as I hold it, of the errors which prevail in our country, is the theory that this is a government of one people; that the government of the United States was formed by a mass; and therefore it is taken that all are responsible for the institutions and policies of each. The government of the United States is a compact between the sovereign members who formed it; and if there be one feature common to all the colonies planted upon the shores of America, it was the steady assertion of, and uncompromising desire for, community independence.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Senate speech (7 May 1860)
1860s

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Mikhail Gorbachev 65

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