[WT Sharpe]

.....Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
..........— Stephen Decatur, Jr. (1779-1820), American naval officer, national war hero. Dinner Toast in Norfolk, Virginia (April 1816).


.....I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.
..........— John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), son of John and Abigail Adams, lawyer, diplomat, politician, and sixth President of the United States. Letter to John Adams (1 August 1816). "Fiat justitia, pereat coelum" (literally "Be instituted justice, heaven be destroyed") can be translated from the Latin as: "Let justice be done though heaven should perish".


..... 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.
..........— Carl Schurz (1829-1906), American journalist, statesman. Address to the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago (October 17, 1899).


.....Citizenship? We have none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of the scoundrel—and I believe that he was right. I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, "My country, right or wrong, my country!" How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country.
..........— Mark Twain [penname of Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910), American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. "True Citizenship at the Children's Theater" (speech, 1907).