I heard someone mention this week that the way to get people—mainly young people—to love this country is for them to learn its history. They might have been talking about learning to love the Constitution and Declaration of Independence by studying them. I’m not sure whom to credit now, but it may have been David Barton of Wallbuilders—check out their extraordinary Signers of the Declaration resource page.
Anyway, with the intention of increasing love for the ideals of this country, I’m continuing the celebration of Independence Day with words from our founders.
I had so many quotes from Thomas Jefferson that I gave him his
own day, in the last post. Today will be a few others of the 56 men who signed
the Declaration back in 1776, risking their lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honor, plus others who weren’t among those signers, but who nevertheless
took those risks for our freedom.
George Washington
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| Washington Praying painting by Arnold Friberg image from Wikipedia |
"I
have often expressed my sentiments that every man, conducting himself as a good
citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought
to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own
conscience."—George Washington (To the General Committee of the United
Baptist Churches in Virginia)
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 (First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789)
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| Washington's inauguration by Howard Pyle image found here |
Your love of liberty, your respect for the laws, your habits
of industry, and your practice of moral and religious obligations, are the
strongest claims to national and individual happiness.—George Washington
“If the freedom of speech is taken away
then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George
Washington
James Madison
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| James Madison portrait by John Vanderlyn image from Wikipedia |
"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
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution
to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce.”—James Madison (Federalist 45)
“I go on the principle that a public
debt is a public curse.”
—James Madison
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization,
not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all
our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to
the Ten Commandments of God.”—James Madison
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| James Madison engraving by David Edwin image from Wikipedia |
“In
framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the
governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist
51)
“If angels were to govern men, neither external
nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government
that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this:
you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next
place oblige it to control itself.”—James Madison (Federalist 51)
"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.
"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; if they be repealed
or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that
no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."—James
Madison (Federalist 62)
John Adams
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| John Adams portrait by Gilbert Stuart image from Wikipedia |
“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 Constitutions of Governments of the United States of America, 1787)
I am
well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to
maintain this Declaration [of Independence], 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 more than worth all the means, and that
posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue
it, which I trust in God we shall not."—John Adams, July 3, 1776
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 (1770, closing argument in defense of a British
soldier)
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| John Adams portrait by John Trumbull image from Wikipedia |
"Government is instituted for the common good; for the
protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for
profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men;
therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and
indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally
change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness
require it."—John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)
“All are subject by nature to equal laws of
morality, and in society have a right to equal laws for their government, yet
no two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity,
and virtue, or ever can be made so by any power less than that which created
them.”—John Adams (Discourses on Davila—XV, 1776)
"You
have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be
repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator
of the Universe."—John Adams
In my
many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is
a law firm, and three or more is a congress.—John Adams
The
Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the
minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their
duties and obligations... this radical change in the principles, opinions,
sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American
Revolution.—John Adams (John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, Feb. 13, 1818. Cited in The
Works of John Adams, vol. 10, p. 282)
Samuel Adams
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| Samuel Adams portrait by John Singleton Copley image from Wikipedia |
"Here
therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to
promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not
suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise
and virtuous man."—Samuel Adams
"How strangely will the Tools of a
Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"—Samuel Adams
“All might be free if they valued
freedom, and defended it as they should.”―Samuel Adams
Freedom of thought and the right of private
judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the
earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.—Samuel
Adams
If ever a time should come, when vain and 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
Benjamin Franklin
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| Benjamin Franklin portrait by Joseph Duplessis image from Wikipedia |
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."—Benjamin Franklin
"They who can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor
safety."—Benjamin Franklin
It is a
common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we
are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.—Benjamin Franklin
“We must all
hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."—Benjamin
Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
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| Alexander Hamilton miniature attributed to Charles Shirreff, image from Wikipedia |
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."—Alexander Hamilton
“Here, sir, the people
govern.”—Alexander Hamilton
"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the
greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An
inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws—the first growing out of the
last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle,
the sustaining energy of a free government."—Alexander Hamilton (Essay in
the American Daily Advertiser, Aug 28, 1794)
Thomas Paine
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| Thomas Paine portrait by Laurent Dabos image from Wikipedia |
"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue."—Thomas Paine
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use
and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in
contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert
an atheist by scripture.”—Thomas Paine (American Crisis)
Tyranny like
hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap,
we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange
indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.—Thomas
Paine (The America Crisis)
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in
its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;
for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which
we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by
reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.—Thomas Paine (Common
Sense)
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country
from its government.”—Thomas Paine
All the
principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make or invent or
contrive principles. He can only discover them, and he ought to look through
the discovery to the Author.—Thomas Paine
Benjamin Rush
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| Dr. Benjamin Rush image found here |
“The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.”—Benjamin Rush
"Where there is no law, there is no liberty;
and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in
its operation upon all the members of the community."—Benjamin Rush (1788)
“Unless we see medical freedom put into the Constitution,
the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To
restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to
others, will be to constitution the Bastille of medical science. All such laws
are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution
of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as
religious freedom.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush, MD (this is a paraphrase of his
sentiments, developed after his death in 1813, not an actual quote)
When describing 24 “causes which have retarded the
progress of our science,” this was number 24:
“Conferring exclusive privileges upon bodies of
physicians, and forbidding men of equal talents and knowledge, under severe
penalties from practicing medicine within certain districts of cities and
countries.
"Such institutions, however sanctioned by ancient
charters and names, are the Bastilles of our science.”—Dr. Benjamin Rush
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| Patrick Henry portrait by George Bagby Matthews image from Wikipedia |
"Bad
men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants
forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience,
is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty,
can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation,
temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental
principles." — Patrick Henry
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