“That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” George Mason – the Virginia Declaration…
Notable Quotable
“[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction. James Madison – Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention,…
Notable Quotable
“The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers.” Thomas Jefferson – Declaration and Protest of Virginia, 1825.
Notable Quotable
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” James Madison…
Notable Quotable
“Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Thomas Jefferson – Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
Notable Quotable
“It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was…
Notable Quotable
“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.” Thomas Jefferson James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this…
Notable Quotable
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” James Madison – Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788
Notable Quotable
“We must confine ourselves to the powers described in the Constitution, and the moment we pass it, we take an arbitrary stride towards a despotic Government.” James Jackson – First Congress, 1st Annals of Congress, 489
Notable Quotable
“Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of…
Notable Quotable
“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal…
Notable Quotable
“A wise and frugal government … 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 it has…
Notable Quotable
“No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.” Abraham Lincoln – October 16, 1854
Notable Quotable
“We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity…
Notable Quotable
“…the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make…