Quotes from Andrew Jackson

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

War is a blessing compared with national degradation.

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

Men do not get up and do mischief, without there is someone in the head of it.

Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well.

If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.

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

Although I could lament in the language and feelings of David for Absalom, I am constrained to say, peace to his manes. Let us weep for the living, and not for the dead.

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

You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.

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.

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

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.

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.

The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his government deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and a friend to her foe

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

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

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.

People are my religion/Because I believe in them.

Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the Federal Government, are of high importance.

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

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

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