Quotes
by America's Founders
Notice especially the many references to
God, Christianity, and morality as a
vital foundations for lasting liberty. Yet, not all of
these men knew the true God or lived by His
guidelines.
Then consider all the
ways that today's
media, schools and
computer games
promote immorality and
hatred for God's moral guidelines.
"I pray heaven to
bestow the best of blessing on this House
(Congress?) and on all that shall hereafter inhabit
it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under
this roof!" John Adams
[1]
"Remember, democracy
never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders
itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit
suicide."
John Adams
[2]
"We have no government armed with power capable of
contending with human passions unbridled by
morality and religion. Avarice, ambition,
revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest
cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a
net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral
and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to
the government of any other." John Adams
[3]
"...the mild voice of
reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent
interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies
as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient
avidity for immediate and immoderate gain."
James
Madison
[4]
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a
certain degree. "
James
Madison
[5]
"The man who reads
nothing at all is better educated than the man who
reads nothing but newspapers."
Thomas
Jefferson
"It is when
people forget God that tyrants forge their
chains."
Patrick Henry
"...ambitious
encroachments of the federal government on
the authority of the State governments would
not excite the opposition of a single State,
or of a few States only. They would be
signals of general alarm... But what degree
of madness could ever drive the federal
government to such an extremity."
James
Madison
[6]
"Remember, democracy
never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and
murders itself." John Adams
[7]
"He
therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who
tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his
power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen
into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and
virtuous man. ...It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly
upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their
actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty —
to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all
who are poorer or weaker than themselves. ...if we would
most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous
people."
Samuel Adams
[8]
"Without
morals a
republic cannot subsist any length of time. They
therefore who are decrying the Christian religion...
are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the
best security for the duration of free governments."
Charles Carroll
(signed the Declaration)[9]
"Conscience is the most sacred of all property."
James
Madison [10]
"If ever time should
come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the
highest seats in Government, our country will stand
in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its
ruin."
Samuel Adams
(1722-1803), known as the "Father of the American Revolution."
"The
Constitution is not an instrument for
the government 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
"...if we are
to be told by a foreign Power ... what we shall do,
and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet
to seek, and have contended hitherto for very
little. "
George Washington
[11]
'Tis our true policy
to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any
portion of the foreign world. "
George Washington,
Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
"The essence of Government
is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever
be liable to abuse."
James Madison
[12]
"If a nation expects to be ignorant
and
free, in a state of civilization, it expects
what never was and never will be."
Thomas
Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816
"...a Constitution of
Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored.
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. "
John
Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775
"Every
measure of prudence, therefore, ought to
be assumed for the eventual total
extirpation of slavery from the United
States.... I have, throughout my whole
life, held the practice of slavery
in... abhorrence."
John Adams, letter, June 8, 1919.
"If we
abide by the principles taught in the
Bible, our country will go on prospering and to
prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its
instruction and authority, no man can tell how
sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all
our glory in profound obscurity."
Daniel Webster
"Be ready in
season and out of season. Convince, rebuke,
exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For
the time will come when they will not endure
sound doctrine, but according
to their own desires, because they have
itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and
they will
turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
But you be watchful in all things..."2
Timothy 4:2-5
Note: While all the above quotes are
attributed to various founders, some still lack
verifiable sources. If we find that information, it
will be added.
Notes:
1.
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, 11-22-1800.
2.
John Adams,
(1735-1826) Source: letter
to John Taylor, April 15, 1814
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Adams.Quote.7222
3.The
Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams (Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851).
4. James Madison, James
Madison, Federalist No. 42,
January 22, 1788
5. James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787.
6. James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788.
7.
John
Adams, Letter, April 15, 1814.
8. Essay published in The Advertiser (1748) and
later reprinted in The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams,
Volume 1, by William Vincent Wells; Little, Brown, and Company;
Boston, 1865.
9. Charles Carroll,
letter to Secretary of War James McHenry in 1800.
10. James Madison,
Essay on Property, March 29, 1792.
11. George
Washington, letter to Alexander Hamilton, May 8, 1796.
12.
James Madison (1751-1836), 4th US President,
Speech, Virginia State Convention,
2 December 1829.
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