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Democracy
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Thomas Jefferson
Foreign Relations / Military
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.” Thomas Jefferson
“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Thomas Jefferson
“The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked than the supine, secure, and negligent.” Benjamin Franklin
“There is a rank due to the United States among other nations, wich will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” George Washington
Government Power
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws.” John Adams
“A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.” Thomas Jefferson
“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless... From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore... will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.” Thomas Jefferson
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.” George Washington
“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people. Who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence.” John Locke
Money
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America rise, not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” John Adams
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” James Madison
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” Thomas Jefferson
Natural Law / Natural Rights
“The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for.” Thomas Jefferson
“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 Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Thomas Jefferson
“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.” Thomas Jefferson
“Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforhand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” Frederic Bastiat
