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A
"Instead of applying observation to
the things we wished to know, we have chosen rather to imagine
them. Advancing from one ill-founded supposition to another,
we have at last bewildered ourselves amid a multitude of
errors. These errors, becoming prejudices, are, of course,
adopted as principles, and we thus bewilder ourselves more and
more. The method, too, by which we conduct our reasonings is
absurd; we abuse words which we do not understand, and call
this the art of reasoning. When matters have been brought to
this length, when errors have been thus accumulated, there is
but one remedy by which order can be restored to the faculty
of thinking; this is, to forget all that we have learned, to
trace back our ideas to their source, to follow the train in
which they rise, and
to frame the human understanding anew."
The Abbι de Condillac,
taken from Antoine Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry, Robert
Kerr, Translator (Edinburgh, Scotland: William Creech, Fourth
Edition, 1799; Dover Facsimile Edition, 1965), at xxxv.
"It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to
be oppressed by a majority."
Lord Acton,
History of Freedom in Antiquity, an address delivered
to the members of the Bridgnorth Institute, Feb. 26, 1877
"Liberty is not the
means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest
political end. It is not for the sake of a good public
administration that it is required, but for the security in
the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of
private life." Lord Acton,
History of Freedom in Antiquity, an address delivered
to the members of the Bridgnorth Institute, Feb. 26, 1877
"But the
most grievous innovation of all, is the alarming extension of
the power of courts of admiralty. In these courts, one judge
presides alone! No juries have any concern there! The law and
the fact are both to be decided by the same single judge."
John Adams,
as quoted in The Works of John
Adams, Second President of the United States, by Charles
Francis Adams, Vol 3., Boston, 1851, p. 466.
Adams stated this during
Boston town meeting in 1772. This travesty of justice was
initiated by the Stamp Act of 1765, which authorized admiralty
courts to enforce its provisions.
"It is not only his [the
juror's] right, but his duty... to find the verdict according
to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience,
though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."
John Adams,
Yale Law Journal 74
(1964):173
"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 Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires
and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other
from this Time forward forever more. 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 Us 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. And that Posterity will tryumph in
that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I
trust in God We shall not." John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 146-147)
"Liberty must at all
hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our
Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought
it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their
pleasure, and their blood." John Adams,
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Laws,
1765 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 171)
"The United States of
America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of
governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if
men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of
artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will
consider this event as an era in their history. Although the
detail of the formation of the American governments is at
present little known or regarded either in Europe or in
America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It
will never be pretended that any persons employed in that
service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree
under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon
ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it
will forever be acknowledged that these governments were
contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. "
John Adams, A Defense of the
Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
(1787-1788)
"We ought to consider
what is the end of government before we determine which is the
best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will
agree that the happiness of society is the end of government,
as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the
happiness of the individual is the end of man.... All sober
inquirers of truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian,
have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his
dignity, consists in virtue." John Adams,
Thoughts on Government, 1776 (see
The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 208)
"I have accepted a seat
in the [Massachusetts] House of Representatives, and thereby
have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of
our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare
your mind for your fate." John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, May 1770 (see The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 182)
"I must study politics
and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and
philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy,
geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation,
commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a
right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture,
statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." John Adams,
letter to Abigail Adams, circa 1780 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 183)
"Facts are stubborn
things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or
the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of
facts and evidence." John Adams, in defense of the British soldiers on trial for
the "Boston Massacre," December 4, 1770 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 204)
"Let the pulpit resound
with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us
hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he
holds among the works of God." John Adams,
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 192)
"If men through fear,
fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any
essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the
great end of society, would absolutely vacate such
renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God
Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift,
and voluntarily become a slave." John Adams,
Rights of the Colonists, 1772 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 196)
"We should be
unfaithful to ourselves is we should ever lose sight of the
danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous
should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and
independent elections." John Adams, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797 (see The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 182)
"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. If 'Thou
shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not
commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts
in every society before it can be civilized or made free...."
John Adams,
A Defense of the
American Constitutions, 1787
"Human nature itself is evermore an
advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a
resentment of injury and indignation against wrong; a love of
truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions are
the 'latent spark'... If the people are capable of
understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true
and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better
principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense
of this difference?" John Adams,
Novanglus No. 1, January 23, 1775 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 162)
"It is not only his
[the juror's] right, but his duty... to find the verdict
according to his own best understanding, judgment, and
conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of
the court." John Adams,
1771
(Yale Law Journal, 1964:173.)
"Remember democracy never lasts long.
It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was
a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
John Adams,
letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 148)
"Strait is the gate and
narrow is the way that leads to liberty, and few nations, if
any, have found it." John Adams, letter to Richard Rush, May 14, 1821 (see
The Words of John Adams, Second President of the United States,
Vol. X, Little Brown & Company, 1856, p. 397).
"Power always thinks it
has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of
the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is
violating all His laws. Our passions, ambitions, avarice,
love, and resentment, etc. possess so much metaphysical
subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they
insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience
and convert both to their party." John Adams,
writing to Thomas Jefferson, cited in Reinhold Niebuhr, The
Irony of American History (New York, 1952), p.21.
"Let justice be done
though the heavens should fall."
John Adams,
letter to Elbridge Gerry, December 5, 1777 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 167)
"A government of laws, and not of
men." John Adams,
Novanglus
No.
7, March 6, 1775 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 168)
"...As the constitution requires that
the popular branch of the legislature should have an absolute
check, so as to put a peremptory negative upon every act of
the government, it requires that the common people, should
have as complete a control, as decisive as the negative, in
every judgment of a court of judicature....
"...It was never yet disputed or
doubted that a general verdict, given under the direction of
the court in point of law, was a legal determination of the
issue. Therefore, the jury have a power of deciding an issue,
upon a general verdict. And, if they have, is it not an
absurdity to suppose that the law would oblige them to find a
verdict according to the direction of the court, against their
own opinion, judgment, and conscience?
"...Now, should the
melancholy case arise that the judges should give their
opinions to the jury against one of these fundamental
principles, is a juror obliged to give his verdict generally,
according to this direction, or even to find the fact
specially, and submit the law to the court? Every man, of any
feeling or conscience, will answer, no. It is not only his
right, but his duty,...to find the verdict according to his
own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in
direct opposition to the direction of the court...." John
Adams,
Diary for February 12, 1771
"Thomas Jefferson still lives."
John Adams,
last words on the afternoon
of July 4, 1826 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 168)
"If men through fear, fraud, or
mistake, should in terms renoune and give up any natural
right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society,
would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift
of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate
this gift, and voluntarily become a slave."
John Adams,
Rights of the Colonists,
1772 (see The Quotable Founding Fathers: A Treasury Of
2,500 Wise And Witty Quotations from the Men and Women Who
Created America, edited by Buckner F. Melton, Jr.,
Potomac Books, Inc., 2004.
"Courage, then, my
countrymen! our contest is not
only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there
shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and
religious liberty." Samuel Adams,
speech delivered in Philadelphia in August 1775 (see
Early
American Orations, 1760-1824, MacMillan & Co., LTD, 1909,
p. 74)
"Contemplate the
mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should
be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid not our posterity
bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough and sow
and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on
us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the
face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the
tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of
freedom, go 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 ye
were our countrymen!"
Samuel Adams,
speech delivered in Philadelphia in August 1775 (see Early
American Orations, 1760-1824, MacMillan & Co., LTD, 1909,
p. 76)
"A general dissolution
of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the
liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.
While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when
once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender
their liberties to the first external or internal invader."
Samuel Adams, letter to James
Warren, February 12, 1779 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 207)
"We are, heart and
soul, friends to the freedom of the press.... It is a precious
pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty
without it." Fisher Ames,
Review of the Pamphlet on the State of the British
Constitution, 1807 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 187)
"Hope has two lovely
daughters, Anger and Courage; Anger at the way things are and
the courage to change them." attributed to St. Augustine, quoted in Revolution at the Roots, p. 8
Top
B
"This law of nature, being
coeval with mankind and 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; and such of them as
are valid derive all their force, and all their authority,
mediately or immediately, from this original. But in order to
apply this to the particular exigencies of each individual, it
is still necessary to have recourse to human reason; whose
office it is to discover, as was before observed, what the law
of nature directs in every circumstance of life; by
considering, what method will tend most effectually to our own
substantial happiness. And if our reason were always, as in
our first ancestor before his transgression, clear and
perfect, unruffled by passions, unclouded by prejudice,
unimpaired by disease or intemperance, the task would be
pleasant and easy; we should need no other guide but this. But
every man now finds the contrary in his own experience; that
his reason is corrupt, and his understanding full of ignorance
and error." William
Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England
Top
D
"Every jury in the land is tampered
with and falsely instructed by the judge when it is told
it must take (or accept) as the law that which has been
given to them, or that they must bring in a certain
verdict, or that they can decide only the facts of the
case." Lord Denman,
C.J. O'Connel v. R. (1884)
"We are reduced to the
alternative of choosing unconditional submission to the
tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The
latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this
contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.
Honour, justice, and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender
that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and
which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us."
John Dickinson,
in the
Continental Congress's Declaration on the Causes and Necessity
of Taking Up Arms in 1775 (see The Annual Register, Or, A View
of the History, Politics, and Literature for 1775, 4th
edition, edited by Edmund Burke, printed for J. Dodsley, in
Pal-mal, London, 1781, p. 261.
"I have said that the
Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of
your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles
contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by
those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all
places, against all foes, and at whatever cost."
Frederick Douglass,
Speech titled, "What to the Salve is the Fourth of July,"
given in 1852, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery,
David B. Chesebrough, Greenwood Press, 1998, ISBN:
0-313-30287-1,
p. 111.
"The whole history of
the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet
made to her august claims have been born of earnest
struggle... If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the
ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They
want the ocean without the awful roar of its 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. 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 with both. The
limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those
whom they oppress." Frederick Douglass,
August 4, 1857
Top
E
"Liberty is a word
which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and
the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is
sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration;
but in the mouths of some it means anything." Oliver
Ellsworth, A Landholder
No.
III, November 19, 1787 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 173)
Top
F
"We must all hang
together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
attributed to Benjamin Franklin,
at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4,
1776 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 147)
"I have lived, Sir, a
long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I
see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men.
And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice,
is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"
Benjamin Franklin, motion for
Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 142)
"They that can give up
essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin,
Historical Review of Pennsylvania,
1759 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 171)
"A lady asked Dr.
Franklin, 'Well, Doctor, what have we got a republic or a
monarchy?' 'A republic,' replied the Doctor, 'if you can
keep it.'" as told by James McHenry,
Constitutional Convention delegate, anecdote from Farrand's
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (see The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 194)
"Whilst the last
members were signing it Doctr. Franklin looking towards the
Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened
to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that
Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a
rising from a setting sun. 'I have,' said he, 'often and
often in the course of the Session, and the vicissitudes of my
hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the
President without being able to tell whether it was rising or
setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that
it is a rising and not a setting Sun.'"
Benjamin Franklin,
as told by James Madison,
Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, September
17, 1787 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 142)
"Only a virtuous people
are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious,
they have more need of masters."
Benjamin Franklin ,
Letter to Messrs, the Abbes Chalut, and Arnaud, 17 April 1787,
Writings of Benjamin Franklin,
Smyth, 9:569.
Top
H
"I regret that I have but one life to
lose for my country."
Nathan Hale,
before being hanged by the British, September 22, 1776 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 168)
"If the representatives of the people betray their
constituents, there is then no resource left but in the
exertion of that original right of self-defense which is
paramount to all positive forms of government." Alexander Hamilton,
Federalist No. 28
"Here, sir, the people
govern." Alexander Hamilton,
speech at the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1778
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 178)
"The fabric of American
empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE
PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow from that
pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority."
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No.
22 December 14, 1787 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 178)
"Of those men who have
overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number
have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the
people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No.
1, October 27, 1797 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 205)
"A fondness for power
is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when
acquired." Alexander Hamilton,
The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775 (see
The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 184)
"The sacred rights of
mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or
musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the
whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity
itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
Alexander Hamilton,
The
Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775 (see
The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 195)
"The Chief Justice misdirected the
jury, in saying they had no right to judge of the intent and
of the law. In criminal cases, the defendant does not spread
upon the record the merits of the defence, but consolidates
the whole in the plea of not guilty. This plea embraces the
whole matter of law and fact involved in the charge, and the
jury have an undoubted right to give a general verdict, which
decides both law and fact... All the cases agree that the jury
have the power to decide the law as well as the fact; and if
the law gives them the power, it gives them the right also.
Power and right are convertible terms, when the law authorizes
the doing of an act which shall be final, and for the doing of
which the agent is not responsible...
"It is admitted to be the duty of the
court to direct the jury as to the law, and it is advisable
for the jury in most cases, to receive the law from the court;
and in all cases, they ought to pay respectful attention to
the opinion of the court. But, it is also their duty to
exercise their judgments upon the law, as well as the fact;
and if they have a clear conviction that the law is different
from what is stated to be by the court, the jury are bound, in
such cases, by the superior obligations of conscience, to
follow their own convictions. It is essential to the security
of personal rights and public liberty, that the jury should
have and exercise the power to judge both of the law and of
the criminal intent." Alexander Hamilton , from his
argument in the libel case People against Croswell, 3
Johns. Cas. 336. (1804): , id at 345, 346)
"The best we can hope
for concerning the people at large is that they be properly
armed." Alexander Hamilton,
Federalist No. 46
"There is not one syllable in the plan
under consideration which directly empowers the national
courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the
Constitution." Alexander Hamilton,
Federalist No. 81, May 28, 1788 (see The Founder's Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 165)
"There! His Majesty can
now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward
on my head!" attributed to John Hancock,
upon signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
(see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 147)
"Millions for defense,
but not once cent for tribute." Representative Robert
Goodloe Harper, Address, June 18,
1798, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 174)
"Are we at last brought
to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot
be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference
between having our arms in possession and under our direction,
and having them under the management of Congress? If our
defense 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,
J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State
Conventions, 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
"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,
The Debates in the Several State Conventions,
of the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,
J. Elliot,
45, 2d ed.
Philadelphia, 1836.
"Should I keep back my
opinions at such a time through fear of giving offense, I should consider
myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of
disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above
all earthly kings." Patrick Henry,
On the Resolution to Put the
Commonwealth into a State of Defense Before Virginia
Convention, March 23, 1775 (see
Early
American Orations, 1760-1824, MacMillan & Co., LTD, 1909,
p. 76)
"My hand trembles, but my heart does
not." attributed to Stephen Hopkins,
Rhode Island delegate, July 4, 1776 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 147)
Top
J
"The facts comprehended in the case
are agreed; the only point that remains, is to settle what is
the law of the land arising from those facts; and on that
point, it is proper, that the opinion of the court should be
given. It is fortunate, on the present, as it must be on every
occasion, to find the opinion of the court unanimous: we
entertain no diversity of sentiment; and we have experienced
no difficulty in uniting in the charge, which it is my
province to deliver.
"It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen,
to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact,
it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the
province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that
by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution
of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon
yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well
as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other
occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that
respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on
the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges
of fact; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court
are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are
lawfully within your power of decision." John Jay,
first Chief Justice, giving jury
instructions, speaking for a unanimous United States Supreme
Court, Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1 (1794)
"The boisterous sea of
liberty is never without a wave." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Richard Rush, October 20, 1820
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 171)
"The God who gave us
life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may
destroy, but cannot disjoin them." Thomas Jefferson,
A Summary View of the Rights of
British America, August 1774 (see
The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 172)
"Honor, justice, and
humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we
received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent
posterity have a right to receive from us." Thomas
Jefferson, Declaration of the
Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 172)
"I have sworn upon the
altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny
over the mind of men." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 205)
"The republican is the
only form of government which is not eternally at open or
secret war with the rights of mankind." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 194)
"Sometimes it is said
that man can not be trusted with government or himself. Can
he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we
found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history
answer this question." Thomas Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (see
The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 194)
"Where the press is
free and every man able to read, all is safe." Thomas
Jefferson, letter to Charles Yancey,
January 6, 1816 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 187)
"No government ought to
be without censors: & where the press is free, no one ever
will." Thomas Jefferson, letter
to George Washington, September 9, 1792 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 187)
"History by apprising [citizens] of
the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will
avail them of the experience of other times and other nations;
it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of
men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise
it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of
Virginia, Query XIV, 1787 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 159)
"Every government
degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.
The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe
depositories." Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIV, 1781 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 178)
"The great principles
of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them
requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of
government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do
your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail."
Thomas Jefferson,
A
Summary View of the Rights of British America,
1775 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 180)
"I leave to others the
sublime delights of riding in the storm, better pleased with
sound sleep & a warmer berth below it encircled, with the
society of neighbors, friends & fellow laborers of the earth
rather than with spies & sycophants... I have no ambition to
govern men. It is a painful and thankless office." Thomas
Jefferson, letter to John Adams,
December 28, 1796 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 180)
"An honest man can feel
no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow
citizens... There has never been a moment of my life in which
I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family,
my farm, my friends & books." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 181)
"All, too, will bear in
mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the
majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful
must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal
rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be
oppression." Thomas Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (see
The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 196)
"All eyes are opened,
or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the
light of science has already laid open to every view the
palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born
with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and
spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger
C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 196)
"I consider trial by
jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a
government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to
Thomas Paine, 1789
"I know no safe
depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the
people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their
discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses
of constitutional power." Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28,
1820 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 180)
"The great object of my
fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever
acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining
ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing
insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that
which feeds them.... It has long, however, been my opinion,
and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ
of dissolution of our federal government is in the
constitution of the federal Judiciary; ...working like gravity
by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little
tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over
the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.... The
judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers
and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the
foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing
our Constitution from a coordination of a general and special
government to a general and supreme one alone." Thomas
Jefferson, The Federalist Brief,
13 May 2002, Federalist No. 02-20
I never submitted the
whole system of my opinion to the creed of any party of men
whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in
anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself.
Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral
agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would
not go there at all. Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Francis Hopkinson in 1789
"May it
[the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I
believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later,
but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the
chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had
persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings
and security of self-government. That form which we have
substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise
of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or
opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light
of science has already laid open to every view the palpable
truth, that the mass of mankind has
not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few
booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the
grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others."
Thomas Jefferson,
Letter from Thomas Jefferson
to Roger C. Weightman, Monticello, June 24, 1826
"At the establishment of our
constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the
most helpless and harmless members of the government.
Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to
become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means
provided for their removal gave them a freehold and
irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to
concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by
the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless,
become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the
foundations of the constitution, and working its change by
construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible
and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its
substance." Thomas Jefferson,
letter
to Monsieur A. Coray, October 31, 1823 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, pp. 166-167)
"This was the object of the
Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles,
or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say
things which had never been said before; but to place before
mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and
firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in
the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming
at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from
any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an
expression of the American mind, and to give to that
expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the
occasion." Thomas Jefferson, letter to
Henry Lee, May 8, 1825 (see The Founder's Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, pp. 147-148)
"The aspect of our politics has
wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble
love of liberty and republican government which carried us
triumphantly thro' the war, an Anglican, monarchical and
aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to
draw over us the substance as they have already done the forms
of the British government. The main body of our citizens
however remain true to their republican principles, the whole
landed interest is with them, and so is a great mass of
talents. Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out
of three branches of the legislature, all of the officers of
the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who
prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty,
British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals,
speculators and holders in the banks and public funds a
contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption and for
assimilating us in all things, to the rotten as well as the
sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever
were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to
these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons
in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the
harlot England. In short we are likely to preserve the liberty
we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we
shall preserve them, and our mass of weight and wealth on the
good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will
ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap
the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us
during the first sleep which succeeded our labors."
Thomas Jefferson,
letter
to his former neighbor, Philip Mazzei,
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 29: 1 March 1796 to
31 December 1797
(Princeton University Press, 2002), 81-3
"A morsel of genuine history is a
thing so rare as to be always valuable."
Thomas Jefferson,
letter to John Adams, September 8, 1817 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 153)
"Equal and exact justice to all men,
of whatever persuasion, religious or political."
Thomas
Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 167)
"The clergy
believe
that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will
be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe
rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in
their opinion." Thomas Jefferson
to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
"And what country can
preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time
to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Thomas Jefferson,
letter to William S. Smith in 1787.
Taken from Jefferson, On
Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939
"Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
Thomas Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 163)
"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
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." Thomas
Jefferson,
Notes on the State of
Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781 (see The Founder's Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 156)
"On every question of construction (of
the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when
the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested
in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be
squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to
the probable one in which it was passed."
Thomas
Jefferson, letter
to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p.
322)
"No Free man shall ever be debarred
the use of arms."
Thomas
Jefferson,
Proposal to Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers,
334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]
"And what country can preserve its
liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that
this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take
arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to
time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Thomas
Jefferson, letter
to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from
Jefferson, On
Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939
"A strong body makes the mind strong.
As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this
gives 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 of your walks."
Thomas
Jefferson,
Encyclopedia of T. Jefferson, 318 [Foley, Ed., reissued
1967]; Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785.
The Writings
of Thomas Jefferson, [Memorial Edition] Lipscomb and
Bergh, editors
"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
James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787, in
Papers of Jefferson,
ed. Boyd et al.
"Laws that forbid the carrying of
arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse
for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve
rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed
man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed
man."
Thomas
Jefferson,
"Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from
On Crimes and
Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764
"We established however some, although
not all, its [self-government] important principles. The
constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is
inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by
themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves
competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and
legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all
judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may
act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is
their right and duty to be at all times armed
"
Thomas
Jefferson,
to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial
Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors
"But it proves more
forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a
soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and
must be that of every free State. Where there is no oppression
there will be no pauper hirelings." Thomas
Jefferson,
in an 1813 letter to
James Monroe
"We must train and
classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military
instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can
never be safe till this is done." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to James Monroe, June 18, 1813
"The Greeks by their
laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care
to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of
oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every
man [sic] a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard
of his country whenever that was reared. This made them
invincible; and the same remedy will make us so."
Thomas Jefferson,
letter to
Thomas Cooper ,
September 10, 1814
"An
elective
despotism was not the
government we fought for; but one which should not only be
founded on free principles, but in which the powers of
government should be so divided and balanced among several
bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their
legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained
by the others."
Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 13, 120-21, 1784 (see
The Founders' Constitution,
Volume 1, Chapter 10, Document 9,
The University of Chicago Press.
"If we are directed from Washington
when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
Thomas Jefferson,
Autobiography,
1821 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 153)
"When all government, domestic and
foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to
Washington as the center of all power, it will render
powerless the checks provided of one government on another."
Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Charles
Hammond, August 18, 1821 (see The Founder's Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 153)
"A wise and frugal government... shall
restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them
otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
Thomas Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 157)
"The spirit of resistance to
government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it
to be always 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, February 22, 1787 (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 158)
"The opinion which gives to the judges
the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not,
not only for themselves, in their own sphere of action, but
for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would
make the Judiciary a despotic branch." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804
(see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 165)
"We lay it down as a fundamental, that
laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that,
without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct,
founded in force, and not in conscience." Thomas
Jefferson,
Notes on the State of
Virginia, 1782 (see The Founder's Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 169)
"Laws are made for men of ordinary
understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the
ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be
sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything
mean everything or nothing at pleasure." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to William Johnson, Jule 12, 1823 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 169)
"One single object... [will merit] the
endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the
judges from usurping legislation." Thomas Jefferson,
letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825
(see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 165)
"Is it the Fourth?" Thomas
Jefferson,
last words on the evening of
July 3, 1826; he died the following morning (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 168)
"I have not yet begun
to fight!" Captain John Paul Jones, response to the enemies' demand to surrender,
September 23, 1779, (see The Founder's Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 144)
Top
M
"There is no maxim in
my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which
therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the
interest of the majority is the political standard of right
and wrong.... In fact it is only reestablishing under another
name a more specious form, force as the measure of right...."
James Madison, letter to James Monroe, October 5, 1786
(see The Founders Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 177)
"Government
is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that
which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which
the term particularly expresses. This being the end of
government, that alone is a
just government, which
impartially
secures to every man, whatever is his
own."
James Madison,
Property 29 Mar. 1792, Papers 14:266-68,
quoted in
The Founders' Constitution,
Volume 1, Chapter
16, Document 23,
The
University of Chicago Press
"In Europe, charters of
liberty have been granted by power. America has set the
example... of charters of power granted by liberty. This
revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest
praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its
history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness."
James Madison, essay in The
National Gazette, January 18, 1792 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 173)
"The accumulation of
all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same
hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary,
self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very
definition of tyranny." James Madison, Federalist No. 48, February 1, 1788 (see The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 198)
"A dependence on the
people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government;
but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary
precautions." James Madison,
Federalist No. 51, February 6, 1788 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 198)
"Is there no virtue
among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No
theoretical checksno form of government can render us secure.
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or
happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical
idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the
community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men.
So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in
our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them."
James Madison, speech to the
Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788 (see The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 208)
"An elective despotism
was not the government we fought for; but one in which the
powers of government should be so divided and balanced among
the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could
transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked
and restrained by the others." James Madison, Federalist No. 58, February 20, 1788 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 198)
"Enlightened statesmen
will not always be at the helm." James Madison,
Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 180)
"All men having power
ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." James
Madison, speech at the
Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 184)
"It is a principle
incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace
is better than war, war is better than tribute." James
Madison, letter to the Dey of
Algiers, August 1816 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 209)
"The essence of
Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human
hands, will ever be liable to abuse." James Madison,
speech at the Virginia Constitutional
Convention, December 2, 1829 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 185)
"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,
essay in the National Gazette, March 27, 1792 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 185)
"The right of freely
examining public characters and measures, and of free
communication among the people thereon... has ever been justly
deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right."
James Madison, Virginia Resolutions,
December 21, 1798 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 187)
"A universal peace, it
is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will
never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers,
or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." James
Madison, essay in The National
Gazette, February 2, 1792 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 175)
"Government is
instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that
which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which
the term particularly expresses. This being the end of
government, that alone is a just government which impartially
secures to every man whatever is his own." James Madison,
Essay on Property, March 29, 1792 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 188)
"Conscience is the most
sacred of all property." James Madison,
Essay on Property, March 29, 1792 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 192)
"Religious bondage
shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every
noble enterprise, every expanded prospect." James Madison,
letter to William Bradford, April 1,
1774 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 192)
"In a word, as a man is
said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said
to have a property in his rights." James Madison,
Essay on Property, March 29, 1792
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 195)
"It is the duty of
every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only
as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is
precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation,
to the claims of Civil Society." James Madison,
Memorial and Remonstrance Against
Religious Assessments, circa June 20, 1785 (see
The
Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 193)
"Conscience
is the most sacred of all property; other property depending
in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural
and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle,
to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact
faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is
more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt
of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the
very nature and original conditions of the social pact."
James Madison ,
James Madison, Property 29 Mar. 1792, Papers 14:266-68, quoted
in
The Founders' Constitution,
Volume 1, Chapter 16,
Document 23, The University of Chicago Press
"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. In framing a government which is to be administered
by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must
first enable the government to control the governed; and in
the next place, oblige it to control itself."
James
Madison,
Federalist No. 51, February 8,
1788 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 158)
"It has been said that all Government
is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity
of any Government is a misfortune. this necessity however
exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of
Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least
imperfect." James Madison,
letter to
an unidentified correspondent, 1833 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 157-158)
"Refusing or not refusing to execute a
law to stamp it with its final character... makes the
Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature,
which was never intended and can never be proper." James
Madison,
letter to John Brown, October 1788
(see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 165)
"During almost fifteen
centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on
trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places,
pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in
the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution...
What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments
had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect
a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on
many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of
political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians
of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the
public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient
auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and
perpetuate it, needs them not. James Madison,
Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious
Assessments, 1785
"The diversity in the faculties of men
from which the rights of property originate, is not less an
insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The
protection of these faculties is the first object of
government." James Madison,
Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 157)
"With
respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded
them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them.
To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a
metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there
is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.
James Madison,
1831
"As there is a degree of depravity in
mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and
distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which
justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican
government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a
higher degree than any other form."
James Madison,
Federalist No. 55, February 15, 1788 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 161)
Ambition must be made to counteract
ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the
constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on
human nature that such devices should be necessary to control
the abuses of government. What is government itself but the
greatest of all reflections on human nature?
James
Madison,
Federalist No. 51, February 8,
1788 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding,
The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 161)
"Democracies have ever been spectacles
of turbulence and contention; have ever been found
incompatible with personal security, or the rights of
property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives
as they have been violent in their deaths." James Madison,
Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 148)
"Of all the enemies to
liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it
comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the
parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and
armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for
bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war,
too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its
influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is
multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added
to those of subduing the force, of the people...." James
Madison, The Most Dreaded Enemy
of Liberty
"The powers delegated by the proposed
Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.
Those which are to remain in the State governments are
numerous and indefinite."
James Madison,
Federalist No. 45, January 26, 1788 (see The
Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 154)
"I acknowledge in the ordinary course
of government, that the exposition of the laws and
constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know,
upon what principle it can be contended, that any one
department draws from the constitution greater powers than
another, in marking out the limits of the powers of the
several departments."
James Madison,
speech before the House of Representatives, June 17, 1789 (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 166)
"Justice is the end of government. It
is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be
pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the
pursuit." James Madison,
Federalist
No. 51, February 8, 1788 (see The Founder's Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 167)
"A delegation of such
powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the
fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well
organized and well checked governments. The separation of the
power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely
contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the
sake of its being conducted." James Madison,
Letters and Other Writings of James Madison
"Nothing so strongly
impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as
the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people,
from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their
burdens." George Mason, speech
to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 180)
"...Civil government is constituted
for the good of the people, and not the people for
government." Moses Mather,
America's
Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons
of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 446)
"Free agency, or
rational existence, with its powers and faculties, and freedom
of enjoying and exercising them, is the gift of God to man.
The right of the donor, and the authenticity of the donation,
are both incontestable; hence man hath an absolute property
in, and right of dominion over himself, his powers and
faculties; with self-love to stimulate, and reason to guide
him, in the free use and exercise of them, independent of, and
uncontrolable by any but him, who created and gave them. And
whatever is acquired by the use, and application of a man's
faculties, is equally the property of that man, as the
faculties by which the acquisitions are made; and that which
is absolutely the property of man, he cannot be divested of,
but by his own voluntary act, or consent, either expressed, or
implied. Expressed by actual gift, sale, or exchange, by
himself, or his lawful substitute: implied, as where a man
enters into, and takes the benefits of a government, he
implicitly consents to be subject to it's laws; so, when he
transgresses the laws, there is an implied consent to submit
to it's penalties. And from this principle, all the civil
exousiai, or rightful authorities, that are ordained of god,
and exist in the world, are derived as from their native
source. From whence are authorities, dominions, and powers?
from God, the sovereign ruler, as the fountain, through the
voice and consent of the people. For what purpose are they
erected? for the good of the people. Wherefore the
sovereign ruler, condescends to cloath, with authority, the
man who by the general voice, is exalted, from among the
people, to bear rule; and to pronounce him his minister for
their good. Hence, it is evident, that man hath the clearest
right, by the most indefeasible title, to personal security,
liberty, and private property. And whatever is a man's own, he
hath, most clearly, a right to enjoy and defend; to repel
force by force; to recover what is injuriously pillaged or
plundered from him, and to make reasonable reprisals for the
unjust vexation." Moses Mather, America's Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775
(see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 444-445)
"I have not noticed the
authority of parents over children, it not being to the
argument, but remark, that the Creator, foreseeing the
necessity of civil government, arising from the depravity of
human nature, hath wisely formed our infancy, and childhood,
feeble and dependent on the protection, and government of
parents, thereby preparing us, in childhood, for dependence
on, and subjection to civil government, in manhood."
Moses Mather, America's Appeal to
the Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons of the
American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 445)
"As it is not the laws
merely, that are made, considered in themselves, but the
construction and sense put upon them, by the judges and
triers, that falls upon the subject that affects him in his
person and property; it was necessary that the [English]
constitution should guard the rights of the subject, in the
executive as well as the legislative part of government: And
no mode of trial would so effectually do this, be so
unexceptionable, by reason of their equality, and the
impartial manner in which they are taken and impanelled; so
advantageous, on account of their knowledge of the parties,
the credibility of the witnesses, and what weight ought to be
given to their testimony, as that by our peers, a jury of the
vicinity: For very good and wholesome laws may be perniciously
executed. Wherefore it is expresly provided and ordained, in
the Great Charter, chap. 29, 'That no freeman shall be taken
or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs,
or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; and we
will not pass sentence upon him, nor condemn him, but by
lawful judgment of his peers; or by the laws of the land.' By
this no freeman might be molested in his person, liberty or
estate, but according to the laws of the land, by lawful
warrant, granted by lawful authority, expressing the cause for
which, the time when, and place where he is to answer or be
imprisoned, with the terms of his enlargement; nor have
sentence passed upon him in any case, but by lawful judgment
of his peers; who, in the instance of giving their verdict, do
unanimously declare and announce the law, with respect to
themselves, in like circumstances. It is, says Dr. Blackstone,
the most transcendant privilege which 'any subject can enjoy
or wish for, that he cannot be affected in his property, his
liberty or person, but by the unanimous consent of twelve of
his neighbors and equals: And when a celebrated French writer
concludes, that because Rome, Sparta, and Carthage, lost their
libertis, therefore England must in time lose theirs, he
should have recollected, that Rome, Sparta, and Carthage were
strangers to trial by jury; and that it is a duty which every
man owes to his country, his friends, his posterity and
himself, to maintain, to the utmost of his power, this
valuable constitution in all its parts, to restore it to its
antient dignity, if at all impaired, or deviated from its
first institutions, &c. and above all, to guard with the most
jealous circumspection, against the introduction of new and
arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of
plausible pretences, may in time, imperceptably undermine this
best preservative of English liberties." Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World,
1775 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 444-449)
"The English, animated
with the spirit of freedom, to their immortal honor, anciently
claimed these privileges, as their unalienable rights; and
anxious to preserve and transmit them unimpaired to posterity;
caused them to be reduced to writing, and in the most solemn
manner to be recognized, ratified and confirmed, first by King
John, then by his son Henry the IIId. In the 3d and 37th years
of his reign, at Wesminster-Hall, where Magna Charta was read
in the presence of the nobility and bishops, with lighted
candles in their hands; the king, all the while laying his
hand on his breast, at last, solemnly swearing faithfully and
inviolably to observe all things therein contained, as he was
a man, a christian, a soldier and a king; then the bishops
extinguished the candles and threw them on the ground, and
every one said, thus let him be extinguished and stink in
hell, who violates this charter." Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World,
1775 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 447)
"As there are certain
rights of men, which are inalienable even by themselves; and
others which they do not mean to alienate, when they enter
into civil society. And as power is naturally restless,
aspiring and insatiable; it therefore becomes necessary in all
civil communities (either at their first formation or by
degrees) that certain great principles be settled and
established, determining and bounding the power and
prerogative of the ruler, ascertaining and securing the rights
and liberties of the subject, as the foundation stamina of the
government; which in all civil states is called the
constitution, on the certainty and permanency of which, the
rights of both the ruler and the subjects depend; nor may they
be altered or changed by ruler or people, but by the whole
collective body, or a major part at least, nor may they be
touched by the legislator; for the moment that alters
essentially the constitution, it annihilates its own
existence, its constitutional authority. Not only so, but on
supposition the legislator might alter it; for could the
British parliament alter the original principles of the
constitution, the people might be deprived of their liberties
and properties, and the parliament become absolute and
perpetual; and for redress in such case, should it ever
happen, they must resort to their native rights, and be
justified in making insurrection. For when the constitution is
violated, they have no other remedy; but for all other wrongs
and abuses that may possibly happen, the constitution
remaining inviolate, the people have a remedy thereby."
Moses Mather, America's Appeal to
the Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons of the
American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 456-457)
"...He that hath right
to take one penny of my property, without my consent, hath
right to take all... For power is entire and indivisible; and
property is single and pointed as an atom. All is our's, and
nothing can be taken from us, but by our consent; or nothing
is our's, and all may be taken, without our consent. The right
of dominion over the persons and properties of others, is not
natural but derived; and there are but two sources from whence
it can be derived; from the almighty, who is the absolute
proprietor of all, and from our own free consent." Moses
Mather, America's Appeal to the
Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons of the
American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 474)
"And can it be a crime
to resist? Is it not a duty we owe to our maker, to our
country, to ourselves and to posterity?" Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World,
1775 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 481)
"My countrymen, we have
every thing to fear, from the malignity, power and cunning of
our adversaries. Yet, from the justness of our cause, the
greatness of our numbers and resources, the unanimity of our
hearts, cemented by interest and by perils; the bravery, and
what's more, the desperateness of our spirits; who think not
life worth saving, when all that is dear in life is gone, we
have reason to be afraid of nothing. For your animation, hear
the advice and lamentation of a French gentleman, Monsieur
Mezeray, over the lost liberties of his country, to an English
subject: 'We had once in France, the same happiness and the
same privileges, which you now have. Our laws were made by
representatives of our own choosing; therefore our money was
not take from us, but granted by us. Our kings, were then
subject to the rules of law and reason. Now alas! we are
miserable and all is lost. Think nothing sir, too dear to
maintain these precious advantages, if ever there should be
occasion; venture your life and estate, rather than basely
submit to that abject condition to which you see us reduced."
Moses Mather, America's Appeal
to the Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons of the
American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 482)
"Civil society, is
allowed by all to be the greatest temporal blessing; and civil
government is absolutely necessary to its subsistence; it is a
temporal remedy, against the ill effects of general depravity;
and because the introduction of moral evil has made it
necessary; it is not therefore a necessary evil. Liberty
consists in a power of acting under the guidance and controul
of reason: Licentiousness in acting under the influence of
sensual passions, contrary to the dictates of reason; whilst
we contend for the former, we ought to bear testimony against
the latter: And whilst we point out arguments against the
errors and abuses of government, we ought cautiously to
distinguish between government and its abuses; to amputate the
latter, without injuring the former, and not indifferently
charge both; lest we raise and army of rebel spirits more
dangerous and difficult to reduce, than all the legions of
Britain." Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775 (see
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805,
vol. 1, p. 486)
"If the people have
lost their liberties, suffered themselves to be bought and
sold, like beasts of burden, the fault is theirs and their
corrupters." Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775 (see
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805,
vol. 1, p. 487)
"The strength and
spring of every free government, is the virtue of the people;
virtue grows on knowledge, and knowledge on education."
Moses Mather, America's Appeal to
the Impartial World, 1775 (see Political Sermons of the
American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 487)
"The only way to make
men good subjects of a rational and free government, is to
make them wise and virtuous; but such a government as this is
utterly incompatible with the idea of slavery, because
incompatible with a state of ignorance." Moses Mather,
America's Appeal to the Impartial World,
1775 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 488)
"A lady asked Dr. Franklin, 'Well,
Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?' 'A
republic,' replied the Doctor, 'if you can keep it.'" as told
by James McHenry,
Constitutional
Convention delegate, anecdote from Farrand's Records of the
Federal Convention of 1787 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 194)
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"One of the mose
essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's
house. A man's house is his castle." James Otis,
On the Writs of Assistance, 1761 (see The Founder's Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 188)
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"Perhaps the sentiments contained in
the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to
procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a
thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being
right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in
defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides.
Time makes more converts than reason."
Thomas Paine,
Common Sense, Introduction
"When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
Thomas Paine,
Common Sense, 1776 (see The Founders' Almanac,
by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 206)
"The nearer any government approaches
to a republic the less business there is for a king."
Thomas Paine,
Common Sense, 1776
"Society in every state is a blessing,
but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary
evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one; for we suffer or
are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we
might expect in a country without government, our calamity is
heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we
suffer." Thomas Paine (1737-1809),
Common Sense, Chapter 1 (1776)
"Some men have naturally a military
turn, and can brave hardships and the risk of life with a
chearful face; others have not, no slavery appears to them so
great as the fatigue of arms, and no terror so powerful as
that of personal danger: What can we say? We cannot alter
nature, neither ought we to punish the son because the father
begot him in a cowardly mood. However, I believe most men have
more courage than they know of, and that a little at first is
enough to begin with. I knew the time when I thought that the
whistling of a cannon ball would have frightened me almost to
death; but I have since tried it, and find I can stand it with
as little discomposure, and (I believe) with a much easier
conscience than your Lordship." Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number II, Jan. 13, 1777
(addressed to Lord Howe, general of the British occupation of
America)
"...The sin of that day was the sin of
Civility, yet it operated against our present good in the same
manner that a civil opinion of the devil would against our
future peace." Thomas Paine,
(speaking of America's hesitation to war with England),
The American Crisis, Number III, Apr. 19, 1777
"...We ought not so much to ground our
hope on the reasonableness of the thing we ask, as on the
reasonableness of the person of whom we ask it: Who would
expect discretion from a fool, candor from a tyrant, or
justice from a villain?" Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number III, Apr. 19, 1777
"The nearer any disease approaches to
a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure: Danger and deliverance
make their advances together, and it is only at the last push,
that one or the other takes the lead." Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number IV, Sep. 12, 1777
"We are not the hireling slaves of a
beggarly tyrant, nor the cringing flatterers of an infamous
court. We are not moved by the gloomy smile of a worthless
king, but by the ardent glow of generous patriotism. We fight,
not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room
upon the earth for honest men to live in. In such as cause we
are sure we are right; and we leave to you the despairing
reflection of being the tool of a miserable tyrant."
Thomas Paine to British General Howe,
The American Crisis, Number IV, Sep. 12, 1777
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number I,
December 19, 1776
"Those who expect to reap the
blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of
supporting it." Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number IV,
September 11, 1777 (see The Founders' Almanac, by
Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 174)
"
For sense of pain is the first
symptom of recovery in profound stupefactions."
Thomas
Paine,
The American Crisis, Number V, March 21, 1778, as
found in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 162
"If you openly profess
yourselves savages, it is high time we should treat you as
such, and if nothing but distress can recover you to reason,
to punish will become an office of charity." Thomas Paine,
The American Crisis, Number VI, Oct. 20, 1778
"
Our minds seem to be measured by
countries when we are men, as they are by places, when we are
children, and until something happens to disentangle us from
the prejudice, we serve under it without perceiving it."
Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number VIII, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 228
"It was not Newton's honor, neither could it be his pride,
that he was an Englishman, but that he was a philosopher: The
Heavens had liberated him from the prejudices of an island,
and science had expanded his soul as boundless as his
studies." Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number VIII, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 229.
"
There are men in all countries to whom a state of war is
a mine of wealth, is a fact never to be doubted. Characters
like these naturally breed in the putrefaction of distempered
times." Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number VIII, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 227
"When nothing can be lost by a war, but what must be lost
without it, war is then the policy of that country; and such
was the situation of America at the commencement of
hostilities: But when no security can be gained by a war, but
what may be accomplished by a peace, the case becomes
reversed, and such now is the situation of England."
Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number VIII, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 226
"When the tumult of war shall cease, and the tempest of
present passions be succeeded by calm reflection, or when
those who surviving its fury, shall inherity from you a legacy
of debts and misfortunes, when the yearly revenue shall
scarcely be able to discharge the interest of the one, and no
possible remedy be left for the other; ideas, far different to
the present, will arise, and embitter the remembrance of
former follies." Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number VIII, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, pp. 226-227
"...In this country every man is
a militia man..."
Thomas Paine,
The Crisis, Number iX, February 26, 1780, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, pp. 233
"Despotic government supports
itself by abject civilization, in which debasement of the
human mind, and wretchedness in the mass of the people, are
the chief criterians. Such governments consider man
merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty
is not his privilege; that he has nothing to do with the
laws, but to obey them;* and they politically depend more
upon breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than they
fear enraging it by desperation."
Thomas Paine,
Agrarian Justice, Spring 1797, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 410 (*Expression
of Horsley, an English Bishop, in the English parliament.)
"An army of principles will penetrate where an army of
soldiers cannot — It will succeed where diplomatic
management would fail — It is neither the Rhine, the
Channel, nor the Ocean, that can arrest its progress —
It will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer."
Thomas Paine,
Agrarian Justice, Spring 1797, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 411
"When it shall be said in any country in the world, my
poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found
among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of
beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not
oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the
friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then
may that country boast its constitution and its government."
Thomas Paine,
Agrarian Justice, Spring 1797, as found
in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 411
"Every age and
generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases,
as the ages and generations that preceded it. The vanity
and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most
ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no
property in man; neither has any generation a property in the
generations which are to follow... It is the living, and not
the dead, that are to be accommodated." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I, as found in
Thomas Paine
Collected Writings, p. 438
"Those who are not in the
representation, know as much of the nature of business as
those who are
Every man is a proprietor in government, and
considers it a necessary part of his business to understand.
It concerns his interest, because it affects his property. He
examines the cost, and compares it with the advantages; and
above all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following
what in other governments are called LEADERS
The government
of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the persons,
but in the laws. The enacting of those requires no great
expence; and when they are administered, the whole of civil
government is performed the rest is all court contrivance."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"Government with insolence, is
despotism; but when contempt is added, it becomes worse; and
to pay for contempt, is the excess of slavery." Thomas
Paine,
Rights of Man
"If the present generation, or any
other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right
of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a
legal descent." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"The more perfect a civilization is,
the less occasion has it for government, because the more does
it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so
contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of
the case, that the expences of them increase in the proportion
they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that
civilized life requires, and those of such common usefulness,
that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or
not, the effect will be nearly the same." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"Principles must stand on their own
merits, and if they are good they certainly will. To put
them under the shelter of other men's authority... serves to
bring them into suspicion." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"A body of men holding themselves
accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by any body."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"Persecution is not an original
feature in any religion; but it is always the
strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions
established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every
religion reassumes its original benignity." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"...The idea of hereditary legislators
is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary
juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an
hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary
poet-laureat." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"Through all the vocabulary of Adam,
there is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can
we connect any certain idea to the words. Whether they mean
strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or
the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect
then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which
means nothing?" Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"War is common harvest of all those
who participate in the division and expenditure of public
money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering
at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and
as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must
be made for expenditures. In reviewing the history of
the English government, its wars and its taxes, a stander-by,
not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by interest, would
declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that
wars were raised to carry on taxes." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"...The portion of liberty enjoyed in
England, is just enough to enslave a country by, more
productively than by despotism; and that as the real object of
all despotism is revenue, that a government so formed obtains
more than it could either by direct despotism, or in a full
state of freedom, and is, therefore, on the ground of
interest, opposed to both. They account also for the
readiness which always appears in such governments for
engaging in wars, by remarking on the different motives which
produce them. In despotic governments, wars are the
effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become
the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent
promptitude." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"
A Government may be
in a state of insolvency, and a Nation rich."
Thomas
Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
Miscellaneous Chapter
"What
England is now doing by paper, is what she would have been
able to have done by solid money, gold and silver had come
into the nation in the proportion it ought, or had not been
sent out; and she is endeavouring to restore by paper, the
balance she has lost by money
High taxes not only lessen the
property of the individuals, but they lessen also the
money-capitol of a nation, by inducing smuggling, which can
only be carried on by gold and silver."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
Miscellaneous Chapter
"Man did
not enter into society to become
worse than he was
before, nor to have less rights than he had before, but to
have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the
foundation of all his civil rights."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
1791, as found in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p.
464.
"
Individuals themselves,
each in his own personal and sovereign right,
entered into
a compact with each other to produce a government: and
this is the only mode in which governments have a right to
arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to
exist." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
1791, as found in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p.
467.
"When a man in a long cause
attempts to steer his course by any thing else than some polar
truth or principle, he is sure to be lost. It is beyond the
compass of his capacity, to keep all the parts of an argument
together, and make them unite in one issue, by any other means
than having this guide always in view. Neither memory nor
invention will supply the want of it. The former fails him,
and the latter betrays him."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
Miscellaneous Chapter
"The
revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light
over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expence
of governments have provoked people to think, by making them
feel: and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of
repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, and
it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a
thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and
though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be
made
ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same
manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when
once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the
mind back to the same condition it was before it saw it."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
Miscellaneous Chapter
"A constitution is a
thing antecedent to a government, and a government is
only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a
country is not the act of its government, but of the people
constituting a government."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I,
1791, as found in Thomas Paine Collected Writings, pp.
467-468
"...For a nation to love liberty, it
is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is
sufficient that she wills it."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part I, as found in Thomas
Paine Collected Writings, p. 442
"The revolution of America presented
in politics what was only theory in mechanics. So deeply
rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so
effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit
established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be
made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to reform the political
condition of man. Freedom had been hunted round the globe;
reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear
had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible
nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the
liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to
distinguish him from darkness, and no sooner did the American
governments display themselves to the world, than despotism
felt a shock, and man began to contemplate redress."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man
"Their power being thus established,
the chief of the band contrived to lose the name of Robber in
that of Monarch; and hence the origin of Monarchy and Kings...
What at first was plunder, assumed the softer name of revenue;
and the power originally usurped, they affected to inherit."
Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter II
"Hereditary succession requires the
same obedience to ignorance, as to wisdom; and when once the
mind can bring itself to pay this indiscriminate reverence, it
descends below the stature of mental manhood." Thomas
Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter II
"All delegated power is trust, and all
assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature
and quality of either." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter IV
"Almost every case now must be
determined by some precedent, be that precedent good or bad,
or whether it properly applies or not; and the practice is
become so general, as to suggest a suspicion, that it proceeds
from a deeper policy than at first sight appears... This
preaching up of the doctrine of precedents, drawn from times
and circumstances antecedent to those events, has been the
studied practice of the English government. The generality of
those precedents are founded on principles and opinions, the
reverse of what they ought; and the greater distance of time
they are drawn from, the more they are to be suspected. But by
associating those precedents with a superstitious reverence
for ancient things, as monks shew relics and call them holy,
the generality of mankind are deceived into the design.
Governments now act as if they were afraid to awaken a single
reflection in man. They are softly leading him to the
sepulchre of precedents, to deaden his faculties and call his
attention from the scene of revolutions. They feel that he is
arriving at knowledge faster than they wish, and their policy
of precedents is the barometer of their fears. This political
popery, like the ecclesiastical popery of old, has had its
day, and is hastening to its exit. The ragged relic and the
antiquated precedent, the monk and the monarch, will moulder
together. Government by precedent, without any regard to the
principle of the precedent, is one of the vilest systems that
can be set up... Either the doctrine of precedents is policy
to keep man in a state of ignorance, or it is a practical
confession that wisdom degenerates in governments as
governments increase in age, and can only hobble along by the
stilts and crutches of precedents. How is it that the same
persons who would proudly be thought wiser than their
predecessors, appear at the same time only as the ghosts of
departed wisdom? How strangely is antiquity treated! To answer
some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and
ignorance, and to answer others, it is put for the light of
the world. If the doctrine of precedents, is to be followed,
the expences of government need not continue the same. Why pay
men extravagantly, who have but little to do? If every thing
that can happen is already in precedent, legislation is at an
end, and precedent, like a dictionary, determines every case.
Either, therefore, government has arrived at its dotage, and
requires to be renovated, or all the occasions for exercising
its wisdom have occurred. We now see all over Europe, and
particularly in England, the curious phaenomenon of a nation
looking one way, and a government the other the one forward
and the other backward. If governments are to go on by
precedent, while nations go on by improvement, they must at
last come to a final separation; and the sooner, and the more
civilly, they determine this point, the better." Thomas
Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter IV
"The sovereign authority in any
country is the power of making laws, and every thing else is
an official department." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter IV
"Revolutions, then, have for their
object, a change in the moral condition of governments, and
with this change the burthen of public taxes will lessen, and
civilization will be left to the enjoyment of that abundance,
of which it is now deprived." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"All this seems to shew that change of ministers amounts
to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still
the same measures, vices, and extravagance are pursued.
It signiffies not who his minister. The defect lies in
the system. The foundation and the superstructure of the
government is bad. Pro it as you please, it continually
sinks into court government, and ever will." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"When it shall be said in any country in the world, my
poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found
among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of
beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not
oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the
friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then
may that country boast its constitution and its government." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"If a government requires the support
of oaths, it is a sign that it is not worth supporting, and
ought not to be supported. Make government what it ought to
be, and it will support itself." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"It is not whether this or that party
shall be in or out, or whig or tory, or high or low shall
prevail; but whether man shall inherit his rights, and
universal civilization take place? Whether the fruits of his
labours shall be enjoyed by himself, or consumed by the
profligacy of governments?" Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"Public money ought to be touched with
the most scrupulous consciousness of honour. It is not the
produce of riches only, but of the hard earnings of labour and
poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want and
misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets,
whose mite is not in that mass." Thomas Paine,
Rights of Man, Part II, Chapter V
"The first
act of man, when he looked around and saw himself a creature
which he did not make, and a
world
furnished for his reception, must have been devotion; and
devotion must ever continue sacred to every individual man, as
it appears, right to him; and governments do mischief by
interfering."
Thomas Paine ,
Rights of Man, Footnote 10
"He that would make his
own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression;
for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." Thomas Paine,
Dissertation on First-Principles of
Government, December 23, 1791 (see
The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 172)
"
Notwithstanding that
I shall treat the subject seriously and sincerely, let me
promise that I consider myself at liberty to ridicule, as they
deserve, Monarchical absurdities, whensoever the occasion
shall present itself." Thomas Paine,
Letter "To the Abbe Sieyes", July 8, 1791, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 380
"
It is against all the hell of monarchy that I have
declared war." Thomas Paine,
Letter "To the Abbe Sieyes", July 8, 1791, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 381
"A tender law, therefore, cannot stand on the principles
of civil government, because it operates to take away a man's
share of civil and natural freedom, an to render property
insecure. If a man had a hundred silver dollars in his
possession, as his own property, it would be a strange law
that should oblige him to deliver them up to any one who could
discover that he possessed them, and take a hundred paper
dollars in exchange. Now the case, in effect, is exactly the
same; if he has lent a hundred hard dollars to his friend, an
is compelled to take a hundred paper ones for them. The
exchange is against his consent, and to his injury, and the
principles of civil government provides for the protection,
and not for the violation of his rights and property. The
state, therefore, that is under the operation of such an act,
is not in a state of civil government, and consequently the
people cannot be bound to obey a law which abets and
encourages treason against the first principles on which civil
government is founded. The principle of civil government
extend in their operation to compel the exact performance of
engagements entered into between man and man. The only kind of
legal tenders that can exist in a country under a civil
government is the particular thing expressed and specified in
those engagements or contracts. That particular thing
constitutes the legal tender." Thomas Paine,
"Attack on Paper Money Laws", November 3, 1786, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, pp. 364-365
"An assembly or legislature cannot punish a
man by any new law made after the crime is committed; he can
only be punished by the law which existed at the time he
committed the crime
In all cases of civil government the law
must be before the fact." Thomas Paine,
"Attack on Paper Money Laws", November 3, 1786, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 366
"I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in
the state I live in, or in the united states; kept myself at a
distance from all parties and party connections, and even
disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when we
take in to view the great work we have gone through, and feel,
as we ought to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then
see, that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of
personal party, are as dishonorable to our characters, as they
are injurious to our repose." Thomas Paine,
"Attack on Paper Money Laws", November 3, 1786, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, pp. 364-353
"...It is necessary to the
happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself.
Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving;
it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so
express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a
man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his
mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he
does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission
of every other crime."
Thomas Paine,
Age of Reason, Part First, Section I
"...The more unnatural
anything is, the more it is capable of becoming the object of
dismal admiration. But if objects for gratitude and
admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves
every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared
to receive us the instant we are born a world furnished to
our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the
sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with
abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the
universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings
they indicate in future, nothing to us?"
Thomas Paine,
Age of Reason, Part First, Section III
"O ye that love mankind! Ye that
dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand
forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with
oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.
Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards
her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to
depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an
asylum for mankind." Thomas Paine,
Common Sense, 1776
"I am a Farmer of thoughts, and as all the
crops I raise I give away, I please myself with making you
a present of the thoughts in this letter." Thomas Paine,
Portion of a Letter to Henry Laurens, as found in
Thomas Paine Collected Writings, p. 211
"Where liberty is not, that is my
home." attributed to Thomas Paine
"The people
themselves have it in their power effectually to resist
usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to arms. An
act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and
any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be
considered as a criminal by the general government, yet
only his fellow citizens can convict him; they are his
jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the
powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they
certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he
resisted was an act of usurpation." Theophilus
Parsons,
2 Elliot's Debates, 94; 2 Bancroft's History of the
Constitution, p. 267. Quoted in Sparf and Hansen v. U.S.,
156 U.S. 51 (1895), Dissenting Opinion: Gray, Shiras, JJ.,
144. (Note: Parsons was a leading supporter of the U.S.
Constitution in the 1788 Massachusetts convention.
He declined to accept President Adams' appointment to be
Attorney General of the United States in 1801. He
became Chief Justice of Massachusetts in 1806.)
"If a juror accepts as
the law that which the judge states then that juror has
accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government
employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was
the citizen's safeguard of liberty, For the saddest epitaph
which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it
was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a
saving hand while yet there was time." Theophilus Parsons,
2 Elliot's Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the
Constitution, 267, 1788.
"You must be single-minded. Drive for the one thing you have
decided. You will find that you will make some people
miserable; those you love and very often yourself. And, if it
looks like you are getting there, all kinds of people,
including some whom you thought were loyal friends will
suddenly show up and do their Goddamndest, hypocritical best
to trip you up, blacken you and break your spirit. Politicians
are the worst; they'll wear their country's flag in public,
but they'll use it to wipe their asses in the caucus room, if
they think it will gain them a vote." attributed to General
George S. Patton (1885-1945).
"My prison shall be my
grave before I will budge a jot, for I owe my conscience to no
mortal man."
William Penn,
from the Tower of London when imprisoned for preaching,
written on the wall of Welcome Park, dedicated to William
Penn, in Philadelphia
"If you would know God and worship and
serve God, you must come to the means He has given for that
purpose. Some seek it in books, some in learned men; but what
they look for is in themselves, though not of themselves; but
they overlook it."
William Penn,
written on the wall of Welcome Park, dedicated to William
Penn, in Philadelphia
"I do hereby grant and declare that no
person or persons inhabiting this province, or territories
shall be, in any case, molested or prejudiced in his or their
person or estate because of his or their conscientious
persuasion or practice, nor be compelled to frequent or
maintain any religious worship place or ministry contrary to
his or their mind."
William Penn,
Charter of Privileges, 1701, written on the wall of Welcome
Park, dedicated to William Penn, in Philadelphia
"For my country, I eyed the Lord in
obtaining it, and desire that I may not be unworthy of His
love; but do that, which may answer His kind Providence, and
serve His truth and people; THAT AN EXAMPLE MAY BE SET UP TO
THE NATIONS. THERE MAY BE ROOM THERE, THOUGH NOT HERE, FOR
SUCH AN HOLY EXPERIMENT."
William Penn,
written on the wall of Welcome Park, dedicated to William
Penn, in Philadelphia
"O Pennsylvania, what has thou not
cost me! Above E30,000 more than I ever got from it, two
hazardous and most fatiguing voyages, my straits and slavery
here, and my son's soul almost!"
William Penn,
to James Logan, 1704, written on the wall of Welcome Park,
dedicated to William Penn, in Philadelphia
"You are
English-men, mind your Privilege, give not away your
Right." William Penn, to the jury members who were
being imprisoned for refusing to render a guilty verdict in
his trial.
Read a
transcript of the trial. For more information, see our
Issue in Focus: Why Are Jury Trials Crucial to Your
Freedom?
"
Is this justice or true
Judgment? Must I therefore be taken away be cause I plead for
the Fundamental Laws of England? However, this I leave
upon your Consciences, who are of the Jury (and my sole
Judges) that if these Ancient Fundamental Laws, which relate
to Liberty and Property, and (are not limited to particular
Persuasions in Matters of Religion) must not be indispensibly
maintained and observed. Who can say he hath Right to the Coat
upon his Back? Certainly our Liberties are openly to be
invaded, our Wives to be ravished, our Children slaved, our
Families ruined, and our Estates led away in Triumph, by every
sturdy Beggar and malicious Informer, as their Trophies, but
our (pretended) Forfeits for Conscience sake. The Lord of
Heaven and Earth will be Judge between us in this Matter."
William Penn, to
court officials who were abusing his rights.
Read a
transcript of the trial. For more information, see our
Issue in Focus: Why Are Jury Trials Crucial to Your
Freedom?
"Let the people think they govern, and they will be
governed."
William Penn,
Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693
"
Good men do
not wish to be openly demanding payment
for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by
secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get
the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care
about honor. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and
they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment...
Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to
rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.
And fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take
office, not because they would, but because they can not help
not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit
or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they
are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is
better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason
to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men,
then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention
as to obtain office is at present
" Plato,
The Republic, as quoted in "The Republic and Other
Works," translated by B. Jowett, p. 31, ISBN: 0-385-09497-3.
"And at his [the unjust
man's] side let us place the just man in his nobleness and
simplicity, wishing, as Aeschylus says, to be and not to seem
good. There must be no seeming, for if he seems to be just he
will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall not know
whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of
honors and rewards; therefore, let him be clothed in justice
only, and have no other covering; and he must be imagined in a
state of life the opposite the former [i.e. the unjust man].
Let him be the best of men, and let him be thought the worst;
then he will have been put to the proof; and we shall see
whether he will be affected by the fear of infamy and its
consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death;
being just and seeming to be unjust. When both have reached
the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of
injustice, let judgment be given which of them is happier of
the two." Plato, The
Republic, as quoted in "The Republic and Other Works,"
translated by B. Jowett, p. 45, ISBN: 0-385-09497-3.
"
No one has ever
blamed injustice or praised justice
except with a view to the glories, honors, and benefits which
flow from them." Plato, The
Republic, as quoted in "The Republic and Other Works,"
translated by B. Jowett, p. 50, ISBN: 0-385-09497-3.
"I am afraid that there would be an impiety in
being present when justice is evil spoken of and not lifting
up a hand in her defence. And therefore I had best give such
help as I can." Plato, The
Republic, as quoted in "The Republic and Other Works,"
translated by B. Jowett, p. 52, ISBN: 0-385-09497-3.
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R
"I have no notion of
being hanged for half treason. When a subject draws his sword
against his prince, he must cut his way through, if he means
afterward to sit down in safety." Colonel Joseph Reed,
aide-de-camp to General Washington, to Mr. Pettit, September
29, 1775 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 145)
"Where there is no law, there is no
liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which
is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members
of the community." Benjamin Rush,
letter to David Ramsay, circa April 1788 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 169)
Top
S
"No free state was ever
yet enslaved and brought into bondage, where the people were
incessantly vigilant and watchful; and instantly took the
alarm at the first addition made to the power exercised over
them." Samuel Sherwood,
Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers, August 31, 1774 (see
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era,
1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 178)
"If any under pretence
of great moderation, or a pacific disposition, stand as
neuters in this important cause, skulking as behind the door,
and undetermined on which side they can serve themselves to
best advantage, sometimes appearing friendly to this party,
and sometimes to that; we can have no safe dependence on them
in a day of extremity. He that will not stand forth firmly and
boldly for this country, when exposed so as to need his help;
is no true friend to it." Samuel Sherwood, Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers, August
31, 1774 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding
Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 178)
"But notwithstanding
the sovereignty of legislators, they are under strict and
sacred obligations to observe the rule of justice, in enacting
laws. 'Tis a great and very dangerous mistake to suppose, that
legislators have a power absolutely arbitrary; or that their
authority is under no limitation or restraint at all. Right
and wrong, are founded in the nature of things; and cannot be
altered and changed, even by the voice of such kings and
monarchs as are betrusted with the power of making laws."
Samuel Sherwood, "Scriptural
Instructions to Civil Rulers," August 31, 1774 (see
Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805,
vol. 1, p. 388)
"Whenever a spirit of
despotism has run high, and a lusting ambition after arbitrary
power and lawless dominion has prevailed; when the dragon dare
venture to put on and wear his long horns; the woman in the
wilderness has felt the grievous distressing effects. At such
seasons, jesuitical emissaries, the tools of tyrannical power,
have been employed to corrupt her doctrines, and lead her into
the belief of the darling doctrines of arbitrary power,
passive obedience and nonresistance; who, like the frogs
that issued out of the mouth of the false prophet, who are
said to have the spirit of devils, have been slyly creeping
into all the holes and corners of the land, and using their
enchanting art and bewitching policy, to lead aside, the
simple and unwary, from the truth, to prepare them for the
shackles of slavery and bondage.
Samuel Sherwood, "The
Church's Flight into the Wilderness," a sermon preached by
Samuel Sherwood on January 17, 1776. John Hancock was a member
of the audience.
(see Political Sermons
of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 388)
"In a representative
government...there is no absurdity or contradiction, nor any
arraying of the people against themselves, in requiring that
the statutes or enactments of the government shall pass the
ordeal of any number of separate tribunals, before it shall be
determined that they are to have the force of laws. Our
American constitutions have provided five of these separate
tribunals, to wit, representatives, senate, executive...jury,
and judges; and have made it necessary that each enactment
shall pass the ordeal of all these separate tribunals, before
its authority can be established by the punishment of those
who choose to transgress it...there is no more absurdity in
giving a jury a veto upon the laws than there is in giving a
veto to each of these other tribunals." Lysander Spooner,
An Essay on the Trial by Jury, 1852.
Top
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"The more laws are
promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be."
Tao Te Ching, Chap. 57, as
translated by Arthur Waley
"How can a man be
satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it?
Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is
aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your
neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are
cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with
petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual
steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are
never cheated again. Action from principlethe perception and
the performance of rightchanges things and relations; it is
essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with
anything which was. It not only divides states and churches,
it divides families; ay, it divides the individual,
separating the diabolical in him from the divine."
Henry David Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience
"Unjust laws exist;
shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to
amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we
transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a
government as this, think that they ought to wait until they
have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if
they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil.
But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy
is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why
is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why
does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and
resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its
citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do
better than it would have them?..." Henry David
Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience
"Under a government
which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is
also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which
Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding
spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of
the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves
out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave,
and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to
plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that
separate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State
places those who are not with her, but against herthe
only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with
honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there,
and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that
they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not
know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much
more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who
has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole
vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A
minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is
not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs
by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just
men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not
hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay
their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and
bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the
State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in
fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is
possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer,
asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is,
"If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When
the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has
resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But
even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood
shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a
man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to
an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now."
Henry David Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience
"...When I came out of
prisonfor some one interfered, and paid that taxI did not
perceive that great changes had taken place on the common,
such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a
tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes
come over the scenethe town, and State, and countrygreater
than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more
distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent
the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good
neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer
weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right;
that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and
superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that in their
sacrifices to humanity, they ran no risks, not even to their
property; that after all they were not so noble but they
treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a
certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking
in a particular straight though useless path from time to
time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors
harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that
they have such an institution as the jail in their village."
Henry David Thoreau,
Civil Disobedience
Top
V
"It is
dangerous to be right in matters where established men are
wrong."
attributed to Francois Marie Arouet
Voltaire, 1694-1778
Top
W
"Guard against the
impostures of pretended patriotism." George Washington,
Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 176)
"The hour is fast
approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and
the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers
and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings
of Libertythat slavery will be your portion, and that of your
posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."
George Washington, General Orders,
August 23, 1776 (see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 177)
"Let me now take a more
comprehensive view, and worn you in the most solemn manner
against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party.... A fire
not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent
its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming, it should
consume." George Washington,
Farewell Address, September 19, 1796 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 183)
"There is but one
straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it
steadily." George Washington,
letter to Edmund Randolph, July 31, 1795 (see The Founders'
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 203)
"The preservation of
the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican
model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as
finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of
the American people." George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 194)
"Few men have virtue to
withstand the highest bidder." George Washington,
letter to Robert Howe, August 17, 1779
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 206)
"Against the insidious wiles of
foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow
citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly
awake; since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican
Government." George Washington,
Farewell Address, September 19, 1796 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 164)
"It is too probably
that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another
dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the
people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we
afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which
the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand
of God." George Washington, as
quoted by Gouveneur Morris, recorded in Farrand's Records of
the Federal Convention of 1787, March 25, 1787. (see
The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage
Foundation, 2002, p. 143)
"The great rule of
conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending
our commercial relations, to have with them as little
political connection as possible. So far as we have already
formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good
faith. Here let us stop." George Washington,
Collective Speeches of Congressman Louis T.
McFadden, Louis T. McFadden (Hawthorne, CA, Omni
Publications, 1970) 2.
"I have heard much of
the nefarious and dangerous plan and doctrines of the
Illuminati. It was not my intention to doubt that the doctrine
of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not
spread in the United States." George Washington,
U.S. George Washington Bicentennial
Commission, The Writings of George Washington Vol. 20
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1941), 518;
and Ralph Epperson, The Conspiratorial View of History
(Tucson: Epperson, 1986), 2.
"The
foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of
Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights
of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined,
than at any former period, the researches of the human mind,
after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent,
the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of
Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long
succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their
collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment
of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters,
the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive
refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment,
and above all, the pure and benign light of Revelation, have
had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the
blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United
States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens
should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be
intirely their own."
George Washington,
Circular to State Governments, June
8, 1783
"The bosom of America is open to
receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the
oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we
shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and
privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear
to merit the enjoyment."
George Washington,
Address to the Members of the Volunteer
Association of Ireland, December 2, 1783 (see The Founder's
Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation,
2002, p. 162)
"The virtues of men are
of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for
this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more
assiduity than the head." Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 207)
"Good intention will
always be pleaded for every assumption of power
[T]he
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,
quoted in "Perspective," The Freeman,
July 1993, p. 243
"Government, in my
humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the
exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every
government, which has not this in view, as its principal
object, is not a government of the legitimate kind."
James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791
(see The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 196)
"Without liberty, law
loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without
law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes
licentiousness." James Wilson,
Of
the Study of the Law in the United States, circa 1790
(see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The
Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 167)
"There is not a single
instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and
religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up
our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the
conscience into bondage." John Witherspoon,
The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions
of Men, 1776 (see
The Founders' Almanac, by Matthew
Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 192)
Top
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