What Courageous Men Said About Liberty!

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."

"Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession."

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

"It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible."

"It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

"Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

"Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe."

"The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government."

"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon."

"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."

"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

John Adams, Second President of the U.S.

"A government of laws, and not of men."

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."

"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense."

"Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."

"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

"Fear is the foundation of most governments."

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."

"In politics the middle way is none at all."

"Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak."

"Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws."

"Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty."

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

"The happiness of society is the end of government."

"The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea."

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the U.S:

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. "

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
"The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits."

"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

(Author's note - Compare the four previous quotes to the idiocy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.)

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."

"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive."

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."

"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society."

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."

"Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others."

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"Most bad government has grown out of too much government."

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for."

"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is."

"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty."

James Madison, Fourth President of the U.S.

"All men having power ought to be mistrusted."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations"

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."
(Author's note - Consider that the IRS Code is more than 3,400,000 words long and would fill more than 7,500 letter sized pages.)

"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."

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

"Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty."

"Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power."

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."

"Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty."

"The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right."

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

"The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad."

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."
"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

"What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?"

Benjamin Franklin, Oldest signer of the Declaration of Independence::

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty."

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country."

"This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins."

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."

"Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature."

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."

"There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and more frequently fall than that of defrauding the government."

Samuel Adams, Organizer and leader of the Boston Tea Party:

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can."

"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

"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."

"The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks."

"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

Patrick Henry, First Governor of Virginia:

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?"

"Fear is the passion of slaves."

"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 inevitably ruined."

"I know no way of judging the future but by the past."

"If this be treason, make the most of it!"

"The great object is that every man be armed."

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty or Give me Death."

There Were Giants Who Walked Among Us in Those Days!

I heard Cal Thomas of Fox news misquote Benjamin Franklin and I'll bet Ben would have rolled over in his grave if he had heard it. As the story goes, when the founders came out of the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked Ben Franklin what sort of government they had given us. Cal Thomas said, "A DEMOCRACY, If You Can Keep It!" What Ben Franklin actually replied was, "A REPUBLIC If You Can Keep It!" For about 75 years we did a decent job of keeping it then came the civil battle as to whether State's Rights super-ceded federal power or not, and we started losing the Republic that they gave us. There was a period of about 45 years and then, with the institution of the income tax and federal reserve, we really started to loose it. In the past 100 years we have virtually failed to keep the Republic at all, Sorry Ben! The founders were too intelligent to found a Democracy. They founded a Constitutional Republic. They held government power to interfere in the lives of people and commerce in extremely low esteem. In case you don't know the difference between a Democracy and a Republic: a Democracy is a nation of dictators elected by the majority. A Republic is a nation with a government of people elected by the vote and subject to law. In this nation the government was designed to be subject to the law that is our Constitution.