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Second Amendment
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
John Adams
JA1. Because power corrupts, societies demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. - John Adams
JA2. Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. - John Adams
JA3. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. - John Adams
JA4. Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. - John Adams
JA5. There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. - John Adams
JA6. But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. - John Adams
JA7. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. - John Adams
JA8. In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress. - John Adams
JA9. In politics the middle way is none at all. - John Adams
JA10. Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. - John Adams
Samuel Adams
SA1. How strangely will the Tools of the Tyrant pervert the Plain Meaning of Words. - Samuel Adams
SA2. It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds. - Samuel Adams
SA3. Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent? - Samuel Adams
SA4. The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the U.S. from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams
SA5. The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. - Samuel Adams
SA6. The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought. - Samuel Adams
SA7. The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
SA8. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. - Samuel Adams
Benjamin Franklin
BF1. Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin
BF2. But, ah, think what you do when you run in debt: you give another power over your liberty. - Benjamin Franklin
BF3. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. - Benjamin Franklin
BF4. In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors and sovereigns… - Benjamin Franklin
BF5. The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. - Benjamin Franklin
BF6. When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power. - Benjamin Franklin
BF7. Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. - Benjamin Franklin
BF8. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. - Benjamin Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
AH1. It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government. - Alexander Hamilton
AH2. In the main it will be found that a power over a man’s support (salary) is a power over his will. - Alexander Hamilton
AH3. The Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. - Alexander Hamilton
AH4. The fabric of the American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. - Alexander Hamilton
AH5. Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton
AH6. The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. - Alexander Hamilton
Patrick Henry
PH1. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. - Patrick Henry
PH2. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry
PH3. The Constitution is not an instrument for the gov’t to restrain the people. It is an instrument for the people to restrain the government-lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. - Patrick Henry
PH4. The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. - Patrick Henry
PH5. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different Liberty, sir, was the primary object. - Patrick Henry
PH6. The great object is that every man be armed. - Patrick Henry
PH7. Those that hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not. - Patrick Henry
PH8. It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded...on the gospel of Jesus Christ! - Patrick Henry
Thomas Jefferson
TJ1. All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ2. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ3. I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ4. I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ5. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on will save one-half the wars of the world. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ6. My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ7. No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ8. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ9. The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ10. 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
TJ11. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ12. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ13. To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful & tyrannical. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ14. The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect it’s free expression should be its first object. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ15. What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the Spirit of Resistance. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ16. Taxation follows public debt, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ17. When people fear their government, there is tyranny. When government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ18. Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ19. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ20. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ21. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ22. Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ23. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator certain unalienable rights; that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ24. Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ25. Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. - Thomas Jefferson
TJ26. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
JM1. Do not separate text from historical background. If you do you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution. - James Madison
JM2. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. - James Madison
JM3. It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people. - James Madison
JM4. 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. - James Madison
JM5. The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. - James Madison
JM6. The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of Government was instituted. - James Madison
JM7. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. - James Madison
JM8. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government. - James Madison
JM9. Americans have the right and advantage of being armed--unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. - James Madison
JM10. A well regulated militia, composed of the whole body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
George Madison
GM1. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. - George Madison
Thomas Paine
TP1. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - Thomas Paine
TP2. That government is best which governs least. - Thomas Paine
TP3. The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes. - Thomas Paine
TP4. These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women. - Thomas Paine
George Washington
GW1. Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth. - George Washington
GW2. Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. - George Washington
GW3. The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. - George Washington
GW4. To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. - George Washington
GW5. If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington
GW6. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. - George Washington
GW7. Government is not reason, it is not eloquence—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
GW8. When firearms go, all go. We need them every hour. - George Washington
GW9. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that is good. - George Washington