The Deterioration of Government

The deterioration of every government begins with
the decay of the principles on which it was founded
~Charles-Louis de Secondat

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• “History and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” ~George Washington (1796)
  

• “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” ~Thomas Jefferson (1822)
  

• “When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well, ladies and gentleman, I’d follow the example of their nominee; don’t inhale.” ~Ronald Reagan
  

• “In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” ~George Washington (1796)
  

• “It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.” ~Thomas Jefferson (1785)
  

• “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 (1790)
  

• “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course.” ~George Washington (1796)
  

• “We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.” ~Thomas Paine (1777)
  

• “I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast … would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it.” ~Thomas Jefferson (1814)
  

• “Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony.” ~Thomas Jefferson (1801)