← Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

Rufus Choate. 1799-1859

There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop;[588:3] there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.

Speech before the New England Society, Dec. 22, 1843.

We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union.

Letter to the Whig Convention, 1855.

Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities[589:1] of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

Letter to the Maine Whig Committee, 1856.