• “Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. … And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution … to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.” ~President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
  

• “The Founding Fathers established a system which meant a radical break from that which preceded it. A written constitution would provide a permanent form of government, limited in scope, but effective in providing both liberty and order. Government was not to be a matter of self-appointed rulers, governing by whim or harsh ideology. … To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world — nothing more and nothing less.” ~Ronald Reagan
  

• “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” ~James Madison
  

• “[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” ~Candidus, in the Boston Gazette, 1772
  

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“In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate — look to his character.” ~Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education, 1789

• “A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.” ~Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
  

• “It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.” ~Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
  

• “In a despotic government, the only principle by which the tyrant who is to move the whole machine means to regulate and manage the people is fear, by the servile dread of his power. But a free government, which of all others is far the most preferable, cannot be supported without virtue.” ~Samuel Williams
  

• “If the federal government should … make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people … must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” ~Alexander Hamilton
  

• “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, American Crisis, No. 1, 1776