Educational Foundation

"The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object an life of all republican governments."

Benjamin Rush

Protecting Liberty

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others."

Thomas Jefferson

The Value of One

"The larger a country, the less easy for its real opinion to be ascertained, and the less difficult to be counterfeited; when ascertained or presumed, the more respectable it is in the eyes of the individuals. This is favorable to the authoirty of government. For the same reason, the more extensive a country, the more insignificant is each individual in his own eyes. This may be unfavorable to liberty."

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

Catching Happiness

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”

Benjamin Franklin

Tumult of Liberty

"Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

(Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. "I prefer the tumult of Liberty to the quiet of servitude.)
Thomas Jefferson

Guarding Liberty and Order

"Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe, until a trespass on the consitutional provisions for either shall be felt with the same keenness that resents an invasion of the dearest rigths, until every citizen shall be an Argus to espy, and an Aegeon to avenge, the unhallowed deed."

James Madison

The Value of Education

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

James Madison

Principles of Freedom

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."

John Adams

The Brightest Morn

"I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds which have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any country."

George Washington

Universal Truth

"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
James Madison

A Melancholy Reflection

"It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the Government have too much or too little power.

James Madison

Preservation of Liberty

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people, for they are the
only sure reliance for the preservation of liberty.

~Thomas Jefferson

High Time

"Is it not High Time for the People of this Country explicitly to declare, whether they will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be decided. It concerns us more than any thing in this Life. The Salvation of our Souls is interested in the Event: For wherever Tyranny is establish'd, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a Torrent. It is in the interest of Tyrants to reduce the people to Ignorance and Vice. For they cannot live in any Country where Virtue and Knowledge prevail. The Religion and public Liberty of a People are intimately connected; their Interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this Reason, it is always observable, that those who are combined to destroy the People's Liberties, practice every Art to poison their Morals. How greatly then does it concern us, at all Events, to put a Stop to the Progress of Tyranny."

Samuel Adams; Boston Gazette October 1772

Liberty Lost

"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

John Adams

Hold Fast Liberty

"Banish unmanly fear, acquit yourselves like men, and with firm confidence trust the event with that Almighty and benevolent Being who hath commanded you to hold fast the liberty with which he has made you free; and who is able as well as willing to support you in performing his orders."

John Jay
To the General Committee of Tyron County; 1777

Gifts from God

"...can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!"

Thomas Jefferson