Political Quotes

“just off the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building stands a statue of a fellow Pennsylvanian by the name of John Muhlenberg. In early 1776, this 29 year-old Lutheran Minister gave a sermon in Woodstock, Virginia in which he called upon the men of his congregation to join him in fighting for our Nation's independence. Quoting the Book of Ecclesiastes, Pastor Muhlenberg said: ``There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven . . . A time for war and a time for peace.'' Contending that the time for war had arrived, Pastor Muhlenberg then concluded his sermon by casting off his clerical robes to reveal the uniform of a Continental Army officer. Pastor Muhlenberg went on to serve as a general in the Continental Army. More than a century and a half later, in an address at Chautauqua, New York in 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated, ``I hate war.'' Yet, after Pearl Harbor roused our nation from a slumbering isolationism, President Roosevelt knew that the time for war had come. The actions of Pastor Muhlenberg and President Roosevelt remind us that, from the very beginning of our great Nation to modern times, war is always regrettable, but sometimes necessary to protect the lives of our citizens and to secure the important principles for which our Nation stands.”