peopleofconnecticutquotes

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The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, 1853

Mr. Dana said, that if it was intended that this resolution should be adopted with the peculiar view of liberating the soil of Connecticut from its crop of political heresy, he should be averse to having this favor forced upon them. I feel no particular obligation, said Mr. D., to the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Bacon) or any other, who wishes to reform the heresies of the people of Connecticut, with a view that they should be adopted into his political church. As to the prosecutions in that State, however, it might be well to inquire into them, and to put a stop to them; or, if we do not put a stop to them, to assure to the people the liberty of giving the truth in evidence. It would be well now, sir; but it would have been better while the prosecutions were pending, and before they were all defeated. Three years have elapsed since this subject was mentioned in the House by myself, and a call made for an account of the expenses which had been incurred in certain prosecutions at common law, and they were laid on the table and printed, I think, two sessions before the last. I made a motion at the time in respect to the subject; but, from the pressure of business, it was not ultimately acted on. I was not very solicitous to press it; but chose to give public information on the subject, that the experiment might pass before the public whether, when this information was made public, the Government would undertake to arrest the prosecution. I am not certain that it was not known prior to that time. Certain I am that I mentioned it to one of the heads of departments at that session. The prosecutions were not arrested; and really, sir, there must have been something peculiarly bad in that soil, which wanted the culture of such a District Attorney as was placed at the head of it. As to the District Attorney, I acquit him of any peculiar malignity in this business; I had rather supposed that he was impelled by such influence as appointed him; that the persons concerned in appointing him, or others connected with them, were desirous of instituting these prosecutions, and that he had not the firmness to resist them. As to the sedition law, for my constituents, I ask but one privilege; that, when they are prosecuted for libels, they may have the liberty to prove the truth of what they publish; and, if they do not prove the truth, let them suffer. I ask nothing further for them. I should wrong their opinion of the respect which is due to truth, if I asked for them any greater liberty than that of proving the truth of what they utter. As to their being peculiarly attached to what is called common law, it is not the common law of the British empire, but that portion of unwritten law which they have found at once adapted to convenience, conformable to the principles of moral rectitude, favorable to the support of Government, and of the principles of civil liberty. So much the choose to adopt, whether it come from beyond the Atlantic or out of our own soil, they find it at once conducive to their happiness, conducive to moral order, to the good of society, and to the perpetuity of Government; this is the common law, which chastises guilt and protects innocence, and to this they are attached.

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United States, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, 1900

Q. (By Senator Mallory.) Have you any idea what influence it is that enables the Standard Oil company to get such concessions as evidently it has in these rates?—A. Exactly the same influence which produces every discrimination—the interest of the party offering the discrimination somewhere, I suppose. In the case of the New Haven road, it is apparent. The New Haven road can make more money by transporting on a local than on a through rate. You ask me why the New Haven road does not adopt the same policy with reference to all commodities. Because the people of Connecticut, if they were compelled to pay a local rate on everything they use, eat, and wear, would send to the Capitol some Senators and Representatives who would endeavor to enact a law which would stop it; whereas they will get along with one or two commodities.

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United States Congressional Serial Set, 1871

Mr. President: The House of Representatives has concurred in the resolution of the Senate presenting the thanks of Congress to the governor and, through him, the people of Connecticut for the statues of Roger Sherman and Jonathan Trumbull.

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The American Farmer, 1819

We copy the above to let our Maryland readers see the style and solemn ceremony with which these things are conducted in the older states. We hope it will not be long before the same interest is manifested on behalf of the plough throughout our country.

For the creation of as much more wealth and abundance as they now possess, the sober, hardy, and industrious people of Connecticut and Massachusetts would not require any better means, than the present under cultivated land of Maryland and Virginia.

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Niles’ Weekly Register, 1814

Gentlemen—The progress of the war affords little hope that its calamities will soon come to an end. The characteristic bravery of our seamen, in whatever service they are engaged, is indeed a just theme of national exultation; and it is devoutly to be wished that our naval triumphs may produce an auspicious effect upon this unhappy contest, the evils of which are seen and felt in whatever concerns the real prosperity of the country. To mitigate these evils, you will be disposed to employ every faculty which the structure of our government allows you to exercise; and if any constitutional effort on your part may contribute to remove them, I am persuaded it will not be withheld. The sentiments of the people of Connecticut upon this momentous subject cannot be misunderstood. Their disapprobation of the war was publicly declared through the proper organ, shortly after hostilities commenced; accompanied with an assurance that the obligations imposed by the constitution should nevertheless be strictly fulfilled. If no event has occurred to vary their opinion, the highest evidence is furnished of fidelity to their engagements. They have pursued that honorable course which regards equally the legitimate claims of the confederacy, and the rights and dignity of their own government.

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United States, Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior, 1902

Great honor is due the temperance people of Connecticut, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, for manifesting a broad-mindedness and a spirit of conciliation which made agreement with the teachers possible. They placed duty before policy, good teaching before any desire for a “perfect” law, and the interests of the children before the fear or pleasure of anybody. The future will show, we believe, that in winning the respect and confidence of the teachers by uniting with them in support of a more reasonable temperance education law they “builded better than they knew.”

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United States, The War of the Rebellion, 1900

I thereupon issued an address to the people of Connecticut, a copy of which is herewith inclosed. Acting upon these declarations the towns of this State, and especially those which are earnest in the support of the Government, anticipating a relief from the incubus which was forced upon them when the district at large was required to supply the deficiency occasioned by the tardiness of less loyal towns, with commendable energy and much success, made vigorous efforts to comply with the demands of the Government.

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United States Congress, Executive Documents, 1889

But so favorable a report cannot be made when we come to consider the rural schools, where we find the children of the old Connecticut families that have had a part in making the history of the State and in establishing its institutions. The houses in which these schools are taught are old, dilapidated buildings, many of them unfit for use at all; the number of pupils is small, 193 schools having 8 pupils or less; the teachers are inferior to those employed in the cities and large towns, and the school terms are short. It was found upon examination that about two-fifths of the children in these schools above 10 years of age could not write, although most of them had been attending school from three to five years. In 112 of these schools the old alphabet method of teaching the letters is still in vogue. The progress made in arithmetic also was very unsatisfactory. The board of education has reported these facts just as they found them, “trusting that the people of Connecticut, who assuredly have not lost their attachment to its common school system, will not rest until a remedy is found.” 

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United States Congress, Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior, 1903

It was only last year that the centennial anniversary of the birth of Horace Mann was commemorated throughout the nation. We are all fresh from the reading which we undertook anew for the purpose of understanding that remarkable epoch, and today we recall again the same historical data, because Henry Barnard was for us, the people of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the initiator of an educational revival corresponding to that of Horace Mann in Massachusetts. By common consent public opinion has placed Henry Barnard side by side with Horace Mann as his great coadjutor, for he has supplemented the work and universalized it by collecting in one great body the written records, not only of this movement, but of all similar movements in the history of mankind. He has made accessible the wisest and best things that have come from the experience of the race in the matter of founding and conducting schools.

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United States Congress, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, 1900

Q. (By Senator Mallory.) Have you any idea what influence it is that enables the Standard Oil company to get such concessions as evidently it has in these rates?—A. Exactly the same influence which produces every discrimination—the interest of the party offering the discrimination somewhere, I suppose. In the case of the New Haven road, it is apparent. The New Haven road can make more money be transporting on a local than on a through rate. You ask me why the New Haven road does not adopt the same policy with reference to all commodities. Because the people of Connecticut, if they were compelled to pay a local rate on everything they use, eat, and wear, would send to the Capitol some Senators and Representatives who would endeavor to enact a law which would stop it; whereas they will get along with one or two commodities. 

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United States, Annual Reports of the Department of the Interior, 1902

Great honor is due the temperance people of Connecticut, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, for manifesting a broad-mindedness and a spirit of conciliation which made agreement with the teachers possible. They placed duty before policy, good teaching before any desire for a “perfect” law, and the interests of the children before the fear or pleasure of anybody. The future will show, we believe, that in wining the respect and confidence of the teachers by uniting with them in support of a more reasonable temperance education law they “builded better than they knew.”

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United States Senate, Report of the Committee on Government Operations, 1963

I have a television station back home that offers me time for a weekly report to the people of Connecticut, and I would like to make this report, but I am unable to get action to use the funds that our radio office has accumulated out of their radio work to purchase the needed equipment.

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Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1895

Fort Dummer was built in 1724 near Brattleboro by people from Massachusetts and Connecticut, who had followed up the Connecticut river. The settlements were familiarly lauded to at the time as “New Connecticut,” because of the preponderance of persons from that colony. It was also referred to as the “New Hampshire Grants.” Down to the Revolution, Vermont was without an individual self-government. Its people, however, were in touch with the patriotism of the people of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and furnished troops throughout the war for independence. January 15, 1777, in a convention of the people to consider their political welfare, and after mature deliberation, they declared that the district known as “New Connecticut,” or “Vermont,” was of right a free and independent jurisdiction, to be thenceforward known by the name of “Vermont.” Its boundaries were at the time not accurately defined, but claimed as far west as the Hudson River from its source north to the international boundary, thence following the shore of Lake Champlain.

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United States Senate, Reports of Committees, 1884

Another thing. We have not yet given up, and I hope we may never give up the proposition that whatever may be the great and necessary powers of the National Government and of its authority to execute them with vigor, after all, the essential idea is of this people in the frame of their Constitution, and in its administration, that the domestic, everyday interests of the people are wholly committee to the governments of the States. It is neighborhood government. Of course, when States become vast in population, as new York is and as Texas is to be, this notion of neighborhood government loses some of its force. But, as Mr. Ellsworth said in the Constitutional convention, when the question whether a consolidated or a Federal Government was to be determined upon: “For the people of Connecticut, we are unwilling to trust the General Government with our domestic interests.”

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United States Congress, Reports of the Committees, 1866

It can be said, without the fear of contradiction, that there is probably not a State in the Union, except one, that would sanction negro suffrage were the question to be submitted to the people. Even the people of Connecticut, by a large majority, refused it, and the republican party, in all the States except four, where an election was held last fall, declared and proclaimed, through the press and public speakers, their opposition to negro suffrage; and in the four States where that question was an issue, negro suffrage was largely defeated, although the republican ticket was elected. Why should Congress forced negro suffrage upon the people of the District, when the people whom they represent have repudiated it in the States? The bill reported by the majority of the committee will, if it becomes a law, not only allow the negroes to vote for all officers in the District, but allow a negro to hold and be elected to any office in the District. By striking out the word “white,” colored people become citizens of the District, with all the political rights of any white citizen of the District. It would place the negro population upon the same political basis as the whites, and would soon result in the election of a negro for mayor of the city, as it is but reasonable to presume that there would soon be such an influx of negroes into the District as to give them the majority. The “African race” in this country gained more by the result of the war than any other people. By it they were freed from slavery, and with that freedom they ought to be content. The wisdom of more than five thousand years has refused to allow the political equality of the negro race as exercised by the white; and no civilized people of any country have allowed universal suffrage to the negro throughout their governments. If this bill becomes a law it will be but the entering wedge to negro suffrage and equality all over this land.

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The Christian Spectator, 1819

Let the people of Connecticut then, take an inventory of their blessings. Let them consider what more can be done, to give efficacy to that admirable system of intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, which has exalted the State, far above the highest elevation to which mountains of gold or myriads of heroes would have raised it.

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United States Congress, House Documents, 1925

In an address by a Mr. O’Neil, issued to the people of Connecticut, it was said: “The plan of this amendment is to bury New England in oblivion and put the reins of Government into the hands of Virginia.” Only three Representatives from New England voted for its submission.