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Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.

Andrew Johnson

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Andrew Johnson
Age: 66 †
Born: 1808
Born: December 29
Died: 1875
Died: July 31
17Th U.S. President
Military Officer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Tailor
Raleigh
North Carolina
A. Johnson
President Johnson
Principles
Function
Functions
Liberty
Constitution
Broads
Within
Limits
Broad
Political
Authority
Legal
Government
Subjects
Instrument
Giving
Citizens
Principle
Much
Outside
Instruments
Gives
Private
Applies

More quotes by Andrew Johnson

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The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.
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Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.
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My right side is paralyzed. I need no doctor. I can overcome my own troubles.
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The homestead policy was established only after long and earnest resistance experience proves its wisdom. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude for future purchasers.
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Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'
Andrew Johnson
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When I die, I desire no better winding sheet than the Stars and Stripes, and no softer pillow than the Constitution of my country.
Andrew Johnson
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Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.
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I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.
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Let them impeach and be damned.
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The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.
Andrew Johnson
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Notwithstanding a mendacious press notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him.
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For myself, I care not whether treason be committed North or South he that is guilty of treason is entitled to a traitor's fate!
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I tell our sisters in the South that so far as Tennessee is concerned she will not be dragged into a Southern or any other confederacy until she has had time to consider and then she will go when she believes it to be her interest, and not before.
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I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
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I have reached the summit of my ambition.
Andrew Johnson
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If you always support the correct principles then you will never get the wrong results!
Andrew Johnson
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It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders of the Republic.
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It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.
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I realized, there are people out there who can beat me, want to beat me. And unless I continue to innovate and evolve, I am going to learn a painful lesson from someone who has.
Andrew Johnson
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If I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
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