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.”
