A few things to think about... Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. - Thomas Jefferson It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but THEY MEAN TO GOVERN. They promise to be good masters, but THEY MEAN TO BE MASTERS. - Daniel Webster To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.... I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple. - Thomas Jefferson 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 Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. - John Adams All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. - Thomas Jefferson A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people. - James Madison A primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country? - George Washington I know of no safe depositor of the ultimate powers of [a] society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. - Thomas Jefferson And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the people. This last is the most certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is in their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. - Thomas Jefferson We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. -Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - The Declaration of Independence
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 19:10:23 +0000
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