Whigs Quotes

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them.... In every country these two parties exist.... Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same party still and pursue the same object.

I have always said, the first Whig [Liberal] was the Devil.

Wherever there are men, there will be parties; and wherever there are free men they will make themselves heard. Those of firm health and spirits are unwilling to cede more of their liberty than is necessary to preserve order; those of feeble constitutions will wish to see one strong arm able to protect them from the many. These are the Whigs and Tories of nature…

We should not care much whether those united were designated Whig, Free Soil Democrats or something else; though we think some simple name like Republican would more fitly designate those who had united to restore our Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.

The division of Whig and Tory... is the most salutary of all divisions and ought, therefore, to be fostered instead of being amalgamated; for take away this, and some more dangerous principle of division will take its place.

In truth, the parties of Whig [Liberal] and Tory [Conservative] are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles, and Liberals.

I have never found a Federalist over the age of 30 who has ever changed his mind about politics.

I have now the Treasurer’s head in a bag.

There are two great antagonistic principles at the root of all government, stability and experiment. The former is Tory, and the latter is Whig.

The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people and is a Tory [conservative] by nature. The healthy, strong and bold, cherishes them, and is formed a Whig [liberal] by nature.

The division into Whig and Tory is founded in the nature of men; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many…

A Whig [Liberal] may be a fool, a Tory [Conservative] must be so.

In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs sould be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue.

The Whigs have cast me off, and they shall repent it.

When the blood of our citizens, shed by a British soldiery, had stained our streets, and flowed upon the heights which surround us, and sunk into the earth upon the plains of Lexington and Concord, then when he, whose name can never be pronounced by American lips without the strongest emotion of gratitude and love to every American heart--when he, that slaveholder, who from this canvass smiles upon you, his children, with paternal benignity, came with other slaveholders to drive the British myrmidons from this city, and in this hall, our fathers did not refuse to hold communion with them. "With slaveholders they formed the Confederation, neither asking nor receiving any right to interfere in their domestic relations; with them they made the Declaration of Independence

There is nothing democratic about the Whig. He is essentially a cold and selfish aristocrat who believes that the British Empire was created by Providence and exists for no other purpose than to keep in power a few Whig families.

That we shall regard with deep regret the continuance of the excitement at the South, as far as it may be occasioned by the apprehension of danger from the exertions of a few misguided abolitionists in our community

The friends of the court and the advocates of lineal succession, are, by the republican party, branded with the title of tories, which was the name of certain Irish robbers: while the court party in return would find no other revenge that by appropriating to covenanters and the republicans of that class, the name of the Scotch beverage of sour milk, whose virtue they considered so expressive of their disposition and which is called Whig.

The struggle, begun this morning upon the hustings of your old town, is not a struggle between two men—it is a struggle between two countries. On the one side, the side of the Whig candidate, hangs the red banner beneath which your senate has been sacked, your commerce has been wrecked, your nobility has been dishonored, your peasants have been starved. On the other side … floats the green flag beneath which your senate sat, your commerce thrived, your nobility honored, your peasants prospered.

This evening (January 11th) our whole mess remained in the dining room after tea, and conversed upon the subject of Mr. Lincoln’s bill to abolish slavery. It was approved by all; I believe it as good bill as we could get at this time, and am willing to pay for slaves to save them from the southern market, as I suppose every man in the District would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was to be abolished.