If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.
The Constitution shall never be construed…to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd.
A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.
An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.
There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.
Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Every man is equally bound by honest laws.
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
Do not let our posterity know that we were so unworthy of our fathers; that we were so unworthy as to be their descendants; that we neglected to make those very efforts for our own safety, which their love for themselves obliged them to make for posterity.
The man who violates it [the Constitution]! Shall we consider him as a bad neighbor, a dishonest man, a coward or a traitor? It should be all four.
Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.
What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.”
The impossibility of man’s becoming a spectator of his own actions, has been thrown in our Faces in very triumph. Every honest man feels his own Integrity become more dear to him by his commencing Author — ‘tis the most potent stimulus to Virtue.”
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.
The contest about America, young and weak as she is, would be but a smaller evil than a total train of submission.
We are born free and sovereign; consequently, no man, or set of men, can in just or natural right claim authority over us.
The rights of the colonies vindicated and the claims of the colonists illustrated — the priniciples of liberty and the unalterable union of the colonies recommended upon occasion of the present controversies. The rights of the British colonies justified.
In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator.
I contend that this Constitution was not the act of the whole American people. The act of the whole American people, as such? It never was.
These are the times that try men’s souls.
Now is the seedtime of Continental union, faith, and honor.
United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom!
We are either a united people under one head, for federal purposes; or we are thirteen independent sovereigns, eternally counteracting each other.
We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man.
Give me liberty, or give me death!
I am weary of our backwardness in providing for our posterity.
We are rightly charged with having brought forward on this continent the doctrine of the revolution. In a daring exultation we have attempted to erect a new empire.
The highest stage of moral excellence is the last stage of human improvement.
A general Dissolution of principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy.
We cannot make Events. Our Busines is wisely to improve them.
If Virtue & Knowledge are diffus’d among the People, they will never be enslav’d: This will be their great Security.
The Utopians except from the name of a citizen all such as are unfaithful to the laws. Of all things, therefore, wickedness is most detested in that place where virtue is most admired.
Conquests, Sir, are no part of my system. The powers vested in the Federal President opens the door to unlimited oppression.
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever
All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.
Be First to Comment