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Quotes from the founding fathers

SShepherd

SShepherd

New member
"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


Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

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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​


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

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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​




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​
 
Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry.
Benjamin Franklin, Positions to be Examined, April 4, 1769



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. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766




If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself.
Benjamin Franklin, An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press, September 12, 1789​
 
Two of my favorites :wink:




Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Collinson, May 9, 1753



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​


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Sorry Shep I got carried away :biggrin:



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​
 
LOL, thats why I made this thread.

It's a exercise in seeing what the founding fathers intended our country to be, not the bloated slug of govt. we have now.
 
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824
 
Very good post Shep....between you and Cowboy...Im getting reminded of a lot of things today....thanks....Jerry:clap:
 
"How soon the labor of men would make a paradise of the whole earth,
were it not for mis-government, and a diversion of all his energies
from their proper object -- the happiness of man --
to the selfish interest of kings, nobles, and priests."
Thomas Jefferson to Ellen W. Coolidge, 1825
 
While he is not a founding father, he had an influence on our founding documents.
Aristotle. I have set out to read the writings of those who influenced our founders and I'm starting with Aristotle's Politics. It can be read here. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html

Quote from Aristotle
> It is clear then both the best partnership in a state is the one which
> operates through the middle people, and also that those states in which
> the middle element is large, and stronger if possible than the other two
> together, or at any rate stronger than either of them alone, have every
> chance of having a well-run constitution.
 
"Of all the enemies to public 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…. [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and … degeneracy of manners and of morals…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." (James Madison)
 
Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to mike land originally.

Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.

This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labor that produced it; the consequence of which is that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. ~Thomas Paine

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/paine_agrarianjustice_03.html
 
I'm reading letters written by Thomas Jefferson in 1817. In a letter to John Adams, he wrote:
" I have been so little satisfied with histories of the American Revolution, that I have long since ceased to read them. The truth is lost, in adulatory panegyrics, and in vituperary insolence."

40 yrs after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the author of that great document writes that the truth of the American Revolution has been lost. What then, do we know of the truth of our nation's founding 236 yrs later??????
 
Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.
Alexander Hamilton and Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 20, December 11, 1787

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

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775


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From the debate on the Cod Fisheries Bill, House of Representatives, February 3, 1792:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general
welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may a point teachers in every state, county, and
parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may
undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have
mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general
welfare." -- James Madison

Not only a Brilliant and Good man, but also obviously a Seer.

 
The founders had a deep understanding of human nature, an understanding that is unknown to the fool in the white house.
 
“[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.” ― 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."
-- James Madison

 
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