C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Union—Unity
The force of union conquers all.
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart!
One country, one constitution, one destiny.
We are one people and will act as one.
Union gives strength to the humble.
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
Nothing is fair or good alone.
Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.
God plans all perfect combinations.
Unite; for combination is stronger than witchcraft.
The union of the states is indissoluble; the country is undivided and indivisible forever.
The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion.
Our national constitution shall prevail; the Union, which can alone insure internal peace and external security to each state, “must and shall be preserved,” cost what it may in time, treasure, and blood.
Men’s hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against the evil thing only.
By union the smallest states thrive, by discord the greatest are destroyed.
We must all hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
The constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible union composed of indestructible states.
When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
There is no more sure tie between friends than when they are united in their objects and wishes.
All the arts which belong to polished life have some common tie, and are connected as it were by some relationship.
Union does everything when it is perfect; it satisfies desires, it simplifies needs, it foresees the wishes of the imagination; it is an aisle always open, and becomes a constant fortune.
I do not want the walls of separation between different orders of Christians to be destroyed, but only lowered, that we may shake hands a little easier over them.
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.
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.
The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the union of the states be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into paradise.
This glorious union shall not perish! Precious legacy of our fathers, it shall go down honored and cherished to our children. Generations unborn shall enjoy its privileges as we have done; and if we leave them poor in all besides, we will transmit to them the boundless wealth of its blessings!
If this bill (for the admission of Orleans Territory as a state) passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the union; that it will free the states from their moral obligation, and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation—amicably if they can, violently if they must.
I know that there is one God in heaven, the Father of all humanity, and heaven is therefore one. I know that there is one sun in the sky, which gives light to all the world. As there is unity in God, and unity in the light, so is there unity in the principles of freedom. Wherever it is broken, wherever a shadow is cast upon the sunny rays of the sun of liberty, there is always danger of free principles everywhere in the world.
It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of its disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh fruits of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.