"It is difficult to find a reputable American historian who will acknowledge the crude fact that a Franklin Roosevelt, say, wanted to be President merely to wield power, to be famed and to be feared. To learn this simple fact one must wade through a sea of evasions: history as sociology, leaders as teachers, bland benevolence as a motive force, when, finally, power is an end to itself, and the instinctive urge to prevail the most important single human trait, the necessary force without which no city was built, no city destroyed."
—Gore Vidal
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"I think that a young state, like a young virgin, should modestly stay at home, and wait the application of suitors for an alliance with her; and not run about offering her amity to all the world; and hazarding their refusal . . . Our virgin is a jolly one; and tho at present not very rich, will in time be a great fortune, and where she has a favorable disposition, it seems to me well worth cultivating."
—Benjamin Franklin, letter, September 22, 1778
"If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter, July 28, 1791
"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all . . . The Nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
—George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity . . . She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart . . . Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy . . . She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit . . ."
—John Quincy Adams, 1821
"I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being."
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, October 24, 1823
"We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we . . . shall not interfere. But with the governments . . . whose indpendence we have . . . acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any manner, their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."
—James Monroe, Annual Message to Congress, December 2, 1823
"Our Union is a confederation of independent States, whose policy is peace with each other and all the world. To enlarge its limits is to extend the dominions of peace over additional territories and increasing millions. The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government. While the Chief Magistrate and the popular branch of Congress are elected for short terms by the suffrages of those millions who must in their own persons bear all the burdens and miseries of war, our Government can not be otherwise than pacific. Foreign powers should therefore look on the annexation of Texas to the United States not as the conquest of a nation seeking to extend her dominions by arms and violence, but as the peaceful acquisition of a territory once her own, by adding another member to our confederation, with the consent of that member, thereby diminishing the chances of war and opening to them new and ever-increasing markets for their products."
—James K. Polk, inaugural address, March 4, 1845
"After reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American Soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are at war."
—James K. Polk, speech, May 11, 1846
"The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity."
—Grover Cleveland, Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1896
"The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation."
—William McKinley, letter, December 21, 1898
"When great nations fear to expand, shrink from expansion, it is because their greatness is coming to an end. Are we, still in the prime of our lusty youth, still at the beginning of our glorious manhood, to sit down among the outworn people, to take our place with the weak and the craven? A thousand times no!"
—Theodore Roosevelt, speech, September, 1899
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
—Theodore Roosevelt, speech, September 2, 1901
"In the Western hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
—Theodore Roosevelt, Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1904
"America's neutrality is ineffectual . . . at best . . . The world must be made safe for democracy."
—Woodrow Wilson, Address to Congress, April 2, 1917
"In the field of world policy, I would dedicate the nation to the policy of the good neighbor."
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
"You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, press conference, April 7, 1954
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961
"Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place."
—John F. Kennedy, June 1961
"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
—Lyndon B. Johnson, speech, Akron University, October 21, 1964
"If when the chips are down, the world's most powerful nation . . . acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."
—Richard Nixon, speech, April 30, 1970
"Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. These events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world."
—Gerald Ford, April 1975
"Because we are free we can never be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere. Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights. We do not seek to intimidate, but it is clear that a world which others can dominate with impunity would be inhospitable to decency and a threat to the well-being of all people."
—Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1977
"We have no desire to be the world's policeman. But America does want to be the world's peacemaker."
—Jimmy Carter, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1979
"Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root."
—Ronald Reagan, speech, June 8, 1982
"They are our brothers, these freedom fighters . . . They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong."
—Ronald Reagan, on the Nicaraguan Contras, March 1, 1985
"Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait."
—George H.W. Bush, quoted in the Times, London, January 16, 1991
"We can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order."
—George H.W. Bush, quoted in The New York Times, March 7, 1991
"This is a new kind of—a new kind of evil. And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."
—George W. Bush, speech, September 16, 2001
Samer R. Frangieh - 2007-10-12 06:11:34
It is oweful for how principles and moral values degraded through out the American Presidents.
It is amazing how great leader's memory prevail through centuries with their great words and wisdoms and how petty oil centered leader's are forgotten even though they are still ruling.
When we are walking in the vally of death we shall fear no evil. Take heed, it will come to us disgised and in names we all love and live, in names as democracy, freedom, equity and justice; but fall not into them; rather pray for them...
Hey empire, restrain your madness and go back to sanity.. go back to your Republic CORE..
KesheR - 2008-06-06 07:21:41
Empire... no doubt about it. And a declining one.