Fisher Ames Quotes

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable - even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country.

I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace, and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States.

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

My politics are of a practical kind - the integrity of the country, the supremacy of the Federal government, an honorable peace, or none at all.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests.

We have nothing in our history or position to invite aggression; we have everything to beckon us to the cultivation of relations of peace and amity with all nations.

Peace and commerce with foreign nations could be more effectually and cheaply cultivated by a common agent; therefore they gave the Federal Government the sole management of our relations with foreign governments.

It is only natural that for any statesman at the helm of any government the question of his country's security should be a concern of the utmost importance.

The White House isn't the place to learn how to deal with international crisis, the balance of power, war and peace, and the economic future of the next generation.

So with the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly obvious that there was no basis upon which any decision was being made, not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.

War is just one more big government program.

If the president is failing to disclose material facts with regard to legislation being presented to the Congress on a question as important as war and peace, I think it does impair the level of trust that the House and the Senate have for this administration.

There's nothing wrong with being a Conservative and coming up with a Conservative believe in foreign policy where we have a strong national defense and we don't go to war so carelessly.

Moreover, if the territorial state is to continue as the last word in the development of society, then war is inevitable.

A government without the power of defense! It is a solecism.

From 1836, down to last year, there is no proof of the Government having any confidence in the duration of peace, or possessing increased security against war.

Time after time … when policy makers confronted a conflict between foreign policy and domestic interests, the diplomatic imperative prevailed.

Woe to the statesman whose reason for entering a war do not appear so plausible at its end as at its beginning.

Restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part …. How desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.

However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.

Whenever there is talk of peace, there is anger in the military- industrial- political complex.