A Wise and Frugal Government (In contrast to our unwise and wasteful Government)

• “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

• “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 as not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.” –James Wilson, Lectures on Laws, 1791

• “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, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.” – James Madison, National Gazette, March 1792, in The Papers of James Madison, vol. 14 ed. R.A. Rutland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 266.

• “It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot be separated.” –James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention, December 2, 1829

The Limitations of Government

• “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, Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788

• “I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition.” –Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, February 15, 1791

• “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
  –Thomas Jefferson, letter to E. Carrington, May 27, 1788

On Bearing Arms

• “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” –Second Amendment, United States Constitution

• “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” —Justice Joseph Story, “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States”, 1833

• “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” —Thomas Jefferson

• “It ought to be a law that people must have a gun in their homes. I know many fine police officers. But we can’t depend on the police to protect us anymore. The value of human life means nothing to [criminals]. If it had been my house [this thug] came in on, he would have wound up at Coulter Funeral Home.” –General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon (Chattanooga, TN) advising a female victim of a home invasion to buy a gun. [When seconds count, the police are only minutes away]

• “The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. … The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.” —James Madison

• “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!” —Sam Adams

• “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” —Benjamin Franklin

• “What is a left-wing socialist but a Marxist without a gun?” —Don Feder

The ultimate authority . . .

• “The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. … The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.” –James Madison
  

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms . . .

• “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” —Justice Joseph Story, “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” 1833
  

Insight from the original George W.

• “The Citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole Lords and Proprietors of a vast Tract of Continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the World, and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life, are now by the late satisfactory pacification, acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and Independency; They are, from this period, to be considered as the Actors on a most conspicuous Theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity; Here, they are not only surrounded with every thing which can contribute to the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, but Heaven has crowned all its other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness, than any other Nation has ever been favored with. Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations.” –George Washington, Circular to the States, 8 June 1783

Never to be idle . . .

• “Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing. And that you may be always doing good, my dear, is the ardent prayer of yours affectionately.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 5 May 1787

We have duties . . .

• “We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience.”  –Theophilus Parsons, the Essex Result, 1778

Beware the greedy hand of government

• “Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.” –Thomas Paine

Why all the alarms?

• The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. –H.L. Mencken