Poems By CC: Founding Fathers Quotes

Quotes by the Founding Fathers of America"On every question of construction of the Constitution, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." -Thomas Jefferson "If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams 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 their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. -Thomas Jefferson The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity ... is but swindling futurity on a large scale. -Thomas Jefferson "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 preserved 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, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution." -Thomas Jefferson History, in general, only informs us what bad government is. - Thomas Jefferson "Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own." -Thomas Jefferson 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!" -Patrick Henry The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -Thomas Jefferson They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. -Thomas Jefferson The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles. -John Adams "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 I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. -Thomas Jefferson "I hope a tax will be preferred [to a loan which threatens to saddle us with a perpetual debt], because it will awaken the attention of the people and make reformation and economy the principle of the next election. The frequent recurrence of this chastening operation can alone restrain the propensity of governments to enlarge expense beyond income." -Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1820. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. -Thomas Jefferson I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. -Thomas Jefferson With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. -James Madison "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 "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of 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." -Noah Webster "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 region of ignorance that tyranny begins." - Benjamin Franklin "The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution." -Thomas Jefferson "It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution." -James Madison, Father of the Constitution. "The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it." -James Madison "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 If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America. -James Madison "The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone." "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ...to forget it." -James Madison "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards." -Samuel Adams "People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity." "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and prayers, but she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator of her own." -John Adams The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. -James Madison The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.�-James Madison Fear is the foundation of most governments.�-John Adams Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.�-George Washington Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master! -Thomas Jefferson It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.�-Samuel Adams The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.�-James Madison One man with courage is a majority.�-Thomas Jefferson I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.�-Thomas Jefferson The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty� -John Adams Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.� -Thomas Jefferson When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil. -Thomas Jefferson "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson, 1812 "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins; they serve to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." 1764 -Thomas Jefferson "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense." -John Adams (A defense of the Constitution of the US) "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the people's liberty teeth (and) keystone... the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable... more than 99% of them [guns] by their silence indicate that they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference [crime]. When firearms go, all goes, we need them every hour." -George Washington (Address to 1st session of Congress) "To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them." -George Mason "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." -Noah Webster (1787, Pamphlets on the Constitution of the US) "A free people ought to be armed." -George Washington (Jan 14 1790, Boston Independent Chronicle.) "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -Thomas Jefferson "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose people are afraid to trust them with arms." -James Madison You may contact CC at: Patriotic Poems by CC Sign My Guestbook View My Guestbook