James Madison
In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
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A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
Thomas Jefferson
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Thomas Jefferson
Power is not alluring to pure minds.
Thomas Jefferson
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Thomas Jefferson
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.
Thomas Jefferson
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Thomas Jefferson
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
Thomas Jefferson
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Thomas Jefferson
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion [extravagance] and servitude.
Thomas Jefferson
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
James Madison
Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
Thomas Jefferson
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever you are to do anything, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
Thomas Jefferson
From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death.
Thomas Jefferson
Though you cannot see when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the nearest manner possible.
Thomas Jefferson
An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by untruth, by injustice.
Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending a too small degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson
Yet it is easy to foresee, from the nature of things, that the encroachments of the State governments will tend to an excess of liberty which will correct itself, while those of the General Government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day.
Thomas Jefferson
Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free government.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people (the slaves) are to be free.
Thomas Jefferson
When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and accommodate every thing to it in the best way practicable.
Thomas Jefferson
The errors and misfortunes of others should be a school for our own instruction.
Thomas Jefferson
The article of dress is, perhaps, that in which economy is the least to be recommended.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies.
Thomas Jefferson
Persuasion, perseverance, and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others.
Thomas Jefferson
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
Thomas Jefferson
No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.
Thomas Jefferson
With all the defects in our Constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe, is like a comparison of Heaven with Hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.
Thomas Jefferson
I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.
Thomas Jefferson
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there.
Thomas Jefferson
Health, learning, and virtue will insure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honor.
Thomas Jefferson
If I were to decide between the pleasures derived from the classical education which my father gave me, and the estate left me, I should decide in favor of the farmer.
Thomas Jefferson
Good humor and politeness never introduce into mixed society a question on which they foresee there will be a difference of opinion.
Thomas Jefferson
The general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, and the strong allurements of great cities to those who have any turn for dissipation, threaten to make them here, as in Europe, the sinks of voluntary misery.
Thomas Jefferson
I have often thought that if Heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
Thomas Jefferson
I sincerely, then, believe with you in the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it is the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities.
Thomas Jefferson
I must ever believe that religion substantially good, which produces an honest life, and we have been authorized by one (One) whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit.
Thomas Jefferson
Where the law of majority ceases to be acknowledged there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.
Thomas Jefferson
Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He has a chosen people, whose breasts he has made this peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue, it is the focus in which He keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth.
Thomas Jefferson
The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
James Madison
Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth.
George Washington
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government,
so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution
so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
~ Thomas Jefferson
so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution
so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
~ Thomas Jefferson
I think the best way of doing good to the poor,
is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
In my youth, I traveled much, I observed in different countries that the more
public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for
themselves and of course became poorer. And on the contrary,
the less that was done for them the more they did
for themselves and became richer.
~ Benjamin Franklin
is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
In my youth, I traveled much, I observed in different countries that the more
public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for
themselves and of course became poorer. And on the contrary,
the less that was done for them the more they did
for themselves and became richer.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Spending limited to the enumerated powers listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
~ James Madison
~ James Madison
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient...The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
~ Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
~ Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
The Constitutional framework of government in the United States is not without flaws, but every other system of government has larger flaws:
With all the defect of our constitution, whether general or particular, the comparison of our government with those of Europe is like a comparison of heaven and hell."
~ Thomas Jefferson
~ Thomas Jefferson
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries"
~ Winston Churchill
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries"
~ Winston Churchill
Liberty never came from government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves;
and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
- Abraham Lincoln
The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves;
and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
- Abraham Lincoln
We may look up to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security.
It is not possible that any State should long remain free,
where virtue is not supremely honored.
- Samuel Adams
It is not possible that any State should long remain free,
where virtue is not supremely honored.
- Samuel Adams
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically
have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
~ James Madison
have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
~ James Madison
Consider the way President Barrack Obama views the constitution:
"I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture
that carries on until this day, and that the framers had that same blind spot."- Barack Obama
that carries on until this day, and that the framers had that same blind spot."- Barack Obama
The Blind spot is really in President Obama's eye: He doesn't see that ever-expanding government means . . . ever-decreasing liberty for the people. Contrast what the Founding Fathers have said with have said about the Constitution against Barrack Obama's view:
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people,
it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government —
lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”~ Patrick Henry
it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government —
lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”~ Patrick Henry
Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.~ Benjamin Franklin
deserve neither liberty nor safety.~ Benjamin Franklin
"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom,
can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
~ John Adams
can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
~ John Adams
The natural progress of things is for
liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people, . . . . . there is liberty.~ Thomas Jefferson
liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people, . . . . . there is liberty.~ Thomas Jefferson
We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.
Abraham Lincoln
There are two measures which if not taken we are undone. ...[The second is] to cease borrowing money, and to pay off the national debt. If this cannot be done without dismissing the army, and putting the ships out of commission, haul them up high and dry, and reduce the army to the lowest point at which it was ever established. There does not exist an engine so corruptive of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad against whom this army and navy are to protect us. Thomas Jefferson letter to Nathaniel Macon, August 1821
[There are individuals who want to apply federal tax dollars] to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers… I suppose an amendment to the constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied. - Sixth Annual Message (December 2, 1806) Thomas Jefferson
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3495
Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty, ought to have it ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America, and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it. - James Madison - Federalist 41
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. - John Adams
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. - John Adams
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. - John Adams (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. - Samuel Adams
He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of this country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man....The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people. - Samuel Adams
If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. - Samuel Adams
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. - Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence
Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. - Benjamin Franklin
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God Governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" - Benjamin Franklin
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! - Benjamin Franklin
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments. - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. - Benjamin Franklin
Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants. - Benjamin Franklin
Now more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.... If the next centennial does not find us a great nation ... it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces. - James Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States, 1877
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. - Patrick Henry, American colonial revolutionary
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. - Patrick Henry
It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. - Patrick Henry
The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come! - Patrick Henry
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. - Patrick Henry
Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated[depraved] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom." - Patrick Henry
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. - Thomas Jefferson (1807)
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. - Thomas Jefferson
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. - Thomas Jefferson
I never ... believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man. -Thomas Jefferson, In a letter to Don Valentine de Feronda, 1809
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. - Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. - Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. - Abraham Lincoln
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. - Abraham Lincoln
We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. - Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day. - Abraham Lincoln
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. - Abraham Lincoln
I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should first be those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on them personally. - Abraham Lincoln
We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war [civil war] is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood ... It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless. - President Abraham Lincoln
The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864, Hertz II, 954, in Archer H. Shaw, The Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 40
(Note: There is a web site that claims this is not a valid quote, so I looked it up myself - it is valid)
The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe. - Abraham Lincoln
We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts--not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me. - Abraham Lincoln
[Note: This was spoken in 1839]
Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing; while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the waves of hell, the imps of that evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare resist its destroying course with the hopelessness of their effort; and, knowing this, I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken by it I, too, may be; bow to it I never will.
The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before high heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love.
And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending. - President Abraham Lincoln, Speech, Springfield, Illinois, Dec 20, 1839. I, 137, in Archer H. Shaw, The Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 1950), p. 64. Full quote from Project Gutenberg
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. - Abraham Lincoln - Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation. - President James Madison (1751-1836) speech, Virginia Convention, 1788
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. - James Madison
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. - Thomas Paine
It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. - Thomas Paine
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Where, some say, is the king of America? I'll tell you, friend, He reigns above. - Thomas Paine
Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants. - William Penn
I used to say that Politics is the second oldest profession [prostitution being the oldest], but I have come to realize that it bears a gross similarity to the first. - Ronald Reagan
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. - Theodore Roosevelt
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world. - Daniel Webster
If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity. - Daniel Webster
Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. - Daniel Webster
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end. - Daniel Webster
Education is useless without the Bible. - Noah Webster
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed....No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. - Noah Webster
The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free Constitutions of Government. - Noah Webster
If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. - Noah Webster
7th PRINCIPLE
The Proper Role of Government is to Protect Equal Rights, Not Provide Equal Things.
In Europe, during the days of the Founders, it was very popular to proclaim that the role of government was to take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have nots' so that all might be truly 'equal.' However, the American Founders perceived that this proposition contained a huge fallacy.
What Powers Can Be Assigned to Government
The Founders recognized that the people cannot delegate to their government the power to do anything except that which they have the lawful right to do themselves.
For example, every person is entitled to protection of his life and property. Therefore it is perfectly legitimate to delegate to the government the task of setting up a police force to protect the lives and property of all people.
But suppose a kind-hearted man saw that one of his neighbors had two cars while another neighbor had none. What would happen if, in a spirit of benevolence, the kind man went over and took one of the cars from his prosperous neighbor and generously gave it to the neighbor in need? Obviously, he would be arrested for car theft. No matter how kind his intentions, he is guilty of flagrantly violating the natural rights of his prosperous neighbor, who is entitled to be protected in his property.
Of course, the two-car neighbor could donate a car to his poor neighbor, if he liked, but that is his decision and not the prerogative of the kind-hearted neighbor who wants to play Robin Hood.
How Governments Sometimes Commit 'Legal' Crimes
But suppose the kind-hearted man decided to ask the mayor and city council to force the man with two cars to give one to his pedestrian neighbor? Does that make it any more legitimate? Obviously, this makes it even worse because if the mayor and city council do it in the name of the law, the man who has lost his car has not only lost the rights to his property, but (since it is the 'law') he has lost all right to appeal for help in protecting his property.
The American Founders recognized that the moment the government is authorized to start leveling the material possessions of the rich in order to have an 'equal distribution of goods,' the government thereafter has the power to deprive ANY of the people of their 'equal' rights to enjoy their lives, liberties, and property.
A Lesson from Communism
When the Communists seized power in Hungary, the peasants were delighted with the 'justice' of having the large farms confiscated from their owners and given to the peasants. Later the Communist leaders seized three-fourths of the peasant land and took it back to set up government communal farms. Immediately the peasants howled in protest about their property 'rights.'
Those who protested too loudly or too long soon found that they not only lost their land, but also their liberty. If they continued to protest, they lost their lives.
From The 5000 Year Leap
Those who drafted, proposed, and ratified the Constitution meant it to be law… This Constitution, not one they make up themselves, is to bind federal judges, and they are bound to the same thing that Senators and Representatives are bound to, along with all state officers, legislators, and judges. It would be extremely odd if all of these functionaries are equally bound but one set of them, the federal judges, is authorized to keep changing what it is everybody is bound to. That would mean, contrary to the text, that federal judges are not bound and all other classes of persons mentioned are bound to the judges and not to 'this Constitution.' Robert H. Bork from his book The Tempting of America
If those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact [The Constitution], by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the creation, upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: - Kentucky Resolutions of 1799 (author: Thomas Jefferson)
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former [meaning the federal government] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. - James Madison - FEDERALIST No. 45
We find it hard to believe that liberty could ever be lost in this country. But it can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely as curiosities in glass cases.
Address at the National Archives Dedicating the New Shrine for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/educ/declaration.htm
But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.
You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?
We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding--we are going to begin to act, beginning today.
The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.
Ronald Reagan Speech - First inaugural address
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/presidential-speeches/presidential-speech-ronald-reagan.htm
As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under Communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom, he arrogantly declared in substance 'You Americans are so gullible, no you won't accept Communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you finally wake up and find you already have communism.
We won't have to fight you, we'll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.'
Ezra Taft Benson - United States Secretary of Agriculture for both terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower BYU in 1966
There is this famous quotation attributed to George Washington, I have never been able to pin it down in any of Washington's writings, but whoever it is that said it certainly knew what he was talking about. "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." "It is force" is what he said. Anytime you give power to politicians you are giving them the power to make you do what they want you to do. And you may think you are giving that power to a good person who will not abuse it, but you are giving the power nonetheless and that so-called good person is not going to be in office forever. And whoever takes his place may not be a good person in your eyes and he may use that power for exactly the opposite reason from the one that you gave it to the good person for. You cannot turn to government to solve your problems because government is going to use that force to promote the wishes and the desires and the ambitions of the people who wield the power. Those people and their friends, their allies, their contributors. Those are the people who will profit from that power, not the United States of America, not you, not humanity, not good will, not good works, not benevolence but self serving aggrandizing politicians. And that power has become so large that we can say almost by definition that the only people who seek it will be people who are determined to abuse it. That it is not the kind of thing that a good benevolent person who really wants to help people will seek out. Because it is not the power to do good works, it is not the power to be benevolent, it is the power to force people to your will. To use the guns of the state to back up what you want. This is what people seek power for. Not to persuade others that their healthcare idea is better. Not to persuade people that this is what we ought to have in the schools instead of that. Not to persuade people that this is the kind of foreign policy we should have instead of that, but to force them. To force them to abide by this particular policy, to impose it upon everybody no matter whether any individual wants it or doesn't want it. - Harry Browne
On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers. By these operations new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties. Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation. The subject is now proposed for the consideration of Congress, because, if approved by the time the State legislatures shall have deliberated on this extension of the federal trusts, and the laws shall be passed, and other arrangements made for their execution, the necessary funds will be on hand and without employment. I suppose an amendment to the constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.
Sixth Annual Message (December 2, 1806) - Thomas Jefferson
Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled 'An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,' and which sets apart and pledges funds 'for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense,' I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.
The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.
'The power to regulate commerce among the several States' can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.
To refer the power in question to the clause 'to provide for the common defense and general welfare' would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared 'that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.' Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.
A restriction of the power 'to provide for the common defense and general welfare' to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.
If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.
I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.
Veto Message on the Internal Improvements Bill (March 3, 1817) - James Madison
But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to burden you with taxes beyond the economical wants of the Government is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have combined together to impose a heavy tariff and to produce an overflowing Treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest. The corporations and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the Federal Government can not be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several States by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the General Government and annually divided among the States; and if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the States should disregard the principles of economy which ought to characterize every republican government, and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their resources, they will before long find themselves oppressed with debts which they are unable to pay, and the temptation will become irresistible to support a high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution. Do not allow yourselves, my fellow-citizens, to be misled on this subject. The Federal Government can not collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the principles of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and if persisted in will inevitably lead to corruption, and must end in ruin. The surplus revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people--from the farmer, the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society; but who will receive it when distributed among the States, where it is to be disposed of by leading State politicians, who have friends to favor and political partisans to gratify ? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people so far lightened. Farewell Address (March 4, 1837) - Andrew Jackson
It is believed, however, that the great purposes for the attainment of which the federal government was instituted have not been lost sight of. Intrusted only with certain limited powers, cautiously enumerated, distinctly specified, and defined with a precision and clearness which would seem to defy misconstruction, it has been my constant aim to confine myself within the limits so clearly marked out and so carefully guarded. Having always been of opinion that the best preservative of the union of the states is to be found in a total abstinence from the exercise of all doubtful powers on the part of the federal government rather than in attempts to assume them by a loose construction of the Constitution or an ingenious perversion of its words, I have endeavored to avoid recommending any measure which I had reason to apprehend would, in the opinion even of a considerable minority of my fellow citizens, be regarded as trenching on the rights of the states or the provisions of the hallowed instrument of our Union. Viewing the aggregate powers of the federal government as a voluntary concession of the states, it seemed to me that such only should be exercised as were at the time intended to be given.
Fourth Annual Message to Congress (December 5, 1840) - Martin Van Buren
Aided by a little sophistry on the words 'general welfare,' [the federal branch claim] a right to do not only the acts to effect that which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general welfare.- Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. ME 16:147
They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.- Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:148
With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.- James Madison
It has been urged and echoed, that the power 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare.
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity,...- Federalist No. 41 James Madison
