The time is ripe for these nations to build an Atlantic Community. -- Atlantic Congress, Final Declaration, June 10, 1959.
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier ... a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils ... it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security ... Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice ... The times demand invention, innovation, imagination, decision. I am asking each of you to be pioneers on that new frontier. -- Senator John F. Kennedy accepting the Democratic nomination for President July 15, 1960.
We are ready to go ahead and explore new approaches. We are a society of individuals. Our institutions project outward from the people, not downward to the people. -- Vice President Richard M. Nixon in Life, August 29, 1960.
A period of crisis is always a period of opportunity. ... It may mark the beginning of a period of steady deterioration, ending, so far as human intelligence can foresee, in tragedy. Or it may be the beginning of better things. -- Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, of Great Britain, United Nations Assembly, September 29, 1960.
Something must be done. We cannot ... sit helplessly watching the world drift in a direction which can only end in catastrophe. -- Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, United Nations Assembly, October 3, 1960.
To my mind, Atlantic Union is an absolute and early necessity ... an excellent idea. And the sooner we move, the better it is. -- Dr. Edward Teller, "father of the H-Bomb," November 12, 1960.
Where once we could unite only in fear, I believe we can now unite in courage and hope to do more noble works than men have ever done before ... We can go beyond allaying fears to fulfilling dreams. -- Vice President-elect Lyndon B. Johnson at the NATO Parliamentarians Conference, Paris, November 22, 1960.
When was the American Revolution effected ... was the blood of thousands spilt, and the hard-earned substance of millions lavished, not that the people of America should enjoy peace, liberty and safety, but that the government of the individual States ... might enjoy a certain extent of power, and be arrayed with certain dignities and attributes of sovereignty? We have heard of the impious doctrine in the Old World, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the New in another shape -- that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to ... political institutions of a different form? ... As far as the sovereignty of the States cannot be reconciled to the happiness of the people, the voice of every good citizen must be, Let the former be sacrificed to the latter. -- James Madison, No. 45 of The Federalist, 1788.
If there is a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appreciated ... and where its dangers and advantages may be judged, that country is assuredly America * * * The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause and the aim of all things; everything comes from them and everything is absorbed in them. -- Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 1, chapter IV 1835 (my translation)
We must appeal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be the majority after a while, and the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the less radical from being the result of pacific measures. The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. -- Abraham Lincoln in his "Lost Speech," May 19, 1856.
Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1
