Jeremiah S. Black: How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened? The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men [and women]. Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven. If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.
Jeremiah S. Black, 'The Third Term: Reasons Against It,' Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black, ed. Chauncey F. Black, p. 383 (1886). First published in The North American Review, March 1880.
President Abraham Lincoln: At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
President Abraham Lincoln, address before the Young Men's Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P Basler, vol. 1, p. 109 (1953).
General George Washington: I have beheld no day since the commencement of hostilities that I have thought her liberties in such eminent danger as at present. Friends and foes seem now to combine to pull down the goodly fabric as we have hitherto been raising at the expence of so much time, blood, and treasure; and unless the bodies politick will exert themselves to bring things back to first principles, correct abuses, and punish our internal foes [Left AND Right by resounding electoral defeat], inevitable ruin must follow.--------------/
General George Washington, letter to George Mason, March 27, 1779.—The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 14, p. 300 (1936).
All three quotes from World Book Encyclopedia "American Reference Library" DVD
