Monday, June 11, 2007

Words from our Founding Fathers

I don't like it, but I will vote for it because we need something right now. But this constitution in time will fail, as all such efforts do. And it will fail because of the corruption of the people, in a general sense. ~ Benjamin Franklin on being shown the new constitution of the United States of America.

We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. ~ James Madison

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs . . . Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual expectation. ~ Thomas Jefferson 1787

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak. ~ John Adams

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. ~ James Madison

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. ~ Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ John Adams

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