Wisdom & Quotes from our Founding Fathers "Property is the fruit of labor-property is desirable - it is a positive good in the

world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence..." Abraham Lincoln (reply to the New York Workingmens Democratic Republican Association, Mar. 21, 1864) "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin (on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania - 1759) "Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833 "The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." - Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775 "[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." - Candidus, in the Boston Gazette, January 20, 1772 "[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." - Samuel Adams, essay in The Public Advertiser, Circa 1749 "[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." - George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778 "[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it,

whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it." - Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, No.18, January 25, 1778 "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." - Patrick Henry "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." - Thomas Jefferson "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 "A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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 it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity." - Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address. "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776, Jefferson Papers 344. "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." - Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference they deserve a place of honor with all that is good." "A free people ought not only to be armed..." - George Washington "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 "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."

"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." "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press." - Thomas Jefferson "Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the world that a free man, contending for his liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." - George Washington, July 2, 1776 "Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death." - James Madison "The way to have safe government is not to trust it all to the one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent....To let the National Government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations..... The State Governments with the Civil Rights, Laws, Police and administration of what concerns the State generally. The Counties with the local concerns, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best." - Thomas Jefferson "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." "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." - Noah Webster "A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace." - James Madison "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Archibald Stuart - 1791) "When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson (attributed to Jefferson, by his contemporaries) "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison (attributed to Madison, by his contemporaries) It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Patrick Henry For my part, I sincerely esteem 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