The Country Comes Before Me

The Country Comes Before Me. . , Tablet #1 , The richer, the wiser, the more powerful a man is, the greater is the obligation upon him to employ his gifts in the lessening of that sum of human misery. , John Randolph , , Tablet #2 , Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose breasts He had made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. , Thomas Jefferson , , Tablet #3 , No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. , Booker T. Washington , , Tablet #4 , In democracy, when you are reckless you destroy your own established conditions of life; when you are vindictive you wreak vengeance upon yourself. , Woodrow Wilson , , Tablet #5 , If the capable and worthy retire, the designing or worthless will take their place. , John C. Calhoun , , Tablet #6 , The republic, rising from its baptism of blood with a national life more robust, a Union more complete, and a national influence ever widening, shall go forever forward in its benign mission to humanity. , Gen. John B. Gordon , , Tablet #7 , That religion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience: And that it is the mutual duty of all the practice Christian forebearance, love, and charity towards each other. , George Mason , Virginia Declaration of Rights , , Base of Statue , The Country Comes Before Me , Caroline Deslondes Beauregard