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#1
07-04-2006, 06:13 PM
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Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
A coworker of mine emailed these to me. He has researched every one and authenticated them all as actual quotations of the men they are attributed to.
"Either force or corruption has been the principle of every modern government." ~Thomas Jefferson "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." ~George Washington "Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants." ~Benjamin Franklin "Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." ~Thomas Jefferson "Arbitrary power is most easily established on ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness." ~George Washington "He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death." ~Thomas Paine "The greatest honor of a man is doing good to his fellow men, not in destroying them." ~Thomas Jefferson "War is the gaming table of governments, citizens the dupes of the game." ~Thomas Paine "Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature." ~Benjamin Franklin "A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." ~Thomas Jefferson "Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep." ~Thomas Jefferson "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." ~Thomas Paine "The concentrating [all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government." ~Thomas Jefferson "In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superior and sovereigns." ~Benjamin Franklin "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." ~John Adams "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters." ~Benjamin Franklin "The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers." ~Thomas Jefferson "Fear is the foundation of most governments." ~John Adams "The constitution is not an instrument for government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." ~Patrick Henry "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." ~Thomas Jefferson "The happiness of society is the end of government." ~John Adams "The sheep are happier of themselves than under the care of wolves." ~Thomas Jefferson "[When] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." ~St. George Tucker "To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them." ~George Mason "How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" ~Samuel Adams "An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes." ~Thomas Jefferson "He that lieth down with Dogs, shall wake up with Fleas." ~Benjamin Franklin "... And whenever any power or authority whatever extends further, or is of longer duration than is in its nature necessary for these purposes, it may be called government, but it is in fact oppression." ~George Mason "Whenever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." ~Thomas Jefferson "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." ~John Quincy Adams "Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on [offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct." ~Thomas Jefferson "Few men in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend." ~Benjamin Franklin "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home." ~James Madison "When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end to Liberty." ~George Mason "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." ~James Madison "Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?" ~Patrick Henry "I had rather be a free citizen of the small republic of Massachusetts, than an oppressed subject of the great American empire." ~Antifederalist #1 "A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny." ~Patrick Henry "Standing armies [are] inconsistent with [a people's] freedom and subversive of their quiet." ~Thomas Jefferson "To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." ~Richard Henry Lee "Congress by power of taxation, by the raising of an army, and by their control over the militia have the sword in one hand and the purse in the other. Shall we be safe without either?" ~Patrick Henry "...were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundation, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." ~James Madison "That country [America] is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but sir because liberty is its direct end and foundation." ~Patrick Henry "... It is very easy to change a free government [Articles of Confederation] into an arbitrary one [Constitution], but that it is very difficult to convert tyranny into freedom." ~Antifederalist #15 "An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens... Power is not alluring to pure minds and is not with them the primary principle of contest." ~Thomas Jefferson "To trust this power [to raise an army ... to carry into effect any federal measure] in the hands of a few men delegated for two, four, six years is complementing the ambition of human nature too highly, to risk the tranquility of these States on their absolute determination. ... though this country is now blessed with a Washington, Franklin, Hancock and Adams, yet posterity may have reason to rue the day when their political welfare depends on the decision of men who may fill the place of these worthies." ~Benjamin Austin " I sincerely wish we could see our government so secured as to depend less on the character of the person in whose hands it is trusted. Bad men will sometimes get in and with such an immense patronage make great progress in corrupting the public mind and principles. This is a subject with which wisdom and patriotism should be occupied." ~Thomas Jefferson "It is beyond a doubt that the new federal constitution, if adopted, will in a great measure destroy, if it does not totally annihilate, the separate governments of the several states. We will in effect become one great republic." ~Antifederalist #18 "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power." ~Benjamin Franklin "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." ~Thomas Jefferson "The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind." ~Thomas Paine "When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object... But now, Sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation is about to convert this country to a powerful and mighty empire." ~Patrick Henry "... I will submit to your recollection whether liberty has been destroyed most by the licentiousness of the people or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, Sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny." ~Patrick Henry "If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." ~Thomas Jefferson "I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." ~Thomas Jefferson "If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation... to a continuance in the Union... I have no hesitation in saying 'let us separate.'" ~Thomas Jefferson "You ought not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and prosperous people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the end of government." ~Patrick Henry "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" ~Thomas Jefferson "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." ~Thomas Jefferson "To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principal of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." ~Thomas Jefferson "... we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute." ~Thomas Paine "I sincerely believe... that 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 "Of what avail would be a prosperous state of commerce, when the produce of it would be at the absolute disposal of an arbitrary unchecked general government, who may levy at pleasure the most oppressive taxes; who may destroy every principal of freedom; who may even destroy the privilege of complaining." ~Centinel (an Antifederalist) "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" ~Thomas Jefferson "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." ~Benjamin Franklin "Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty." ~John Adams "Property must be secured or liberty can not exist." ~John Adams "Now what liberty can there be, where property is taken away without consent?" ~Samuel Adams "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." ~Thomas Jefferson "If we are not prepared to receive a king, let us call another convention to revise the proposed constitution, and form it anew on the principles of free republics; but by no means, under any pretense of a republic, to lay the foundation for a military government, which is the worst of all tyrannies." ~An Old Whig (Antifederalist) "Parliament ... hath no more Right to put their hands into my pocket, without my consent, then I have to put my hand into your's." ~George Washington "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." ~John Adams "... a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread that it has earned. This is the sum of good government." ~Thomas Jefferson "It will be considered, I believe, as a most extraordinary epoch in the history of mankind, that in a few years there should be so essential a change in the minds of men. 'Tis really astonishing that the same people who have just emerged from a long and cruel war in defense of liberty, should now agree to fix an elective despotism upon themselves and their posterity." ~Richard Henry Lee "Frequent interference with private property and contracts ... must disgust the best and wisest part of the community, occasion a general depravity of manners, bring the legislature into contempt..." ~George Mason "The merchants will manage [commerce] the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves." ~Thomas Jefferson "What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the rights of the individuals." ~Thomas Jefferson "Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now." ~Thomas Jefferson ********************************** Samuel Adams, Speech at the Philadelphia State House August 1, 1776 "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." ********************************** "The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary they will consume these engines and all who work them." ~Thomas Jefferson "... for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire." ~Thomas Paine "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." ~Thomas Jefferson 
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#2
07-04-2006, 06:53 PM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
I wonder how they would feel about enforcing a ban on flag burning.
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#4
07-04-2006, 07:57 PM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
What exactly is the point here? The minarchist experiment of the US has clearly failed. They almost got rid of the state and almost got rid of god; but ultimately, they failed completely.
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#5
07-04-2006, 09:57 PM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
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#6
07-04-2006, 10:01 PM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
[ QUOTE ]
I wonder how they would feel about enforcing a ban on flag burning. [/ QUOTE ] In the opinion of one Jeffersonian historian: [ QUOTE ] Whether Jefferson would have favored some form of prosecution for people who nevertheless do that is a different matter. I think he would have been more inclined towards pity for them, with a hope that they might find a country to which they can give their wholehearted support, and that they would be honorable enough to remove themselves from the protection and benefits afforded by our flag. [/ QUOTE ]
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#7
07-04-2006, 11:14 PM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
[ QUOTE ]
What exactly is the point here? The minarchist experiment of the US has clearly failed. They almost got rid of the state and almost got rid of god; but ultimately, they failed completely. [/ QUOTE ] True. The minarchist experiment failed on December 7, 1787, when the Federalists triumphed. Antifederalist #15 explained that minarchism is a doomed, half-ass, spineless compromise: "it is very easy to change a free government into an arbitrary one, but that it is very difficult to convert tyranny into freedom." Many of the revolutionaries were very, very close to becoming outright anarchists. Many (Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry) never really sold out. Others (Richard Henry Lee) gave the government a chance under the Articles, but never participated in the tyranny of the Constitution. Still others (Washington, Jefferson) tried to restrain the new Constitutional government, and failed - I suspect they knew they were fighting a losing battle, but decided to go down with the ship.
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#8
07-05-2006, 01:15 AM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
Good OP, thank you. Some of these were new to me.
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#10
07-05-2006, 01:36 AM
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Re: Principles and Ideals of Original, Authentic, True Patriots
[ QUOTE ]
On Patrick Henry: wasn't it, in fact, his interest in land speculation, that drove his politics, rather than principle? [/ QUOTE ] "Few men in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend." ~Benjamin Franklin
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