#1: QUOTATION: Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
ATTRIBUTION: Stephen Decatur (1779–1820), U.S. naval commander. Toast, April 1816, proposed at a banquet in Norfolk, Virginia, to celebrate Decatur’s victory over Algerian “Barbary pirates.” Quoted in A.S. MacKenzie, Life of Decatur, ch. 14.
The words were revived in a speech by Carl Schurz (1829-1906), German orator and later U.S. general and senator, to the U.S. Senate (January 17, 1872): “Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.” See also G.K. Chesterton’s comment under “patriotism.”
#2. NUMBER: 1641
#3 - Chesterton's quote is not from the same collection as the first two but from here: "'My country, right or wrong' is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'"
AUTHOR: Carl Schurz (1829–1906)
QUOTATION: The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
ATTRIBUTION: Senator CARL SCHURZ, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287. The Globe merely notes “[Manifestations of applause in the galleries]” but according to Schurz’s biographer, “The applause in the gallery was deafening.” This is “one of Schurz’s most frequently quoted replies.”—Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography, chapter 11, p. 180 (1982).
Schurz expanded on this theme in a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899: “I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”—Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, pp. 119–20 (1913).
Here is a blog post that does not seem to have read Schurz's quote. The comments do a good job of demolishing the argument in the post, so no need to belabor its errors here. Just wanted to show that the errors still exist.
This saying always makes me think of Samuel Johnson's "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
For a bit of background here are the Wikipedia entries for Stephen Decatur and Carl Schurz.
When I was reading the Wikipedia article on Schurz, I ran across another quote that would have been best remembered five years ago:
The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to "loving and faithfully serving his country," at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.– Carl Schurz, April, 1898
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