Skip to content

I never use the word "nation" in speaking of the United States. I always use the word "Union" or "Confederacy." We are not a nation but a union, a confederacy of equal and sovereign States.

— John C. Calhoun

Another quote →

Topics

Society

More quotes by John C. Calhoun

In looking back, I see nothing to regret, and little to correct.

It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.

The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.

All this combined contributed greatly to strengthen the bonds of the Union.

On the Subject of Slavery (1850)

Protection and patriotism are reciprocal.

All John C. Calhoun quotes →

You may also like

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

One country, one constitution, one destiny.

Daniel Webster

Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John C. Calhoun (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.