September 4, 1846
“Let us learn from the past. If we look back over the wreck of former republics, we shall find scarce one that did not fall a victim of its own war spirit. Did not the soldiers of our own Washington urge him on one occasion to assume the sceptre? Look at the republics South of us. Well did a distinquished officer in our last war say, ‘We have escaped from one war with a crippled constitution, and the next will probably destroy it’. Still more distinctly did Madison forewarn us: ‘Of all the enemies of liberty, war is the most to be dreaded. It is the parent of armies; and debts, and taxes which are well known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of a continued warfare.'”
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