"Independence is exceedingly exacting, self-control is arduous, self-government is difficult... This is the reason that to certain of our native-born, and more often to our foreign-born, the American Republic proves a disappointment. They thought that self-government meant the absence of all restraint, that independence meant living without work, and that freedom was the privilege of doing what they wanted to do. It has been a hard lesson for them to learn that self-government is still government, that the rule of the people does not mean absence of authority, that independence means self-support, and that complete freedom means complete obedience to law... They are disappointed more than ever when they learn, as they ever do, that these are so, not because they have been decreed by some body of men, but that they are so by the very nature of things, and all the governments in the world are powerless to change them."

—Calvin Coolidge, "Speech before the Evanston Sunday Afternoon Club,” 1923.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 01:14 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.