- “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. … A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” –John Adams
Liberty must be supported . . .
Sad but true . . .
- “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” –Thomas Jefferson
“We should never despair . . .
- “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.” –George Washington, letter to Philip Schuyler, 1777
Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents . . .
- “Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.” –Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825
Dying a private citizen . . .
- “[T]he great Searcher of human hearts is my witness, that I have no wish, which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen on my own farm.” –George Washington, letter to Charles Pettit, 1788
Historical Insights
- “The malice of the wicked is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous” –British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
- “We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” –Irish novelist C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) “If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.” –author John “Birdman” Bryant (1943-2009)
- “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” –American author Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The safety of nations
- “The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite.” –Alexander Hamilton
The general welfare . . .
- “They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare…. [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.” –Thomas Jefferson
Made for each other . . .
- “This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.” –John Jay, Federalist No. 2
A democracy cannot exist . . .
- “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship” –Professor Alexander Tytler over 200 years ago
