Top 159 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Jackson

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.

I've got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.

If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.

Fear not, the people may be deluded for a moment, but cannot be corrupted.

Disunion by force is treason.

Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.

War is a blessing compared with national degradation.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Americans are not a perfect people, but we are called to a perfect mission.

I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

Nullification means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down.

To the victors belong the spoils.

The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key... and bolt the door at once.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Democracy shows not only its power in reforming governments, but in regenerating a race of men and this is the greatest blessing of free governments.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

I cannot consent that my mortal body shall be laid in a repository prepared for an Emperor or a King my republican feelings and principles forbid it the simplicity of our system of government forbids it.

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.

Elevate those guns a little lower.

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that... the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.

I have always been afraid of banks.

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

I am a Senator against my wishes and feelings, which I regret more than any other of my life.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

Mr. Van Buren, your friends may be leaving you but my friends never leave me.

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.

I would sincerely regret, and which never shall happen whilst I am in office, a military guard around the President.

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

After eight years as President I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.

I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country.

The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it.

Every man is equally entitled to protection by law. But when the laws undertake to add... artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges—to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful— the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers, who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.

John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body.

But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.

When you get in debt you become a slave.

From the earliest ages of history to the present day there never have been thirteen millions of people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad... It is from within, among yourselves - from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power.

When the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.

[The Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests.