Politics & Quotes

A COLLECTION OF QUOTES, BY OUR FOUNDING FATHER’S AND the intellectual MEN and WOMEN of OUR TIME’S, PAST AND PRESENT.

Elections to office, which are great objects of ambitions, I look at with great terror.

“John Adams “

Representatives are, “trustees and servants of the people, and at all times amenable to them”. Whenever government should be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, the majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform (it). , in such a manner, as shall be the most conducive the public weal.
:George Mason.

When ever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful and interested party, then by a prince. Whenever the real power in a government lies, in the majority of the community, government is the mere instrument of the major number of constituents.

James Madison.

“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.., “The will of the public majority should always prevail.” The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cure.” “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time..,” It is the manner and spirit of the people which preserves a republic in vigor. Degeneracy in these is a canker, which soon eats the heart of its laws and constitution.
:Thomas Jefferson.

“Beware the appointment of federal judges for lifetime terms they can take the constitution and mold it like clay in their hands.”
:Thomas Jefferson.

America must reject the military industrial complex. The tragedy of our foreign policy is driven not by what our leaders believe is best for the people but by the drive for profits by the munitions makers, Bankers and other rift-raft who profit from death, debt, destruction and defeat.
: Dwight D Eisenhower.

The government is like a baby; it has a happy appetite at one end, and no responsibility at the other.”

Ronald Reagan

If American men could harness their enthusiasm for sports and focus it on the future of America instead, we’d have a lot more people fighting for freedom.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
(1887): Lord Acton.

A free people, [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time that congress meets.”
: Will Rogers

There are only 2 things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the bill of rights.” War is a racket. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
Quoted by 2 times Medal of Honor winner: Marine Major General Smedley Butler- book about his life “Devil Dog”

Today’s plutocrat is part of a global community, his ties to other globalist are closer than, his ties to the commoners of his home country.

We do not need more bondage to mask the symptoms of the real disease. The root cause is the debt based money system of the fed.

Government is the great fiction, through which, everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.
: Fredric Bastiat.

Freedom of speech, if we really have it seems to only exist when one is saying something that already is acceptable to the power-that -be.

“Foreign aid might best be a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.”

Douglas Casey

No mans life , liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
: Mark Twain. {1886)

A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820

A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and un-oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette, 1823

All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph C. Cabell, January 22, 1820

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

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.
Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789

Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, Judges, and Governors, shall all become wolves.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787

During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, in-as-much as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.
Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, December 9, 1805

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever persuasion, religious or political.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

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 14, 1781

Excessive taxation will carry reason & reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of election.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, November 26, 1798

If the system be established on basis of Income, and his just proportion on that scale has been already drawn from every one, to step into the field of Consumption, and tax special articles in that, as broadcloth or homespun, wine or whiskey, a coach or a wagon, is doubly taxing the same article. For that portion of Income with which these articles are purchased, having already paid its tax as Income, to pay another tax on the thing it purchased, is paying twice for the same thing; it is an aggrievance on the citizens who use these articles in exoneration of those who do not, contrary to the most sacred of the duties of a government, to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781

History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

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. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.
Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, July 6, 1775

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

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800

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

I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, Nov 29, 1802

If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Duane, 1811

If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.
Thomas Jefferson, Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786

In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Jean Nicolas Démeunier, April 29, 1795

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson, fair copy of the drafts of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, 1798

Is it the Fourth?
Thomas Jefferson, evening July 3; Jefferson died the next morning, July 4, 1826

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.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785

It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Hugh P. Taylor, October 4, 1823

It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia Query 19, 1781

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788

My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself, what is the meaning of the constitution, in the cases, submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Adams Wells, May 12, 1819

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].
Thomas Jefferson, Draft Constitution for the State of Virginia, June, 1776

No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in its effect towards supporting free and good government.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Trustees for the Lottery of East Tennessee College, May 6, 1810

On every un-authoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 12, 1782

One single object… [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent, or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Cartwright, 1824

The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) 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 from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, Aug 18, 1821

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 engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Mar 9, 1821

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 co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820

The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.
Thomas Jefferson, Note in Destutt de Tracy, 1816

The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816

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

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Shelton Gilliam, June 19, 1808

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787

To restore… harmony,… to render us again one people acting as one nation should be the object of every man really a patriot.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas McKean, 1801

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Holmes, Apr 22, 1820

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816

Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands.
[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, November 4, 1823

[H]is was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quite and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814

Who is Jefferson talking about, in the above quote, can be but one person, and that is George Washington, the first general of American armies and the first president of the United States of America.
[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804

[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore… never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823

[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established… are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823

[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

Wow could this be the United Nations.

A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1792

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.
James Madison, Essay on Property, March 29, 1792

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 8, 1788

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787

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, 1788

We have loss the checks and balances of the federal government , through backdoor deals and chicanery,
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm… But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788

This is what Obama did by suing Arizona. He over stepped his bounds in this way and a lot of others.
Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.
James Madison, Federalist No. 39, January 1788

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.
James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787

This is a true tribute to Jefferson.

He was so right , we now have crooks and criminal at the helm.
He was certainly one of the most learned men of the age. It may be said of him as has been said of others that he was a “walking Library,” and what can be said of but few such prodigies, that the Genius of Philosophy ever walked hand in hand with him.
James Madison, on Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Samuel Harrison Smith, November 4, 1826

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.
James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792

If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.
James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

We fell asleep, now look what we have for a government.

In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.
James Madison, Federalist No. 52, February 8, 1788

This is what we have now, under the democrats, liberal , progressives or by whatever name you call them.

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty than that on which the objection is founded. 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

One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.
James Madison, Federalist No. 48, February 1, 1788

Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.
James Madison, Federalist No. 37, January 11, 1788

Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people.
James Madison, Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business,
James Madison, letter to William Bradford, January 24, 1774

That the most productive system of finance will always, be the least burdensome.
James Madison, Federalist No. 39, January 1788

This definitely rules out the IRS.

The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets.
James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787

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 in the Virginia constitutional convention, Dec 2, 1829

Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.
Alexander Hamilton, Pacificus, No. 6, July 17, 1793

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, 1787

States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.
Alexander Hamilton, Report on Public Credit, January 9, 1790

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

The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasoning’s is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.
Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775

The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance, and that mutual control indispensable to a wise administration. They were convinced that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and that some firm barrier against these operations was necessary. They, therefore, instituted your Senate.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June, 1788

The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers. … The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, March 14, 1788

The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 73, on the Veto Power, March 21, 1788

The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 9, 1787

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted; by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated 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 you were our countrymen!
~ Samuel Adams

Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice
~ John Adams

We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.
~ George Washington

If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin
~ Samuel Adams

“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, 1779

No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
George Washington, Circular to the States, May 9, 1753

But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.
George Washington, letter to Alexander Hamilton, May 8, 1796

Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country.
George Washington, letter to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

I give my signature to many Bills with which my Judgment is at variance…. From the Nature of the Constitution, I must approve all parts of a Bill, or reject it in total. To do the latter can only be Justified upon the clear and obvious grounds of propriety; and I never had such confidence in my own faculty of judging as to be over tenacious of the opinions I may have imbibed in doubtful cases.
George Washington, letter to Edmund Pendleton, September 23, 1793

If we desire to insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.
George Washington, Annual Message, December 1793

Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
George Washington, First Annual Message, January 8, 1790

My ardent desire is, and my aim has been… to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home.
George Washington, letter to Patrick Henry, October 9, 1775

No compact among men… can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.
George Washington, draft of First Inaugural Address, April 1789

Our own Country’s Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions — The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny mediated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
George Washington, General Orders, July 2, 1776

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

The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
George Washington, letter to Alexander Hamilton, May 8, 1796

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796