7 Grover Cleveland Quotes on Democracy

Grover Cleveland quotes on democracy

2. Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

7. Amid the din of party strife the people's choice was made, but its attendant circumstances have demonstrated anew the strength and safety of a government by the people. In each succeeding year it more clearly appears that our democratic principle needs no apology, and that in its fearless and faithful application is to be found the surest guaranty of good government. But the best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen.

8. The laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity - municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic.

23. A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

29. Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.

30. The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.

38. Democracies must have leaders who are the people's prophets and who act as their mentors. A prophet must see ahead and turn the people's minds to the future. A mentor Cleveland was - a stern and determined one. A prophet he was not.