Quotes from the Founding Fathers
Below quotes from: http://www.dojgov.net/Liberty_Watch.htm
Quotes from the Founding Fathers
"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington
"We must all hang together, or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
JAMES MADISON
"Americans [have] the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust their people with arms."
SAMUEL ADAMS
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms . . ."
NOAH WEBSTER
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
TENCHE COXE
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
RICHARD HENRY LEE
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms."
Richard Henry Lee - Senator, First Congress
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..."
ELBRIDGE GERRY
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
GEORGE WASHINGTON
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
PATRICK HENRY
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
"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?"
March 23, 1775:
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!
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson
"A generous parent would have said, 'if there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Thomas Paine, Common Sense
"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. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." John Adams
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live.. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.
This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in it's train wretchedness and oppression." Thomas Jefferson
"If the present (Continental) Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?" Thomas Jefferson - 1821
NOT
A TRUE FOUNDING FATHER BUT PERCEPTIVE WORDS NEVER THE LESS
"We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." Abraham Lincoln
Quotes from the Founding Fathers
"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington
"We must all hang together, or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
JAMES MADISON
"Americans [have] the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust their people with arms."
SAMUEL ADAMS
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms . . ."
NOAH WEBSTER
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
TENCHE COXE
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
RICHARD HENRY LEE
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms."
Richard Henry Lee - Senator, First Congress
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..."
ELBRIDGE GERRY
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
GEORGE WASHINGTON
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
PATRICK HENRY
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
"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?"
March 23, 1775:
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!
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson
"A generous parent would have said, 'if there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Thomas Paine, Common Sense
"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. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." John Adams
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live.. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.
This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in it's train wretchedness and oppression." Thomas Jefferson
"If the present (Continental) Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?" Thomas Jefferson - 1821
NOT
A TRUE FOUNDING FATHER BUT PERCEPTIVE WORDS NEVER THE LESS
"We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." Abraham Lincoln
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Thanks for the reminders Kimi. 0 -
You are most welcome, freemind. Have a wonderful day, and a very Merry Christmas! 0 -
You too Kimi, Merry Christmas. 0 -
god quotes. I think the one that stands out the most, and can go a long ways towards addressing our problems today, was this one.
quote:Originally quoted by John Adams
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.0 -
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen". Samuel Adams, 0 -
> "There never was a good war or a bad peace" Benjamin Franklin 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Zebra
> "There never was a good war or a bad peace" Benjamin Franklin
I am glad that America went to war in WWI to stop the Germans from taking our country from us. And going to WWII to again stop Germany and also Japan from taking our country from us. Since we went to war to defend ourselves I consider that to be a good war.
I doubt most American Indians will agree that what they got when they stopped fighting was a "good" peace.0 -
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.
Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774_1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment0 -
quote:Originally posted by tr fox
quote:Originally posted by Zebra
> "There never was a good war or a bad peace" Benjamin Franklin
I am glad that America went to war in WWI to stop the Germans from taking our country from us. And going to WWII to again stop Germany and also Japan from taking our country from us. Since we went to war to defend ourselves I consider that to be a good war.
I doubt most American Indians will agree that what they got when they stopped fighting was a "good" peace.
An unjust peace can be much worse than a just war.0 -
quote:Originally posted by tr fox
quote:Originally posted by Zebra
> "There never was a good war or a bad peace" Benjamin Franklin
I am glad that America went to war in WWI to stop the Germans from taking our country from us. And going to WWII to again stop Germany and also Japan from taking our country from us. Since we went to war to defend ourselves I consider that to be a good war.
I doubt most American Indians will agree that what they got when they stopped fighting was a "good" peace.
That's your opinion and I respect it...0
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