Mirabeau Lamar campaign address, August 1838

admirable among nations. Let then our national
character be based upon the inflexible principles
of truth & virtue and marked consistently in all
things at home and abroad by republican
simplicity, economy & frugality, honesty and
independence and plain dealing. Above all
things let our national pride be to improve
the worth & virtue of our people—our national
ambition to excel like the heroic Spartacus,
not in artificial splendor[,] luxury & show, but in
the sterling qualities of men & free men.  

“What constitutes a State?
            Not high rais’d battlement & labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
            Not cities proud with spires & turrets crown’d;
Not bays and broad arm’d ports,
            Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride
Not starred and spangled courts
            Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride
No—men, high-minded men,
            Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, & knowing dare maintain them”