Quote
By John Quincy Adams
...let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.
- Source
- First Annual Message, December 6, 1825
- Read at
- The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara
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About this quote
From President John Quincy Adams's First Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1825, in the part where he urged Congress to use national power for roads, canals and the advance of knowledge. The sentence begins "While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions," and the quote starts at "let us not be unmindful". The popular line "Individual liberty is individual power" is not what he wrote.