Thomas Paine
“Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” – Thomas Paine
Filed under Abuse & Misuse of Power, American Exceptionalism, Checks & Balances in Government, Constitution, Democracy, Democratic Republic, Enumerated Powers & Delegated Authority, Federalism, Founding Fathers, Freedom/Liberty, Government Accountability, Individual Responsibility, Limited Government, Representative Government, Republican Government, Rule of Law, Thomas Paine, Tyranny, Will & Consent of the People
Ronald Reagan
We the People…
“We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around… Our government has no power except that granted it by the people…
“Why is the Constitution of the United States so exceptional?
“Well, the difference is so small that it almost escapes you, but it’s so great it tells you the whole story in just three words: We the people. In those other constitutions, the Government tells the people of those countries what they’re allowed to do. In our Constitution, we the people tell the Government what it can do, and it can do only those things listed in that document and no others. Virtually every other revolution in history has just exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers. Our revolution is the first to say the people are the masters and government is their servant.” – Ronald Reagan
Filed under American Exceptionalism, Checks & Balances in Government, Conservative Principles, Constitution, Free Elections, Freedom/Liberty, Government Accountability, Individual Responsibility, Limited Government, Representative Government, Republican Government, Ronald Reagan, Rule of Law, Will & Consent of the People
Daniel Webster
“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.” — Daniel Webster
Abraham Lincoln
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” — Abraham Lincoln
Noah Webster
“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, ‘just men who will rule in the fear of God.’ …The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this Duty; if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded. …If government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine Commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the Laws.” — Noah Webster — “History of the United States”, Chapter XIX (advice no.49 in his “Advice to the Young”); 1832.
James Madison
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” —James Madison, Federalist No. 51
Thomas Jefferson
“God who gave us life gave us Liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” — Thomas Jefferson, 1774
Joseph Story
“Temporary delusions, prejudices, excitements, and objects have irresistible influence in mere questions of policy. And the policy of one age may ill suit the wishes or the policy of another. The constitution is not subject to such fluctuations. It is to have a fixed, uniform, permanent construction. It should be, so far at least as human infirmity will allow, not dependent upon the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” — Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
Albert Gallatin
“The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals… [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.” — Albert Gallatin, Letter to Alexander Addison — 1789
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (January 29, 1761 – August 12, 1849) was a Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, politician, diplomat, congressman, and the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 1831, he founded the University of the City of New York, now New York University.
Born in Geneva in present-day Switzerland, Gallatin immigrated to America in the 1780s, ultimately settling in Pennsylvania. He was politically active against the Federalist Party program, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1793. However, he was removed from office by a 14–12 party-line vote after a protest raised by his opponents suggested he did not meet the required nine years of citizenship. Two years later, he was elected to the House of Representatives and served in the fourth through sixth Congresses, becoming House Majority Leader. He was an important member of the new Democratic-Republican Party, its chief spokesman on financial matters, and led opposition to many of the policy proposals of Treasury SecretaryAlexander Hamilton. He also helped found the House Committee on Finance (later the Ways and Means Committee) and often engineered withholding of finances by the House as a method of overriding executive actions to which he objected. While Treasury Secretary, his services to his country were honored in 1805 when Meriwether Lewis named one of the three headwaters of the Missouri River after Gallatin.
G.K. Chesterton
“America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature.” — G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America, 1922.
Faith & Freedom Footnotes 