Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty


Milton Friedman, PhD, Nobel Laureate, 1912-2006: Rest in Peace.

"Maybe I did well and maybe I led the battle but nobody ever said we were going to win this thing at any point in time. Eternal vigilance is required and there have to be people who step up to the plate, who believe in liberty, and who are willing to fight for it." -- Milton Friedman

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Plato

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

 
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest.  The laws of necessity, of self- preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.  To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." --Thomas Jefferson to John Colvin, 1810

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.  The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." -- John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.) as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." -- Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." -- Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884), abolitionist, orator and columnist for The Liberator,  in a speech before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852, according to The Dictionary of Quotations edited by Bergen Evans

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” -- Edmund Burke

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." -- James Madison,  Federalist no. 51.

"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power." -- John Adams, 1788

"Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it can never willingly abandon it." -- Edmund Burke

"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence.  It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

"Freedom is never an achieved state; like electricity, we've got to keep generating it or the lights go out." -- Wayne LaPierre

"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

"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." -- Thomas Paine

"The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell." -- Karl Popper

"Voting is no substitute for the eternal vigilance that every friend of freedom must demonstrate towards government.   If our freedom is to survive, Americans must become far better informed of the dangers from Washington -- regardless of who wins the Presidency." -- James Bovard in Voting is Overrated 

"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 by 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." 
 -- Thomas Paine, “The Crisis”, December 23rd, 1776 


"If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us." -- Thomas Sowell

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." -- Somerset Maugham

"The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both." -- Christopher Hitchens in the August, 2003 issue of Reason.

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." -- General Douglas MacArthur

"FREEDOM IS NOT FOR THE TIMID." -- posted as an announcement outside a Unitarian Church in Texas on Sept. 17, 2001

"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain

 "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1953

"The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted.  It belongs to the brave." -- Ronald Reagan

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." -- Patrick Henry

"The land of the free will cease to be when it's no longer the home of the brave."-- Rick Gaber

"Perhaps the meek shall inherit the Earth, but they'll do it in very small plots . . . about 6' by 3'." -- Robert A. Heinlein

"Against us are... all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty... We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils." --Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, 1796. ME 9:336

"Patrick Henry did not say, 'Give me absolute safety or give me death.' " -- John Stossel, "20/20", ABC-TV, Aug. 3, 2001

"The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it's the only one that makes the other virtues possible." -- Benjamin Netanyahu to Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Sept. 21, 2001

"The secret of happiness is freedom.  And the secret of freedom is courage." -- Thucydides

"One man with courage makes a majority." -- Andrew Jackson, 1832

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!" -- Alexander Hamilton

"When you're taking flak, you must be over the target." -- Jim Robinson

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." -- Daniel Webster (1834)

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass

"For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise." -- Harry Browne

"Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain." -- John F. Kennedy

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people." -- John Adams

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy.  Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies.  To fight it, we must understand it." -- Ayn Rand

"The tyranny of a principal in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy." --Montesquieu, 1748

"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." -- Charles Peguy.

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both." -- James Madison

“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” -- John F. Kennedy, 1963

"Life is a daily IQ test.  Regarding liberty, it seems that most people are failing the test.  It is up to those of us who can see what is right to make sure we do not give up the fight." -- J.B. Pruitt
"... in every generation the idea of liberty must be reasserted by those with the vision to see through the fog, and rediscovered by the young and courageous." -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"It is not for glory or riches or honours that we fight, but only for liberty, which no good man will consent to lose but with his life." -- The Declaration of Arbroath, a reply to the Papal Bulls excommunicating Robert Bruce for recapturing Berwick, as sent to Pope John XXII on behalf of the community of the realm of Scotland, 1320 A.D.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all -- security, comfort, and freedom.  When ... the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." -- Sir Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -- Teddy Roosevelt

"Personal responsibility is the price of liberty." -- Michael Cloud

"A free society cannot work unless people take charge of their lives and assume responsibility for their actions." -- Jim Powell

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Live free or die." -- Gen. John Stark, the hero of the battles of Bennington and Bunker Hill.  Now the motto of the state of New Hampshire

"Anyone who needs to be persuaded to be free, doesn't deserve to be." -- L. Neil Smith

"A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it." -- John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861

"There is danger from all men.  The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." -- John Adams, 1772

"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust." -- Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24

"All of history attests that the centralization and concentration of power breed despotism." -- H.A.Scott Trask

"Government is not compassion ... Government is nothing more than structured, widespread coercion ..." -- Glen Allport

"What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people.  It's not good at much else." -- Tom Clancy on Kudlow and Cramer 9/2/03

"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

"We've witnessed a fire sale of American liberties at bargain basement prices, in return for the false promise of more security... The America being designed right now won't resemble the America we've been defending... The danger isn't that Big Brother may storm the castle gates.  The danger is that Americans don't realize that he is already inside the castle walls." -- Wayne LaPierre

"Tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell

“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years.  I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value.  I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.” -- H. L. Mencken, "Why Liberty?" January 30, 1927

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." – Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791.

"[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people." -- Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776. Papers, 1:338

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." -- Patrick Henry, Virginia's Ratification convention, 1788

"Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct." -- Thomas Carlyle

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." -- Elie Wiesel
  

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"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid." -- Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1982

"The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"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." -- Thomas Jefferson, January 30, 1787

"The right to revolt has sources deep in our history." -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

"The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
Margaret Thatcher

"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both."
James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."
— Tacitus

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own."
— Unknown

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from
falling into error." -- U.S. Supreme Court in American Communications Association v. Douds

"In 1776, 1950, or now, there's never been a golden age of liberty, and there never will be.  People who value freedom will always have to defend it from those who claim the right to wield power over others. ... And, in today's world, that means more than a musket by the door.  It means being an active citizen." -- David Boaz

"Most authoritarians do not surrender power voluntarily." -- Victor Davis Hanson

"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction.  Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle.  None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.  Inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial.

"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on Earth... and what no just government should refuse." -- Thomas Jefferson in a Letter to James Madison, Paris, Dec. 20, 1787
  

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
 --  William Pitt (the younger), 
speech on the India Bill, Nov.1783

"The people never give up their liberty but under some delusion." -- Edmund Burke, 1784 

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an  endless series of hobgoblins." 
         -- H.L. Mencken, 1923

"I've set my own rules to live by.  The first one is: 'Never believe ANYthing the government says.' " 
  -- George Carlin

"There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions."-- Dr. Milton Friedman, as interviewed in "Is America No. 1?" by John Stossel.

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
 -- Daniel Webster, as quoted in Hearings on the confirmation of Abe Fortas to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, p. 108 

"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind- in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others - with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means." -- Henry Grady Weaver

"When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again." -- Edith Hamilton 

"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime,  suppress minorities and still remain democratic."-- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

"There is scarcely a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the people's money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever." 
                   -- Benjamin Franklin

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
  -- Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel-Prize-winning economist.

"Benevolence in public institutions has a short half-life no matter how noble its original intentions."
-- Richard A. Epstein, Principles for a Free Society

"There's seldom been control of a new federal agency that wasn't sold by the most efficient fund-raising politicians to the wealthiest pressure groups within four years of its inception." -- Bert Rand

"The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power." -- Harry Browne

"The problem isn't the abuse of power; it's the power to abuse." -- Michael Cloud

"Give politicians power and it certainly will be abused eventually -- if not by today's politicians, then by their successors." -- Harry Browne

"These things I believe:
That government should butt out.
That freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away.
That individual freedom demands individual responsibility.
That government is not a necessary good but an unavoidable evil."
-- Franklyn C. "Lyn" Nofziger, Press Secretary for President Reagan

"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it." -- Dr. Milton Friedman
.

 

"Government should be our servant, not our master." -- Doug Guetzloe

"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..." -- Mark Twain

"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error." -- Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Judge, in American Communications Association v. Douds, May 1950

"Liberty is the sovereignty of the individual." -- Josiah Warren

"Liberty is a political firewall that limits the damage government can do to the individual." -- James Bovard

"When government does more than guard against the initiation of force, inevitably it becomes a means of theft and bamboozlement." -- Donald J. Boudreaux

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."--Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819

"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." -- Thomas Jefferson to Francis Gilmer, 1816.

"I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away." -- Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Forrest, 1787. Papers, 12:477.

"Private property is the most important guarantee of freedom." -- F.A. Hayek

"The sacred rights of property are to be guarded at every point. I call them sacred, because, if they are unprotected, all other rights become worthless or visionary. What is personal liberty, if it does not draw after it the right to enjoy the fruits of our own industry? What is political liberty, if it imparts only perpetual poverty to us and all our posterity? What is the privilege of a vote, if the majority of the hour may sweep away the earnings of our whole lives, to gratify the rapacity of the indolent, the cunning, or the profligate, who are borne into power upon the tide of a temporary popularity?" -- Judge Joseph Story, 1852

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.  Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.  No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."  -- James Madison, National Gazzette, 1792

"The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion.  Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom." -- Ludwig von Mises, the great Austrian-Jewish economist, in the January 1949 issue of Plain Talk

"Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries."-- Ayn Rand, "For The New Intellectual," For The New Intellectual

"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." -- Thomas Jefferson: Note in Tracy's "Political Economy," 1816.

"Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel." -- Ayn Rand

"The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave." -- Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged

"Vinegar in freedom tastes better than honey in slavery." --  old Serbian proverb

"We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money." -- David Crockett, U.S. Congressman (1827-1835)

"Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent??" -- Samuel Adams, founding father and leader of the Boston Tea Party

“In the general course of human nature, a power over man's substance amounts to a power over his will.” -- Alexander Hamilton

"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." -- John Adams

"No freedom is secure if your property rights are not secure." -- Neal Boortz

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." -- Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that Property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." -- John Adams

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.  Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected.  No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."  -- James Madison, National Gazzette, 1792

"[If government have] a right of demanding ad libitum and of taxing us themselves to the full amount of their demand if we do not comply with it, [this would leave] us without anything we can call property." -- Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North, 1775. Papers, 1:233

"In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen."-- Chief Justice John Marshall

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy." -- Chief Justice John Marshall in the McCulloch v. Maryland ruling, 1819

"Rather than allow political power lusters to destroy the remnants of individual rights that still protect us, we should be eternally vigilant in protecting and restoring our inalienable rights." -- Glenn Woiceshyn

"If you don't have the right to do something wrong [to yourself], you don't have any rights at all." -- Gene Burns at Faneuil Hall, Boston, 9/29/1996

"Freedom requires tolerance of foolishness. ... Without this tolerance for the freedom of others, no one's freedoms are secure." -- Dr. Donald J. Boudreaux

"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society." -- Thomas Jefferson to P. Dupont, 1816.

"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 would be oppression." -- Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801

"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." -- Thomas Jefferson to Francois D'Ivernois, 1795

"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 12/20/1787

"We’re dealing with the oldest political error: the belief that because everyone wants something, government should or must provide it.  If the error is pervasive, the result is the total state.  If it is completely uprooted, the result is the purely free society." -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell

"Ambiguously-worded laws can be used against the innocent any time." -- Greg Perry

"Man is not free unless government is limited." -- Ronald Reagan: Farewell Speech, 1988

[The purpose of the Constitution is to] “keep the government off the backs of people.” -- Justice William O. Douglas

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison

"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass

"Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant." -- Clint Eastwood in an essay he wrote for the January 12, 1997 issue of Parade Magazine

"When given power over others, some human beings (including women) will abuse that power in sickening ways.  This is a fact of life." -- Cathy Young

"It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureaucrats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want."-- Harry Browne

"As government grows, its increased power to grant favors or inflict pain attracts more people who would abuse the system." -- John Fund

"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow.   ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter.   From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.  I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing." -- Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." -- Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

"Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it." -- Milton Friedman

"The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy." -- James Madison

"All power in human hands is liable to be abused." -- James Madison, December 18, 1825

"We are asking the wrong question. The issue is not who should be trusted with all the power of the Presidency. Instead, we must ask how much power any candidate can be trusted with." -- James Bovard in No One Deserves the Power

"...every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Ammendment." -- Justice Louis Brandeis (Olmstead v. US) 

"It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind them separately."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"We hold that what one man cannot morally do, a million men cannot morally do, and government, representing many millions of men, cannot do." -- Auberon Herbert

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves." -- John Locke

"If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you." -- William E. Simon, former Treasury Secretary

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government"  -- James Madison

"[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, VIII,c.12:] 'When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.'" -- Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

"We have too many lawyers making laws. We need some un-lawyers un-making some laws."-- Carl Strang, ex-mayor, Winter Haven, FL


"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis Brandeis,1928

"Eternal vigilance is only part of the price of freedom. The maturity to live with imperfections is another crucial part of the price of freedom." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell

"As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism -- unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell

"If welfare and equality are to be primary aims of law, some people must necessarily possess a greater power of coercion in order to force redistribution of material goods. Political power alone should be equal among human beings; yet, striving for other kinds of equality absolutely requires political inequality." -- Tibor Machan in Private Rights and Public Illusions

"Any stray mediocrity rushes into print with plans to control the production of mankind -- and ... no one questions his right to enforce his plans by means of a gun." -- Ayn Rand,  Atlas Shrugged

"A society that puts equality ... ahead of freedom will end up with neither ... " -- Milton Friedman

"The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew governmental power attracts swarms of crooks, demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts swarms of horseflies." -- Rick Gaber

"As government grows, its increased power to grant favors or inflict pain attracts more people who would abuse the system." -- John Fund

"The coercive power of government is always a beacon to those who want to dominate others -- summoning the worst dregs of society to Washington to use that power to impose their will upon others." -- Harry Browne

"Well, who is more likely to volunteer to take a job in a bureaucracy that has little to recommend it except that it gives you the power to use government force to control the lives of others? A dispassionate scientist or a zealot? In government, the zealots eventually take over." -- John Stossel

"Force always attracts men of low morality." -- Albert Einstein

"Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you." -- Harry Browne

"Give a good man great powers and crooks grab his job." -- Rick Gaber

"Any time you give power to government, it will be abused, it will be enlarged, it will be used in ways you never intended." – Harry Browne on The Drudge Report 7-31-99

"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

"Political power is everywhere the most serious threat to liberty. The more power politicians have, and the more able they are to disregard constitutional rules, the more serious the threat.  Precedents for expanding government power are sure to be exploited by politicians more dangerous than those who set the precedents." -- Jim Powell

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -- Prof. John E. E. D. Acton

"Power draws the corrupted; absolute power would draw the absolutely corrupted." -- Colin Barth

"Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely." -- Prof. R. J. Rummel

"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse." -- Edmund Burke
.
"Grant no power to government you would not want your worst enemies to wield against you." -- "Smokin'" Joe Freeper

"Tell me please why this Patriot Act  is being used for so many criminal investigations in this country, like petty drug cases, that have no connection with terrorism?  Lesson:  If you give the government power .. it will use that power.   It will use 100% of that power, and more." -- Neal Boortz, 9/29/2003

"Any new power given to government will be abused." -- Gary Nolan

"People who think of government as the institution to entrust with enough power to right all the world's wrongs seem to never consider that they must thereby give it enough power to do wrong to all the world's rights.  In fact, they seem NEVER to consider what the founders always thought was obvious:  that the 'good guys' will NOT always be in charge!" -- Bert Rand

"There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. ... The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose." -- James Bovard

"Overload the police with victimless crimes and other minutiae and eventually only creeps and bullies remain cops." -- Rick Gaber

"So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity." -- Thomas Sowell

"For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise." -- Harry Browne

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." -- Pericles, 430 B.C.

"Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence.  It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

"Defend EVERY ONE of your rights. When any one is given up none of the rest can last." -- Rick Gaber

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." -- Patrick Henry, Virginia's Ratification convention, 1788

"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never, -- in nothing great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.   Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." -- Winston Churchill

"We are now paying the wages of the 1990s, our holiday from history ... The question before us is very large and very simple: Can--and will--the civilized part of humanity disarm the barbarians who would use the ultimate knowledge for the ultimate destruction?"  -- Dr. Charles Krauthammer

"Civilization does not have to perish.  The brutes are winning only by default." -- Ayn Rand

""The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein 

 

"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." -- Charles Peguy

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free"-- Ronald Reagan

"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and lost it, have never known it again." -- Ronald Reagan

"The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it's the only one that makes the other virtues possible." -- Benjamin Netanyahu to Brian Lamb on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Sept. 21, 2001

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." -- Winston Churchill

"Liberty, is one of the most precious gifts heaven has bestowed upon Man.  No treasures the earth contains or the sea conceals can be compared to it. For liberty one can rightfully risk one's life." -- Miguel Cervantes

"Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees." -- Emiliano Zapata, 1910, Dolores Ibarruri, 1936, Albert Camus, 1951, Joseph Heller, 1961, Mordechai Anielewicz,1943, Warsaw Ghetto, Poland

"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be." -- James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

"The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought." -- Samuel Adams

"The only limit to the oppression of government is the power with which the people show themselves capable of opposing it." -- Enrico Malatesta 

- - -
    "The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is
the most at risk.  The government will challenge 
our right to be shielded from unreasonable search 
and seizure by trying to obtain the keys to our
encrypted communications.  That way, at will, and
without a warrant, they will be able to read our
e-mail and other documents. 
     "Ah, you say, I have nothing to hide, so why do
I care?  In this era of political correctness where 
the ordinary practices of today become the crimes 
of tomorrow, it is dangerous to have that view. 
Perhaps you may want the government to have 
access to your innermost views.  But what do you
suppose will happen when you determine that the 
government has become too repressive and it must 
be replaced?  What do you suppose will happen to
you when government officials find out your views
before you have had a chance to act upon them?"  

 -- Paul M. Weyrich, President of the 
Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, 
writing in the December, 2001 issue of Reason

- - -

 

"The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be. The more laws are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be." -- Lao-tzu, The Tao Te Ching (believed written in China, 6th century BC).

"An oppressive government is much worse than a man-eating tiger." -- Kong Fu-Dzuh ("Confucious")

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (A.D. c.56-c.115)

"There is no safe political refuge for those afraid to take responsibility for their own lives." -- James Bovard

"Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you." -- Benjamin Franklin

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." -- Bertrand de Jouvenal

"If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions." -- Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -- Plato

"As soon as people drop the reins on government, government will leash the people." -- James Bovard

"It is absurd to expect governments to descend gradually, step-by-step into barbarism - as if there was a train schedule to political hell and people could get off at any stop along the way." -- James Bovard

"Government is not reason, and it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master: never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- A popular Americanism of unknown origin, usually attributed to George Washington, although no one I know of has proven his authorship. Nomatter, it's true, it's popular, and I won't let it die. You may as well attribute it to yourself to avoid getting sidetracked into arguments about quotations instead of about rights.  Using unverifiable quotations plays into the hands of the enemies of individual rights, as they can then focus only on the quotations, and not the concepts.

"Government is not compassion ... Government is nothing more than structured, widespread coercion ..." --Glen Allport

"I was taught very early on that the state can be, and is, a liar and a murderer." -- Christopher Hitchens

"He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own." -- Aesop

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.    And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by thegrace of God, I will do." -- Edward Everett Hale

"Not voting is just as bad as voting for evil men because it allows evil to succeed by default.  Take a stand with people who support what you really support.   Stop cowering and merely complaining about America's pending demise and act in such a way as to truly make a difference." -- Tom Ambrose

"If mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire, to Helvetius

"DO NOT KEEP SILENT when your own ideas and values are being attacked. ...If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the default of those who keep silent.  We are still free enough to speak.   Do we have time?  No one can tell." -- Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."-- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, with a Syllabus, Washington, Apr. 21, 1803

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

"It is common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." -- Benjamin Franklin

"I think it was H. L. Mencken who once said that in America they go after the S.O.B.'s first. And nobody cares about them. They establish bad precedents on them, and then they go after the rest of us." -- Allan Dershowitz on Justice and the Citizen on the Achievement TV Network

"Place me not with those who are weak of mind and willingly give up the rights of others, for these poor ignorant souls know not that the rights they give up are their own!" -- Warren Friton

"If you want to get rich and/or stay that way, or if you want your kids or other loved ones to do so, you'd damn well better stand up for everyone else's right to do so too." -- Rick Gaber

"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me."-- The statement was written by the Rev. Martin Niemoeller, a German Lutheran pastor who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938. He was sent to the concentration camp at Dachau, where he remained until he was freed by the Allied forces in 1945.

"When they took the 4th amendment away, I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs.  When they took the 6th amendment away, I was quiet because I had never been arrested.  When they took the 2nd amendment away, I was quiet because I didn't own a gun.  Now they've taken away the 1st amendment, and all I can do is be quiet." -- Fred Albury 

"If you don't stand
for something, you
stand for nothing."
 -- Mel Thompson

"Those who stand 
for nothing fall for 
anything."
-- Alexander Hamilton

"A moderate is 
either someone who
has no moral code 
of  his own, or if he 
does, then he's 
someone who 
doesn't have the 
guts to take sides
between
good and evil."
 -- Rick Gaber

"The only things you'll 
find in the middle 
of the road are
yellow streaks
and dead possums."
 -- American folk saying

"People who 
refuse to take a 
stand wind up 
appeasing evil, 
feeding it, even 
voting for it,
and finally, 
dying from it." 
 -- Rick Gaber

"If some among you 
fear taking a stand 
because you are 
afraid of reprisals
from customers, 
clients, or even
government, 
recognize that 
you are just
feeding the 
crocodile hoping 
he'll eat you last."
-- Ronald Reagan

"If, in order to escape 
the responsibility 
of moral judgment,
a man closes his 
eyes and mind, if 
he evades the facts
of the issue and 
struggles not to 
know, he cannot 
be regarded as 
'gray'; morally, 
he is as 'black' 
as they come."
-- Ayn Rand

"There comes a time
to join the side 
you're on."
-- Midge Decter

 

"When they came for the Branch Davidians, we did not say anything because we were not Branch Davidians." -- Doug Newman

"When the rights of just one individual are denied, the rights of all are in jeopardy!" -- Jo Ann Roach

"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction.  Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle.  None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises

"Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a libertarian.  The government that governs least is certainly the best choice when fools, opportunists and grafters run it.  When power is for sale, then the government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better." -- Charley Reese

"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." -- Samuel Adams

"One man with courage makes a majority." -- Andrew Jackson, 1832

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."-- George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutions, 1903

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.” --Justice Learned Hand, 1944

"No matter who you are or what you believe, you have to understand that some day the worst control-freaks among your bitterest enemies will control the federal government, and you better have restored effective, working constitutional limitations on that government before that time arrives." -- Rick Gaber

"Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?" -- Alan Keyes

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to always be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826

"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthen itself by exercise, and
entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle." -- James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785: Works 1:163

"To the American people I bid a fond farewell. Guard your liberties. It is the trust of each generation to pass a free republic to the next. And if I know you right, you will rouse yourself from slumber to ensure exactly that." -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

"Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free....The revelation of Thought takes man out of servitude into freedom." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Fate"

''Most people prefer to believe that their leaders are just and fair, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which he lives is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.''  -- Michael Rivero

"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it -- that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life -- that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence." --- Ayn Rand. in Atlas Shrugged

"Never ignore evil." -- Jim Robinson

"Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it." -- Virgil

"Civilization does not have to perish.  The brutes are winning only by default." -- Ayn Rand

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

"The World is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein

“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum, whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.” -- Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." -- Dante, The Inferno

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Democracy is defended in 3 stages.  Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box." -- Ambrose Bierce

"Liberty is preserved with 4 boxes: soap, jury, ballot, and cartridge." -- Dan Skinner

"No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." -- General Douglas MacArthur

"I know not what course others may take but as for me: give me liberty or give me death." -- Patrick Henry

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive." -- Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787

"If your most basic right is the right to life, then it seems obvious to me that you have the right to defend your life. Guns are, in this century, the most effective means of doing so - so effective that every genocide has only been carried out against victims who were disarmed by their governments." -- William G. Hartwell

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." -- George Washington, in his First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience." -- John Locke, 1690

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -- John Bradshaw (1602-1659)

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey

"O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!" -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense

"In matters of principle, stand like a rock." -- 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

 “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” 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

 “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”Thomas Jefferson

 “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. …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

 “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”Thomas Jefferson

 “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson

 “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...”Thomas Jefferson

 

Quotes From The Founding Fathers

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Abigail Adams
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Samuel Adams
Fisher Ames
Abraham Baldwin
Sir William Blackstone
Samuel Chase
Ben Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
John Hancock
Patrick Henry
John Jay
Thomas Jefferson
Francis Scott Key
James Madison
George Mason
Gouverneur Morris
Dr. Jedidah Morse
John Peter Muhlenberg
Thomas Paine
William Penn
Josiah Quincy
Benjamin Rush
Jonathan Trumbull
George Washington
Daniel Webster
Noah Webster





Abigail Adams

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but the God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people. Trust in Him at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before him; God is a refuge for us.

"Charleston is laid in ashes. The battle began upon our entrenchments upon Bunker's Hill, Saturday morning about 3 o'clock, and has not ceased yet, and it is now three o'clock Sabbath afternoon. It is expected they will come out over the Neck tonight, and a dreadful battle must ensue. Almighty God, cover the heads of our countrymen, and be a shield to our dear friends..."

"A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men? Can he be a patriot who, by an openly vicious conduct, is undermining the very bonds of Society?....The Scriptures tell us "righteousness exalteth a Nation."


John Adams

"[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is in the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE, PEACE. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

"[America] has . . . respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings . . . Whenever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own . . . She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change form liberty to force . . . She might become the dictatress of the world . . . "

July 4, 1774
"We went to meeting at Wells and had the pleasure of hearing my friend upon "Be not partakers in other men's sins. Keep yourselves pure.

"We...took our horses to the meeting in the afternoon and heard the minister again upon "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." There is great pleasure in hearing sermons so serious, so clear, so sensible and instructive as these ...."

October 9, 1774
"This day I went to Dr. Allison's meeting in the afternoon, and heard the Dr. Francis Allison . . . give a good discourse upon the Lord's Supper .... I had rather go to Church. We have better sermons, better prayers, better speakers, softer, sweeter music, and genteeler company. And I must confess that the Episcopal church is quite as agreeable to my taste as the Presbyterian.... I like the Congregational way best, next to that the Independent...."

1754
"It is the duty of the clergy to accommodate their discourses to the times, to preach against such sins as are most prevalent, and recommend such virtues as are most wanted. For example, if exorbitant ambition and venality are predominant, ought they not to warn their hearers against those vices? If public spirit is much wanted, should they not inculcate this great virtue? If the rights and duties of Christian magistrates and subjects are disputed, should they not explain them, show their nature, ends, limitations, and restrictions, how muchsoever it may move the gall of Massachusetts."

June 21, 1776
"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."

July 1, 1776
"Before God, I believe the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it. And I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now, and Independence for ever!"

In a July 1, 1776 letter to Archibald Bullock, former member of the Continental Congress from Georgia, Adams wrote:
"The object is great which We have in View, and We must expect a great expense of blood to obtain it. But We should always remember that a free Constitution of civil Government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate as there is nothing, on this side (of) the New Jerusalem, of equal importance to Mankind."

July 3, 1776
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end ofthis continent to the other, from this time forward forever.

"You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory I can see that the end is worth more than all the means; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even though we [may regret] it, which I trust in God we shall not."

In concern for his sons, John Adams advised his wife Abigail to:

"Let them revere nothing but Religion, Morality and Liberty."

Oct. 11, 1798 (Address to the military)

"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 ofany other."

On March 6, 1799, President John Adams called for a National Fast Day.

"As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgement of the growing providence of a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributer of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness ofindividuals and to the well-being of communities....

"I have thought proper to recommend, and I hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain, as far as may be, from their secular occupation, and devote the time to the sacred duties of religion, in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people" (Proverbs 14:34)"

On November 2, 1800, John Adams became the first president to move into the White House. As he was writing a letter to his wife, he composed a beautiful prayer, which was later engraved upon the mantel in the state dining room:

"I pray Heaven to bestow THE BEST OF BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE and All that shall hereafter Inhabit it, May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof."

August 28, 1811

"Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of all free government, but of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of human society."

June 28, 1813

"Now I will avow, that I then believe, 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."

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams wrote:

"Have you ever found in history, one single example of a Nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue?... And without virtue, there can be no political liberty....Will you tell me how to prevent riches from becoming the effects of temperance and industry? Will you tell me how to prevent luxury from producing effeminacy, intoxication, extravagance, vice and folly?...I believe no effort in favor is lost..."

In a letter dated November 4, 1816, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

"The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion..."

December 27, 1816

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation."

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have...a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the character and conduct of their rulers."


John Quincy Adams

"Duty is ours; results are God's."

September, 1811, in a letter to his son:

"I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once ever year.... My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. I employs about an hour of my time...."

July 4, 1821

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

"From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct."

July 4, 1837

"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday ofthe Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation ofthe Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before."

"I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity."

"Posterity--you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."

February 27, 1844

"The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world."


Samuel Adams


"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated 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 sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; second, to liberty; third, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of ... the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature. All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and ernter into another.... Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent?" (Nov 20, 1772)

"The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament." (From The Rights of Colonists, 1772)

As the Declaration of Independence was being signed, 1776, Samuel Adams declared:

"We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come."

"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."

"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections." --in a letter to James Warren, Nov. 4, 1775--

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

Samuel Adams wrote in his Will:

"Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins."


Fisher Ames

(Author of the First Amendment)

"Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble....In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith."


Abraham Baldwin

(Founder of the University of Georgia)

"It should therefore be among the first objects of those who wish well to the national prosperity to encourage and support the principles of religion and morality, and early to place the youth under the forming hand of society, that by instruction they may be molded to the love of virtue and good order."


Sir William Blackstone

(Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law was the recognized authority on the law for well over a century after 1776)

"Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being....And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will...this will of his Maker is called the law of nature. These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil...This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this...

"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures...[and] are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

"Blasphemy against the Almighty is denying his being or providence, or uttering contumelious reproaches on our Savior Christ. It is punished, at common law by fine and imprisonment, for Christianity is part of the laws of the land.

"If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which should be subversive of all government."

"The preservation of Christianity as a national religion is abstracted from its own intrinsic truth, of the utmost consequence to the civil state, which a single instance will sufficiently demonstrate.

"The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the main attributes ofthe Supreme Being, and a firm persuasion that He superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life (all which are revealed in the doctrines of our Savior, Christ), these are the grand foundations of all judicial oaths, which call God to witness the truth of those facts which perhaps may be only known to Him and the party attesting; all moral evidences, therefore, all confidence in human veracity, must be weakened by apostasy, and overthrown by total infidelity.

"Wherefore, all affronts to Christianity, or endeavors to depreciate its efficacy, in those who have once professed it, are highly deserving of censure."


Samuel Chase

"By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty."


Ben Franklin

"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."


Congressional Congress, 1787

"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?

"We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

"I therefore beg leave to move--that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."

In 1748, as Pennsylvania's Governor, Benjamin Franklin proposed Pennsylvania's first Fast Day:

"It is the duty of mankind on all suitable occasions to acknowledge their dependence on the Divine Being... [that] Almighty God would mercifully interpose and still the rage of war among the nations...[and that] He would take this province under his protection, confound the designs and defeat the attempts of its enemies, and unite our hearts and strengthen our hands in every undertaking that may be for the public good, and for our defense and security in this time of danger."

"I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and governed it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded either here or hereafter.

"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.

"The pleasures of this world are rather from God's goodness than our own merit."

Benjamin Franklin, in July of 1776, was appointed part of a committee to draft a seal for the newly united states which would characterize the spirit of this new nation. He proposed:

"Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters. This motto: 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

"A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty."

Ben Franklin wrote a pamphlet called, "Information to Those who would Remove to America." It was intended to be a guide for Europeans who were thinking of relocating in America. In it he said:

"Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced.

"Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel.

"And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other; by the remarkable prosperity with which he has been pleased to favor the whole country."

"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 worshipped."

Benjamin Franklin wrote his own epitaph:

"THE BODY of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Printer
Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents torn out,
And stripped of its lettering and gilding
Lies here, food for worms;
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will (as he believed) appear once more,
In a new,
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
By the AUTHOR"


Alexander Hamilton

(Co-Author of the Federalist Papers)

It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust (the office of President) was to be confided.... Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.... The process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.... It will not be too strong to say that there be constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue...." ( In Federalist No. 68)

"I now offer you the outline of the plan they have suggested. Let an association be formed to be denominated 'The Christian Constitutional Society,' its object to be first: The support of the Christian religion. second: The support of the United States.

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.

"A...virtuous citizen will regard his own country as a wife, to whom he is bound to be exclusively faithful and affectionate; and he will watch...every propensity of his heart to wander towards a foreign country, which he will regard as a mistress that may pervert his fidelity."


John Hancock

April 15, 1775

"In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent Measure should be taken to ward off the impending Judgements....All confidence must be withheld from the Means we use; and reposed only on that GOD who rules in the Armies of Heaven, and without whose Blessing the best human Counsels are but Foolishness--and all created Power Vanity;

"It is the Happiness of his Church that, when the Powers of Earth and Hell combine against it...that the Throne of Grace is of the easiest access--and its Appeal thither is graciously invited by the Father of Mercies, who has assured it, that when his Children ask Bread he will not give them a Stone....

"RESOLVED, That it be, and hereby is recommended to the good People of this Colony of all Denominations, that THURSDAY the Eleventh Day of May next be set apart as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer...to confess the sins...to implore the Forgiveness of all our Transgression...and a blessing on the Husbandry, Manufactures, and other lawful Employments of this People; and especially that the union of the American Colonies in Defense of their Rights (for hitherto we desire to thank Almighty GOD) may be preserved and confirmed....And that AMERICA may soon behold a gracious Interposition of Heaven."
By Order of the [Massachusetts] Provincial
Congress, John Hancock, President.


Patrick Henry

March 23, 1775

"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!"

"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."

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom."

"It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."

On November 20, 1798, in his Last Will and Testament, Patrick Henry wrote:

"This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed."


John Jay

(America's first Supreme Court Chief Justice and Co-Author of the Federalist Papers)

October 12, 1816

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.

In his Last Will and Testament, John Jay wrote:

"Unto Him who is the author and giver of all good, I render sincere and humble thanks for His merciful and unmerited blessings, and especially for our redemption and salvation by his beloved Son."


Thomas Jefferson

"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
John F. Kennedy to Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere,
at a White House function, April 29, 1962

"And 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 to John Taylor, Monticello, 28 May 1816. Ford 11:533

"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787

"Self-love . . . is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others."

"(If a) people (are) so demoralized and depraved as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control, their reformation must be taken up ab incunablis (from the beginning). Their minds (must) be informed by education what is right and what wrong, (must) be encouraged in habits of virtue and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments, proportioned indeed, but irremissible. In all cases, (they must) follow truth as the only safe guide and eschew error which bewilders us in one false consequence after another in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government."
In a letter to John Adams in 1819

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and it time depraves all its good dispositions." (1785)

"I never ... believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man."
In a letter to Don Valentine de Feronda, 1809

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820.

"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."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government has grown out of too much government."
Senator John Sharp Williams, Thomas Jefferson: His Permamnent Influence on American Institutions, p.49 (1913). Lecture delivered at Columbia University, New York City, 1912.

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"And 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."
Letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

"The only foundation for useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

"To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others..."

"I consider the doctrines of Jesus as delivered by himself to contain the outlines of the sublimest system of morality that has ever been taught but I hold in the most profound detestation and execration the corruptions of it which have been invented..."

As President, Thomas Jefferson not only signed bills which appropriated financial support for chaplains in Congress and in the armed services, but he also signed the Articles of War, April 10, 1806, in which he:

"Earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine services."

In a letter to Horatio G. Spafford, dated March 17, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

"A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus."

"I have always said, I always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands."

Jefferson declared that religion is: "Deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support."

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Jefferson, while writing the 1st draft of the Virginia State Constitution.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"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."

Jefferson's "separation of church & state letter written to the Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut on January 1, 1802

"Gentlemen:

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which are so good to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, of prohibiting the free excercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessings of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem."


Francis Scott Key

February 22, 1812

"The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.' He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation...."


James Madison

(Architect of the U.S. Constitution & Co-Author of the Federalist Papers)

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."


"There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent an sudden usurpation."

"[It] is indispensable that some provision should be made for defending the Community agst [against] the incapicity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate."

From his notes

Note: Perfidy is defined as "The quality or state of being faithless or disloyal."

"Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."

"Religion [is] the basis and Foundation of Government."

"It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage....Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."


George Mason

"No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice?

Gouverneur Morris

"... If the people should elect, they will never fail to prefer some man of distinguished character, or services; some man, if he might so speak of continental reputation... a notoriety and eminence of character... to merit this high trust ... an Executive Magistrate of distinguished character... an object of general attention and esteem...." (1787)

"Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God."

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."


Dr. Jedidah Morse

"To the kindly influence of Christianity, we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoy. In proportion, as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of the nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom and approximate the miseries of complete despotism." (1799)


John Peter Muhlenberg

(He was elected as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1774, and was a 30-year-old pastor who preached on the Christian's responsibility to be involved in securing freedom for America. He was the son of Henry Muhlenberg, one of the founders of the Lutheran Church in America.)

In 1775, after preaching a message on Ecclesiastes 3:1, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven," John Peter Muhlenberg closed his message by saying:

"In the language of the Holy Writ, there is a time for all things. There is a time to preach and a time to fight."

He then threw off his robes to reveal the uniform of a soldier in the Revolutionary Army. That afternoon, at the head of 300 men, he marched off to join General Washington's troops, becoming Colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment. He served until the end of the war being promoted to the rank of Major-general. In 1785 he became the Vice-President of Pennsylvania and in 1790 was a member ofthe Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention. He then served as a U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania and in 1801 was elected to the U. S. Senate.


Thomas Paine

"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 by 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. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God." "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

"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 cheaply, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

"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.

"Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be placed on the divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon.

"The Almighty implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our heart. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals."

"I would give worlds, if I had them, if The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help! Stay with me! It is hell to be left alone."

"I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God."


William Penn

(Founder of Pennsylvania)

"If thou wouldst rule well, thou must rule for God, and to do that, thou must be ruled by him....Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."


Josiah Quincy

"Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men."


Benjamin Rush

"By removing the Bible from schools we would be wasting so much time and money in punishing criminals and so little pains to prevent crime. Take the Bible out of our schools and there would be an explosion in crime."

"I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat."


Jonathan Trumbull

(He was the British Governor of Connecticut who had been appointed by King George III. He was also the father of the famous Revolutionary artist of the same name. Jonathan Trumbull became sympathetic to the American cause in 1773.)

"If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ."


George Washington

George Washington And Free Masonary

"... So far as I am acquainted with the principles and Doctrines of Free Masonry, I conceive them to be founded on benevolence and to be exercised for the good of mankind. If it has been a Cloak to promote improper or nefarious objects, it is a melancholly proof that in unworthy hands, the best institutions may be made use of to promote the worst designs."(44)

Rev. G.W. Snyder, who said he was with the Reformed Church of Fredericktown, Maryland,(46) sent Washington a letter on August 22, 1798, saying, "a Society of Free Masons, that distinguished itself by the name of 'Illuminati,' whose Plan is to over throw all Government and all Religion....it might be within your power to prevent the Horrid plan from corrupting the brethren of the English Lodges over which you preside."(47)

September 25, 1798, Washington wrote a letter to Snyder, including the following language, referring to Masonic lodges:

"... to correct an error ..., of my presiding over English Lodges in this country. The fact is I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice within the last thirty years...."(48)

October 24, 1798

Washington wrote another letter to Rev. Snyder, after Snyder responded to Washington's previous letter. Washington included the following language in this letter:

"... [referring to] the doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobism ... in the United States....I did not believe that the Lodges of Freemasons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavored to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or the pernicious principles of the latter.... That individuals of them may have done it ... is too evident to be questioned...."(49)

George Washington may have attended, at most, 9 Lodge meetings in his entire life after he became a Master Mason, plus a few other Masonic Lodge events (not Lodge meetings) as listed. There is no proof that he attended several of the events in this list, just claims by Masons who may have been basing their claims on rumors.

Conclusions

Washington admired the principles and goals of Freemasonry, but he was not very familiar with them and did not attempt to learn more about Freemasonry.

Washington wrote letters indicating that he was happy to be a Mason; presided in a major Masonic ceremony laying the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol in Masonic regalia, and possibly in some other Masonic ceremonies; never sought to resign or repudiate his Masonic membership; and did not say or do anything negative toward Freemasonry, other than that some Masons promoted the radicalism of the French Revolution (as did others).

However, there is little or no evidence that Washington attended many Masonic lodge meetings in his whole life after becoming a Mason 1753.

Washington attended at most 3 meetings, possibly fewer or none (he may have attended dinners but not the preceding meetings), of the lodge that today is called Alexandria-Washington Lodge #22, and of which he was the first Master under its Virginia Charter. While he was Master of that lodge, he did not do anything to assist the work of the lodge, and he attended, at most, one meeting (if he attended that one), when officers were reelected. There is no indication that he actually presided as Master on that occasion and it is unlikely that he did so. Paintings and sculpture showing Washington presiding as a Master of that or any other Masonic lodge are probably based only on wishful thinking.

Some Masons may have gotten carried away with their delight that the most eminent citizen of the United States, George Washington, joined the Freemasons when we was very young and continued to be a member throughout his life and wrote letters supporting Freemasonry, and they may have attempted to portray him as an active and enthusiastic member of the Craft even though the evidence indicates that he was not.

George Washington was apparently a Mason who was not very interested in attending lodge meetings, although there is considerable evidence that he was happy to be a member and publicly supported Freemasonry.

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George Washington quotes continued:

"It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am.

The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in _this_ Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned."

"My ardent desire is, and my aim has been...to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home."

"Government is not reason; it is not eloqence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

"The thing that separates the American Christian from every other person on earth is the fact that he would rather die on his feet, than live on his knees!"

From Washington's First Inaugural address, “I hope that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. The preeminence of free government exemplifies by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world."

"The General orders this day to be religiously observed by the forces under his Command, exactly in manner directed by the Continental Congress. It is therefore strictly enjoined on all officers and soldiers to attend Divine service, And it is expected that all those who go to worship do take their arms, ammunition and accoutrements, and are prepared for immediate action, if called upon."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.

The fate of unborn millions will now depend. under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die."

"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion.

To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian."

In his Inaugural Speech, April 30, 1789,

"...it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes...."

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States."

October 3, 1789, National Day of Thanksgiving

"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor....

"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these United States...

"that we then may all unite unto him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection ofthe people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war;

"for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed....

"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions...to promote the knowledge and practice of the true religion and virtue....

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3rd of October, A.D. 1789"

George Washington's personal prayer book, consisting of 24 pages in his field notebook, written in his own handwriting, reveal the depth of his character:

"SUNDAY MORNING....Almighty God, and most merciful Father, who didst command the children of Israel to offer a daily sacrifice to Thee, that thereby they might glorify and praise Thee for Thy protection both night and day, receive O Lord, my morning sacrifice which I now offer up to thee;

"I yield Thee humble and hearty thanks, that Thou hast preserved me from the dangers of the night past and brought me to the Light of this day, and the comfort thereof, a day which is consecrated to Thine own service and for Thine own honour.

"Let my heart therefore gracious God be so affected with the glory and majesty of it, that I may not do mine own works but wait on Thee, and discharge those weighty duties Thou required of me: and since Thou art a God of pure eyes, and will be sanctified in all who draw nearer to Thee, who dost not regard the sacrifice of fools, nor hear sinners who tread in Thy courts, pardon I beseech Thee, my sins, remove them from Thy presence, as far as the east is from the west, and accept of me for the merits of Thy son Jesus Christ, that when I come into Thy temple and compass Thine altar, my prayer may come before Thee as incense, and as I desire Thou wouldst hear me calling upon Thee in my prayers, so give me peace to hear the calling on me in Thy word, that it may be wisdom, righteousness, reconciliation and peace to the saving of my soul in the day ofthe Lord Jesus.

"Grant that I may hear it with reverence, receive it with meekness, mingle it with faith, and that it may accomplish in me gracious God, the good work for which Thou hast sent it.

"Bless my family, kindred, friends and country, be our God and guide this day and forever for His sake, who lay down in the grave and arose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."

"It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe, without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being."

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens."

Washington proclaimed firearms to be "the people's liberty teeth."


Daniel Webster

"There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from anothe quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."

"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."

"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 ovenvhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."

"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.

"Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity."

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."

"The hand that destroys the Constitution rends our Union asunder forever."

"Thank God! I--I also--am an American!"

"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."

"I shall stand by the Union, and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country...in all I say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's. I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences.What are the personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer, or if he fall, in the defense of the liberties and constitution of his country."

"This is the Book. I have read the Bible through many times, and now make it a practice to read it through once every year. It is a book of all others for lawyers, as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct. It fits man for life--it prepares him for death."

When asked the question, "What is the greatest thought that ever passed through your mind?" Daniel Webster responded:

"My accountability to God."


Noah Webster

(The father of public education in America)

He declared government was responsible to:

"Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties."

"Education is useless without the Bible."

"The Bible was America's basic text book in all fields."

"God's Word, contained in the Bible, has fumished all necessary rules to direct our conduct."

"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."

In 1832, Noah Webster published his History of the United States, in which he wrote:

"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 correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion.

"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.

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all of our civil constitutions and laws....All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty;

"If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes;

"Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

"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."

"Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And...the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress."


 

TWELVE TRUTHS ABOUT LEGISLATION


1) Any law the electorate sees as being open to being perverted from its original intent will be perverted in a manner that exceeds the manner of perversion seen at the time. 
2) Any law that is so difficult to pass it requires the citizens be assured it will not be a stepping stone to worse laws will in fact be a stepping stone to worse laws. 
3) Any law that requires the citizens be assured the law does not mean what the citizens fear, means exactly what the citizens fear. 
4) Any law passed in a good cause will be interpreted to apply to causes against the wishes of the people. 
5) Any law enacted to help any one group will be applied to harm people not in that group. 
6) Everything the government says will never happen will happen.
7) What the government says it could not foresee, the government has planned for. 
8) When there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential government services the citizens will be given the choice between higher taxes or the loss of essential government services. 
9) Should the citizens mount a successful effort to stop a piece of legislation the same legislation will be passed under a different name. 
10) All deprivations of freedom and choice will be increased rather than reversed. 
11) Any government that has to build safeguards into a law so that it will not be abused is providing guidelines for abusing the law without violating it. 
12) Any legislator up for re-election will vote against a bad law if and only if there are enough other votes to pass it.


PACIFISM
EMPOWERS 
TERRORISM
"Pragmatists believe principles foster conflict. But in fact principles provide guidance as to where the conflict has to happen." -- Paul Blair

"Moral relativists are staunchly uncertain, adamantly indecisive, self-righteously impotent and defiantly irrelevant."  -- Rick Gaber
(That is, unless they're meddling, militant pacifists, in which case they actually legitimize and empower the evil and, as its accessories, they themselves have "blood on their hands."  See THIS explanation.)

"The indecision and paralysis engendered by moral relativism, coupled with the appeasement and self-sacrifice engendered by altruism, is suicidal. If America does not throw off these moral chains, it will continue to be the prey of the Baby Kims, Ayatollahs, Arafats and bin Ladens of the world. Just as an individual must act unapologetically to preserve his life, so must America." -- John Dawson, HERE

"People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost." -- Bertold Brecht


 

"And when at last this rebellion compelled the British Government to use the only power that any Government has -- force, used with general consent -- and British troops moved into Boston to restore order, Americans did not consent.  They stood up and fought the British Regulars.
     "One man began that war.  And who knows his name?
     "He was a farmer, asleep in his bed, when someone pounded on his door and shouted in the night, 'The troops are coming!'
     "What could he do against the King's troops?  One man.  If he had been the King, that would have been different; then he could have done great things.  Then he could have set everything to rights, he could have made everyone good and prosperous and happy, he could have changed the course of history.  But he was not a King, not a Royal Governor, not a rich man, not even prosperous, not important at all, not even known outside the neighborhood.  What could he do?  What was the use of his trying to do anything?  One man, even a few men, can not stand against the King's troops.  He had a wife and children to think of; what would become of them, if he acted like a fool?
     "Most men had better sense; most men knew they could do nothing and they stayed in bed, that night in Lexington.  But one man got up.  He put on his clothes and took his gun and went out to meet the King's troops.  He was one man who did not consent to a control which he knew did not exist.
     "The fight on the road to Lexington did not defeat the British troops.  What that man did was to fire a shot heard around the world, and still heard...
     "That shot was the first sound of a common man's voice that the Old World ever heard.  For the first time in all history, an individual spoke, an ordinary man, unknown, unimportant, disregarded, without rank, without power, without influence.
    "Not acting under orders, not led, but standing on his own feet, acting from his own will, responsible, self-controlling, he fired on the King's troops.  He defied a world-empire.
    "The sound of that shot said: Government has no power but force; it can not control any man.
    "No one knows who began the American Revolution.  Only his neighbors ever knew him, and no one now remembers any of them. He was an unknown man, an individual, the only force that can ever defend freedom."  

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Quotes on Firearms Rights

Here are some of my favorite quotes on the right to bear arms. If you like these, surf over to my fortunes collection where you can download them in a couple of cookie files.

When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state".

Love your country, but never trust its government. -- Robert A. Heinlein.

"The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create...." -- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819.

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." -- Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. 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, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good" -- George Washington

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

"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

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue." -- Barry Goldwater

"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." -- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings. -- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, August 1588

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it." -- Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms." -- Constitutional scholar Joseph Story, 1840

"The bearing of arms is the essential medium through which the individual asserts both his social power and his participation in politics as a responsible moral being..." -- J.G.A. Pocock, describing the beliefs of the founders of the U.S.

Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest. -- From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.

"As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives [only] moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion to your walks." -- Thomas Jefferson, writing to his teenaged nephew.

No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. -- 16 Am. Jur. Sec. 177 late 2d, Sec 256

"The state calls its own violence `law', but that of the individual `crime'" -- Max Stirner

"Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out because I might yell `Fire!' in a crowded theater." -- Peter Venetoklis

...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents." -- Don B. Kates, writing on statistical patterns in gun crime

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." -- John F. Kennedy

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms." -- Senator Richard Henry Lee, 1788, on "militia" in the 2nd Amendment

"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] -- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. -- Cesare Beccaria, as quoted by Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. -- "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract of 1774-1775

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1787

& what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that his people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Col. William S. Smith, 1787

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788

Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? -- Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788

"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

"The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun." -- Patrick Henry, speech of June 14 1788

Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen. -- "M.T. Cicero", in a newspaper letter of 1788 touching the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms... -- Samuel Adams, in "Phila. Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789

The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the *government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage. -- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. -- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93

A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War in 1862

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. -- Attributed to Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)

Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' -- Mao Tse-tung, 1938, inadvertently endorsing the Second Amendment.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. [...] The Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. -- Majority Supreme Court opinion in "U.S. vs. Miller" (1939)

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. -- Robert A. Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon", 1942

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. -- Hitler, April 11 1942

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free. -- A.E. Van Vogt, "The Weapon Shops Of Isher", ASF December 1942

Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon -- so long as there is no answer to it -- gives claws to the weak. -- George Orwell, "You and the Atom Bomb", 1945

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. [...] the right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. -- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960

No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before. -- Colin Greenwood, in the study "Firearms Control", 1972

Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws." -- Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979

If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]. -- U.S. Representative John Dingell, 1980

.. a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen... -- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner. -- Report of the Subcommittee On The Constitution of the Committee On The Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, second session (February, 1982), SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis. -- Stephen P. Halbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed", 1984

To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form. -- Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1988

I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on kepping a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of the criminal class. -- David Mohler, 1989, on being denied a carry permit in NYC

Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power. -- Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the LA Times 15 Oct 1992

You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one. -- Rush Limbaugh, in a moment of unaccustomed profundity 17 Aug 1993

The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. -- Albert Gallatin, Oct 7 1789

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy-

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Jack Kettler
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Curious, If so, http://www.YourGoldenKey.com

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