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"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 (see The Acton Institute)

"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 (see The Acton Institute)

"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)

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it! — John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, April 26, 1777

"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

"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.)

"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to liberty, and few nations, if any, have found it." — John Adams, The Federalist Chronicle, 30 January 2002, Federalist Edition #02-05

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." — John Adams, "Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials," December 1770

"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)

"Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and tyrannies." — attributed to John Adams, June 21, 1776

"...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

"We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient." — Samuel Adams, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 30 June 2000, Federalist #00-26/27.dgst

"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, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 21 September 2001, Federalist Edition #01-38

"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)

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, ‘What should be the reward of such sacrifices?’ Bid us and 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, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 12 September 2001, Federalist Edition #01-37

"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)

"You can usually tell how tyrannical a person’s heart is by how fast they move to legislate." — Anonymous

"Hope has two lovely daughters, Anger and Courage; Anger at the way things are and the courage to change them." — St. Augustine, quoted in Revolution at the Roots, p. 8

"Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you yourself shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God." — Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), quoted in The Federalist Digest, 14 November 2000, Federalist #00-46.brf

"I am free to acknowledge that his powers are full great, and greater than I was disposed to make them. Nor, entre nous, do I believe they would have been so great had not many of the members cast their eyes towards General Washington as President; and shaped their Ideas of the Powers to be given to a President, by their opinions of his Virtue." — Pierce Butler (Constitutional Convention delegate from South Carolina), letter to Weedon Butler, May 5, 1788 (see The Founders’ Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 186)

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." — Charles Carroll, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Brief, 14 January 2002, Federalist Edition #02-03

"For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life... But there are some schools that distort all notions of duty by the theories they propose touching the supreme good and the supreme evil. For he who posits the supreme good as having no connection with virtue and measures it not by a moral standard but by his own interests -- if he should be consistent and not rather at times over-ruled by his better nature, he could value neither friendship nor justice nor generosity; and brave he surely cannot possibly be that counts pain the supreme evil, nor temperate he that holds pleasure to be the supreme good." — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oficiis (On Duties), as quoted from Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by Walter Miller, Loeb edn., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913, pp. 4-5

"First of all, Nature has endowed every species of living creature with the instinct of self-preservation, of avoiding what seems likely to cause injury to life or limb, and of procuring and providing everything needful for life — food, shelter, and the like. A common property of all creatures is also the reproductive instinct (the purpose of which is the propagation of the species) and also a certain amount of concern for their offspring. But the most marked difference between man and beast is this: the beast, just as far as it is moved by the senses and with very little perception of past or future, adapts itself to that alone which is present at the moment; while man — because he is endowed with reason, by which he comprehends the chain of consequences, perceives the causes of things, understands the relation of cause to effect and of effect to cause, draws analogies, and connects and associates the present and the future — easily surveys the course of his whole life and makes the necessary preparations for its conduct strangely tender love for his offspring. She also prompts men to meet in companies, to form public assemblies and to take part in them themselves; and she further dictates, as a consequence of this, the effort on man's part to provide a store of things that minister to his comforts and wants — and not for himself alone, but for his wife and children and the others whom he holds dear and for whom he ought to provide; and this responsibility also stimulates his courage and makes it stronger for the active duties of life. Above all, the search after truth and its eager pursuit are peculiar to man. And so, when we have leisure from the demands of business cares, we are eager to see, to hear, to learn something new, and we esteem a desire to know the secrets or wonders of creation as indispensable to a happy life. Thus we come to understand that what is true, simple, and genuine appeals most strongly to a man's nature. To this passion for discovering truth there is added a hungering, as it were, for independence, so that a mind well-moulded by Nature is unwilling to be subject to anybody save one who gives rules of conduct or is a teacher of truth or who, for the general good, rules according to justice and law. From this attitude come greatness of soul and a sense of superiority to worldly conditions.

"And it is no mean manifestation of Nature and Reason that man is the only animal that has a feeling for order, for propriety, for moderation in word and deed. And so no other animal has a sense of beauty, loveliness, harmony in the visible world; and Nature and Reason, extending the analogy of this from the world of sense to the world of spirit, find that beauty, consistency, order are far more to be maintained in thought and deed, and the same Nature and Reason are careful to do nothing in an improper or unmanly fashion, and in every thought and deed to do or think nothing capriciously. It is from these elements that is forged and fashioned that moral goodness which is the subject of this inquiry — something that, even though it be not generally ennobled, is still worthy of all honour; and by its own nature, we correctly maintain, it merits praise even though it be praised by none." — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oficiis (On Duties), as quoted from Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by Walter Miller, Loeb edn., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913, pp. 11-14

"Now, of the four divisions which we have made of the essential idea of moral goodness, the first, consisting in the knowledge of truth, touches human nature most closely. For we are all attracted and drawn to a zeal for learning and knowing; and we think it glorious to excel therein, while we count it base and immoral to fall into error, to wander from the truth, to be ignorant, to be led astray. In this pursuit, which is both natural and morally right, two errors are to be avoided: first, we must not treat the unknown as known and too readily accept it; and he who wishes to avoid this error (as all should do) will devote both time and attention to the weighing of evidence. The other error is that some people devote too much industry and too deep study to matters that are obscure and difficult and useless as well. If these errors are successfully avoided, all the labour and pains expended upon problems that are morally right and worth the solving will be fully rewarded... Such a worker in the field of astronomy, for example, was Gaius Sulpicius, of whom we have heard; in mathematics, Sextus Pompey, whom I have known personally; in dialectics, many; in civil law, still more. All these professions are occupied with the search after truth; but to be drawn by study away from active life is contrary to moral duty. For the whole glory of virtue is in activity; activity, however, may often be interrupted, and many opportunities for returning to study are opened. Besides, the working of the mind, which is never at rest, can keep us busy in the pursuit of knowledge even without conscious effort on our part. Moreover, all our thought and mental activity will be devoted either to planning for things that are morally right and that conduce to a good and happy life, or to the pursuits of science and learning. With this we close the discussion of the first source of duty." — Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oficiis (On Duties), as quoted from Marcus Tullius Cicero, translated by Walter Miller, Loeb edn., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913, pp. 18-19

"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. 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." — John Dickinson, in the Continental Congress's Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms in 1775, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 07 November 2000, Federalist #00-45.brf

"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 Douglas, The Federalist Brief, 27 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-35

"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 Douglas, August 4, 1857

"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)

"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)

"There is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself." — Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771 (see The Founder's Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 161)

"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, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 03 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-31

"Do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? ... if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it'." — Benjamin Franklin, quoted in The Federalist Chronicle, 01 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-31

"The law… 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." — Alexander Hamilton, quoted in The Federalist Chronicle, 05 September 2001, Federalist Edition #01-36

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all forms of positive 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 best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." — Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 46

"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, from J. Elliot's, "Debates in the Several State Conventions", 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836.  Also quoted in The Federalist Chronicle, 25 July 2001, Federalist #01-30

"Should I keep back my opinions through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country and an act of disloyalty toward the majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings." — Patrick Henry, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 13 March 2001, Federalist #01-11.brf

"A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom." — Patrick Henry, quoted in The Federalist Digest, Federalist #00-32.dgst, 11 August 2000

"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)

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullability, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." — Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822

"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)

"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 will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing man to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition has persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings of security and self-government." — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 30 June 2000, Federalist #00-26/27.dgst

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty." — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 5 December 2001, Federalist Edition #01-49

"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

"What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?" — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Brief, 7 January 2002, Federalist Edition #02-02

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 10 November 2000, Federalist #00-45.dgst

"An elected despotism is not the government we fought for." — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 15 September 2000, Federalist #00-37.dgst

"The first object of my heart is my own country. In that is embarked my family, my fortune, and my own existence." — Thomas Jefferson, The Federalist Chronicle, The Conservative e-Journal of Record , 29 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-35

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." — Thomas Jefferson, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 17 November 2000, Federalist No. 00-46.dgst

"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)

"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.... This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." — James Madison, quoted in The Federalist Chronicle, 15 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-33

"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 checks—no 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." — James Madison, The Federalist Chronicle, 06 March 2002, Federalist Edition #02-10

"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

"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) 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, quoted in The Federalist Brief, 20 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-34

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations… This danger ought to be wisely guarded against." — James Madison, Project On Winning Economic Reform

"The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy." — James Madison, quoted in The Federalist Digest, #00-43.dgst, 27 Oct 2000

"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

"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)

"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)

"The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty—and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." — H.L. Mencken, February 12, 1923, Baltimore Evening Sun, quoted in GOUtah! Alert #64-23 June 2000.

"Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." — George Orwell. Though George Orwell was obviously not an American founder or a resource for the founders, we made an exception for this quote.

"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)

"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

"…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

"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 (1737-1809), The Federalist Chronicle, 22 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-34

"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

"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). Though obviously not an American founder or a resource for the founders, we made an exception for this quote.

"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

"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

"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.

"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.

"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)

"Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the House when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress [John Hancock] to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?" He lamented, on the 35th independence celebration, "scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors and fears and sorrows and sleeplessness nights of the men who projected, proposed, defended, and subscribed [signed] the Declaration of Independence." — Benjamin Rush, recalling events surrounding Independence Day 1776, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 30 June 2000, Federalist #00-26/27.dgst

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." — William Shakespeare, Hamlet

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." — William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

"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)

"God the sovereign Lord and supreme Ruler of all things, has made men in such a manner, and placed them in such circumstances, as plainly to discover his will, that they should unite and combine into societies for their mutual benefit and advantage. He has not, by the light of nature, nor by any positive declarations of his will, prescribed any one particular species of civil government, as more agreeable to him, than another. But as made mankind rational creatures; and left them to choose that which they apprehend to be most perfect in its nature and kind, and best suited to their state, situation, and circumstances." — Samuel Sherwood, Scriptural Instructions to Civil Rulers, August 31, 1774 (see Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730-1805, vol. 1, p. 382)

"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.

"When doing battle, seek a quick victory. A protracted battle will blunt weapons and dampen ardor... If the army is exposed to a prolonged campaign, the nation's resources will not suffice... When weapons are blunted, and ardor dampened, strength exhausted, and resources depleted, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of these complications.  Then even the wisest of counsels would not be able to avert the consequences that must ensue. Therefore, I have heard of military campaigns that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen military campaigns that were skilled but protracted.  No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare. Therefore, if one is not fully cognizant of the dangers inherent in doing battle, one cannot fully know the benefits of doing battle." — Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 

"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 principle—the perception and the performance of right—changes 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 her—the 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 prison—for some one interfered, and paid that tax—I 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 scene—the town, and State, and country—greater 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

"Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected." — George Washington, quoted in The Federalist Brief, 18 February 2002, Federalist Edition #02-08

"The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field—the object is attained—and it now remains to be my earnest wish & prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them." — George Washington, letter to the Reformed German Congregation of New York City, November 27, 1783 (see The Founders’ Almanac, by Matthew Spalding, The Heritage Foundation, 2002, p. 172)

"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 Liberty—that 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)

"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 Epoch 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 through a long succession of years, by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, 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 being as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own." — George Washington, quoted in The Federalist Brief, 27 August 2001, Federalist Edition #01-35.

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor." — George Washington, The Federalist Digest, 22 February 2002, Federalist Edition #02-08.

"The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained." — George Washington, 1789, quoted in America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, by William J. Federer

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves, whether they are to have any property they can call their own, whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed and themselves confined to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die." — General George Washington, in an address to the Continental Army, quoted in The Federalist Digest, 31 October 2000, Federalist #00-44.brf

"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)