Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 634 |
| AUTHOR: | Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg (1884–1951) |
| QUOTATION: | To me “bipartisan foreign policy” means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-Party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world. It does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity. In a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated (and I think the record proves it has been) and the “loyal opposition” is under special obligation to see that this occurs. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Senator The phrase “his majesty’s opposition” was coined by John Cam Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton, in the House of Commons, April 10, 1826.—Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), vol. 15, col. 135. It is usually heard now as “loyal opposition.” Bergen Evans, Dictionary of Quotations, p. 499, no. 9 (1968), notes that Hobhouse said he was praised by Canning, but at the time Canning merely repeated the phrase. The praise came from the Rt. Hon. George Tierney: “[Hobhouse] could not have invented a better phrase to designate us … for we are certainly to all intents and purposes, a branch of his majesty’s government.”—Op. cit., col. 145. |
| SUBJECTS: | Foreign policy |