[by "Founding Age" I simply refer loosly to the 1700s-1800s out of convenience]
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"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."
"The Republican party, on the contrary, hold that this government was instituted to secure the blessings of freedom, and that slavery is an unqualified evil to the negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State."
"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. 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 incompatable 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 incompatable names———liberty and tyranny."
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
"In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party--and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose."
"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came..."
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
"The intention of the lawgiver is the law"
"It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself."
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
“I certainly wish that all men could bee free.”
“You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you then, exclusively to save the Union. I issue the [Emancipation] proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Wheenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it swill be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free Negroes.”
“Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.”
"It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God's Assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be no judged." A. Lincoln
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Adam Smith's Rule of Improvement Through Self Interest
"The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravogance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration."
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion."
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."- 1787
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
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"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this."
"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."
- 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
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Benjamin Johnson
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Frederick Douglass
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St. George Tucker
"A bill of rights may be considered, not only as intended to give law, and assign limits to a government about to be established, but as giving
information to the people. By reducing speculative truths to fundamental laws, every man of the meanest capacity and understanding may learn his own rights, and know when they are violated . . . "
"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God."
alternate- " the rest is in the hands of God"
“Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.”
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Grover Cleveland
“Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people” -In reference to Congress' proposed aid to disaster struck Texas [America's First Real 'Disaster'], Cleveland held steadfastly to the principle of individual charity, which [in the absence of government assistance, with all its negation of individual 'get up and go'] raised twice as much as the amount Congress had proposed.
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Henry David Thoreau
“I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. “
“I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.”
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Immanuel Kant-
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
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."
"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America."
Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred" -Federalist 20
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John Adams
“A nation of laws, not of men” [no representative above the Law]
The Foundation of a Free Constitution
"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies"
Are and by Right Ought To Be FREE
"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."
The Finer Arts
"The science of government is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take place of, indeed to exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
THE CONSTITUTION:
FOR A MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE
"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." (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)
The General Principles of Christianity
"The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System."
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John Hancock
upon signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
"There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!"
(From a Letter to Thomas Jefferson)
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John Witherspoon
"He is the best friend to american liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and imorality of every kind, whoever is an avowed enemy of God I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country"
There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.
John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776
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Marchese di Beccaria
"If by supporting the rights of mankind I shall save from agonies of death one unfortunate victim of tyranny or of ignorance equally fatal, his blessings will be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind."
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Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens]
My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
For in a republic, who is "the Country"? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is "the Country"? Is it the newspaper? is it the pulpit? Is it the school superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in a thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn't.
Who are the thousand--that is to say, who are "the Country"? In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide on way, and that way be the right way accordng to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country--hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of.
- "Papers of the Adam Family"
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Noah Webster (1758 – 1843) "Schoolmaster To America" (Personally Responsible for Article 1 Section 8 of the constitution)
"The brief exposition of the Constitution of the united states will unfold to young persons the principles of Republican government and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of the correct republican principles is the Bible particularly the New Testament or the Christian Religion." -A School Textbook
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States."
-Noah Webster
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PATRICK HENREY
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose."
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Samuel Adams-
"The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary,despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional"
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader"
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can”
“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty”
“The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
"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 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
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Samuel Johnson-
"The law is an ass"
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"It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Draft Kentucky Resolution (1798. ME 17:388)
"[L]et no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."
--Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
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"THESE are the times that try men's souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
"In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation."
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William Congreve-
spoken by Zara in Act 3, Scene 2. (This is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned")
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"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."
"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. 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 incompatable 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 incompatable names———liberty and tyranny."
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
"In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party--and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose."
"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came..."
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
"The intention of the lawgiver is the law"
"It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself."
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
“I certainly wish that all men could bee free.”
“You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you then, exclusively to save the Union. I issue the [Emancipation] proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Wheenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it swill be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free Negroes.”
“Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.”
"It may seem strange that any men should dare ask a just God's Assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be no judged." A. Lincoln
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
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Adam Smith's Rule of Improvement Through Self Interest
"The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravogance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration."
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion."
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Alexander Fraser Tytler-(Attributed) [Link]
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."- 1787
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
- From bondage to spiritual faith;
- From spiritual faith to great courage;
- From courage to liberty;
- From liberty to abundance;
- From abundance to complacency;
- From complacency to apathy;
- From apathy to dependence;
- From dependence back into bondage.
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Alexander Hamilton
"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint."
"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased."
"Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing."
"In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will."
"It is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a newspaper in this country, without a very exhaustive advertising support, would receive less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic."
"A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."
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Alexis de Tocqueville (1830s)
“In the United States, Christian sects are infinitely diversified and perpetually modified; but Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.”__________________________________________
"The best way to help the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their poverty"
"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. that the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this."
"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."
- 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
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"Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up-tails all, and a pox on the hangman." - Every Man In His Humor
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Dr. Benjamin Rush
"The clergy formed a very agreeable part of the procession. They manifested by their attendance their sense of connection between religion and good government"
"The clergy formed a very agreeable part of the procession. They manifested by their attendance their sense of connection between religion and good government"
Bishop Charles Galloway
"Mighty men they were-men of iron nerve and strong hand & unblanched cheek and heart of flame God needed not reeds shaken by the wind nor men clothed in the soft raiment [Matt. 11:7-8, but heroes of hardihood and lofty courage] and such were the sons of the mighty who responded to the divine call."
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FREDERIC BASTIAT
"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State." -The Law
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"Mighty men they were-men of iron nerve and strong hand & unblanched cheek and heart of flame God needed not reeds shaken by the wind nor men clothed in the soft raiment [Matt. 11:7-8, but heroes of hardihood and lofty courage] and such were the sons of the mighty who responded to the divine call."
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"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State." -The Law
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"They framed the constitution plainly with a view to the speedy downfall of slavery. They carefully excluded from the constitution any and every word which could lead to the belief that they meant it for persons of only one complexion." -1863
"I was never more quickly or more completely put at ease in the presence of a great man, than in that of Abraham Lincoln." -1863
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"A bill of rights may be considered, not only as intended to give law, and assign limits to a government about to be established, but as giving
information to the people. By reducing speculative truths to fundamental laws, every man of the meanest capacity and understanding may learn his own rights, and know when they are violated . . . "
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“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master."
"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God."
alternate- " the rest is in the hands of God"
“A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that
actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.”
actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.”
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
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“Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people” -In reference to Congress' proposed aid to disaster struck Texas [America's First Real 'Disaster'], Cleveland held steadfastly to the principle of individual charity, which [in the absence of government assistance, with all its negation of individual 'get up and go'] raised twice as much as the amount Congress had proposed.
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"Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way."
“Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
“Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
“Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.”
“Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.“
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
“How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?”
“How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?”
“I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. “
“I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. “
“I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.”
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"There are many things I believe that I will not say. However, I will never say that which I do not believe."
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"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." - Father of the Constitution
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
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."
"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America."
Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred" -Federalist 20
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“A nation of laws, not of men” [no representative above the Law]
The Foundation of a Free Constitution
"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies"
Are and by Right Ought To Be FREE
"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."
The Finer Arts
"The science of government is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take place of, indeed to exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
THE CONSTITUTION:
FOR A MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE
"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." (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)
The General Principles of Christianity
"The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System."
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upon signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
"There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!"
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John Page (he kinda looks like bill murray)
"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."
(From a Letter to Thomas Jefferson)
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"He is the best friend to american liberty who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and imorality of every kind, whoever is an avowed enemy of God I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country"
There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.
John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776
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"If by supporting the rights of mankind I shall save from agonies of death one unfortunate victim of tyranny or of ignorance equally fatal, his blessings will be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind."
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My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
For in a republic, who is "the Country"? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is "the Country"? Is it the newspaper? is it the pulpit? Is it the school superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in a thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn't.
Who are the thousand--that is to say, who are "the Country"? In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide on way, and that way be the right way accordng to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country--hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of.
- "Papers of the Adam Family"
Where I First Came Across This Quote-
SpiderMan 537: CIVIL WAR
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"The brief exposition of the Constitution of the united states will unfold to young persons the principles of Republican government and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of the correct republican principles is the Bible particularly the New Testament or the Christian Religion." -A School Textbook
The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States."
-Noah Webster
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Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
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"Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose."
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"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
"The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary,despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional"
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader"
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can”
“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty”
“The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
"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 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
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"It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Draft Kentucky Resolution (1798. ME 17:388)
"I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson's Letter to John Taylor May 28, 1816 Monticello
"[L]et no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
"In questions of powers, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - As Used In The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798
"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against
"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"
"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."
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry." (The Only Necessary Argument Against Utopianists)
"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."
"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."
"Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism."
"History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is."
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
"I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind."
"I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us."
"I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too."
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
"I cannot live without books."
"I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it."
"I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad."
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
"I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office."
"I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master."
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
"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"
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
"If God is just, I tremble for my country."
"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?"
"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
"No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it."
"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not"
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time."
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."
"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"
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." (The cycle of Civilizations Renewal Seems About 200 years)
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it."
"The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."
"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents."
"There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world."
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed."
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government"
"Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival."
“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.”
every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.""The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."
--Thomas Jefferson
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
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"THESE are the times that try men's souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." -American Crisis
"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still." -Common Sense
"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
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Voltaire
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."
"The whole purpose of "Defending to the Death your right to say it" is to promote the Battlefield of Ideas (Ink above blood) Plugged ears promote a dangerous ignorance amongst ppls (which may rise blood above ink) You might as well be picnicking in the civil war, have yer spouse killed by shrapnel and tote their corpse around like nothing happened" -Asderathos
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
"Perfect is the enemy of good"
Praphrased- "Perfection is the Enemy of Good Enough"
"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."
"I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil."
"Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal."
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another."
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."
"The whole purpose of "Defending to the Death your right to say it" is to promote the Battlefield of Ideas (Ink above blood) Plugged ears promote a dangerous ignorance amongst ppls (which may rise blood above ink) You might as well be picnicking in the civil war, have yer spouse killed by shrapnel and tote their corpse around like nothing happened" -Asderathos
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
"Perfect is the enemy of good"
Praphrased- "Perfection is the Enemy of Good Enough"
"God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well."
"I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil."
"Ice-cream is exquisite - what a pity it isn't illegal."
"In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another."
"In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation."
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"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"
spoken by Zara in Act 3, Scene 2. (This is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned")
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