Editors Comment:

Compare America's state of the union today with the quotes of our founders. See any issues? The founders spoke of many things.

Today America has issues with infrastructure, debt, crime, education, corruption, secret and sealed documents, unconsitutional laws, laws that cannot be read or understood, foreign influence, and more. I am sure most of you are aware of it.

 

On the distinctive principles of the Government ... of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in... The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States.

James Madison: letter to Thomas Jefferson, February 8, 1825


Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

James Madison: Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787


There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
-= speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 16, 1788 =James Madison(1751 - 1836)-


Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants
-= Federalist No. 1, October 27, 1787 =-Alexander Hamilton


A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, 1788


It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
 
-= Federalist No. 62, 1788 =-Alexander Hamilton


Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
-= Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765 =-John Adams


I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
-= Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802) 3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) =-
Thomas Jefferson


History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.
-= Emblematical Representations, Circa 1774 =-


The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.
First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
George Washington:



The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity.

George Washington: letter to Gouverneur Morris, December 22, 1795



"Those, who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people." (Aristotle, as quoted by John Trenchard and Water Moyle, An Argument Shewing, That a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy [London, 1697])


Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
-= speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788 =-James Madison 


The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816



[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, November 4, 1823


The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Shelton Gilliam, June 19, 1808



Comment of website editor:
  Is it just me ?  Does it seem the quotations of the founding fathers read as a blueprint of sorts ?  It appears America's leaders have used it destroy America from within. Like a list of what not to do. There seems to be endless examples of issues the American people have with government at all levels.


Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.

George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778


 
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