Weakness

"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power."

John Adams

Weakness

"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power."

John Adams

Blinded to Truth

"Party knows no impulse but spirit, no prize but victory. It is blind to truth, and hardened against conviction. It seeks to justify error by perseverance, and denies to its own mind the operation if its own judgment. A man under the tyrrany of party spirit is the greatest slave upon the earth, for none but himself can deprive him of the freedom of thought."

Thomas Paine

Baneful effects of Parties

"Let me now...warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party...It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeebles the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one party against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

George Washington

Waftings of War

"The insulated state in which nature has placed the American continent should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them."

Thomas Jefferson

Militia

"Always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republic; that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe."

James Madison

Constitutional Freedom

"Give me the steady, uniform, unshaken security of constitutional freedom. Give me the right of trial by jury of my own neighbors, and to be taxed by my own representatives only. What will become of the law and courts of justice without this? I woudl die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed."

Alexander Hamilton

Defense of Liberty

"That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing [as liberty], on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet arms...should be the last resort."

George Washington

Against all Hazards

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned it and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

John Adams

Knowledge

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be thier own Governors, must arm themselves iwth the power which kn owledge gives."

James Madison