“If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

1820s, Letter to A. Coray (1823)
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson
Context: The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government. Modern times have the signal advantage, too, of having discovered the only device by which these rights can be secured, to wit: government by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives chosen by themselves, that is to say; by every man of ripe years and sane mind, who either contributes by his purse or person to the support of his country.

Letter to Harold J. Laski (4 March 1920); reported in Holmes-Laski Letters (1953) by Mark DeWolfe Howe, vol. 1, p. 249.
1920s

A declaration reportedly made April 15, 1865, to calm a mob on Wall Street in New York after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, according to a reminiscence of "a distinguished gentleman who was present," published in the Cincinnati Gazette in 1880 and circulated during Garfield's presidential campaign, as recorded in The Republican Manual : History, Principles, Early Leaders, Achievements of the Republican Party with Biographical Sketches of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur http://books.google.com/books?id=enw_AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA241 (1880) Eugene Virgil Smiley, p. 241; after Garfield's assassination, the anecdote was widely reprinted. However, contemporary accounts give a completely different speech by Garfield and no mention of Garfield calming a mob. See The National Calamity in The New York Times (16 April 1865) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9806EFD91F30EE34BC4E52DFB266838E679FDE and Garfield : A Biography (1978) by Allan Peskin, p. 250 http://books.google.com/books?id=SRmY164czTQC&pg=PA250. Reported as a misattribution in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 32
Disputed
Context: Fellow-citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow-citizens! God reigns and the Government at Washington still lives!

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 29 (p. 371)

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)

Jason Beattie, Jon Hibbs, "Triumphant Mandelson hails new Labour victory", Scotsman, 8 June 2001, p. 5.
Acceptance speech after re-election as MP for Hartlepool in the 2001 General Election.

Source: No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, 2010, Chapter 8, pg. 196

Farewell Address (2003)