“Guard with jealous attention the Public Liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel”-Patrick Henry
“The best way of doing good to poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading them out of it.”-Benjamin Franklin
“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers 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 everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816
“I console myself with the reflection that those who will come after us will be as wise as we are, and as able to take care of themselves as we have been.”– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, Monticello, April 15, 1811
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
“Some times it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself – Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others – Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him – Let history answer this question.” – Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
“This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome.” – Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1771
“The strange phenomenon of our times — one which will probably astound our descendants — is the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator. These three ideas form the sacred symbol of those who proclaim themselves totally democratic.”-Claude Frédéric Bastiat, The Law, 1850
“The jurisdiction of the general government is confined to a few enumerated objects, which concern the common welfare of all the states. The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens. They must of course possess a large share of influence; and being independent of each other, will have many opportunities to interpose checks, as well as to combine a common resistance, to any undue exercise of power by the general government, independent of direct force.” – Justice Joseph Story, “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” Volume I Book III Chapter VI: The Preamble, Section 509, (1833) p. 882
“It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free Country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective Constitutional Spheres… A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.” – George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787
“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”-James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution
“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.”-George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
“The truth is all might be free if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought”-Samuel Adams
