Quotes Of The Founding Fathers, Insight into their hopes for the country

MacEoghainn;

I do not contend that man must be governed by "enlightened Elitist" but there must be rules (Law) and they must be enforced. With Law comes Government. With Government stability. A balance must be struck and maintained by the people. If a government becomes to "Elitist" and controlling it has to be removed, your own forefathers did that, but they realized that they too must have government or man reverts to his chaotic state. There is a thin veneer between civilization and barbarism and that veneer is maintained by Law. Agreed the system, yours or ours, is not perfect and there are times when Government goes to far, then it is up to the governed to remove that government and replace it. Man is selfish and given the opportunity will take advantage therefore it is up to government to set the boundaries. As to the "Elitist" they with their self assumed superiority are perhaps Man at his worst.


Camac.

Camac,

Thomas Jefferson, and most of his contemporaries, knew that in order for the nation and system of government they were building to work it depended on a moral, honest, industrious people to succeed. People like that do not need government to set the rules for them, they already know what the rules of good conduct are.

here are some quotes from earlier in this thread that speak to that point:

"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."

—George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

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--October 11, 1798

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives."

—John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

"No compact among men ... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."

--George Washington, draft of first Inaugural Address, April 1789

"The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head."

--Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions."

--John Adams, letter to Mercy Warren, 16 April 1776

"Since private and publick Vices, are in Reality, though not always apparently, so nearly connected, of how much Importance, how necessary is it, that the utmost Pains be taken by the Publick, to have the Principles of Virtue early inculcated on the Minds even of children, and the moral Sense kept alive, and that the wise institutions of our Ancestors for these great Purposes be encouraged by the Government. For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."

--Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 4 November 1775

"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."

--Samuel Adams, letter to John Trumbull, 16 October 1778

"We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience."

--Theophilus Parsons the Essex Result, 1778

Amoral and immoral people will do what they do no matter what the "laws" may state. The danger to the society is not the lack of laws and government, but instead that the people become so corrupted that they no longer can tell right from wrong. No amount of law or government can correct that problem and ultimately that society will fail.

"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."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

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"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry."

--Thomas Paine

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"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing. And that you may be always doing good, my dear, is the ardent prayer of yours affectionately."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 5 May 1787


P.S. Though acccurate, I question sending this letter to ones spouse!

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them." --Thomas Jefferson

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"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 12 July 1816


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"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."

--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746


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"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."

--James Madison

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"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a ban of brethren, united to each other by the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties."

--John Jay, Federalist No. 2

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Patch;

Was not John Jay the person for whom the Jay Treaty was named. If memory serves me the treaty was being renegotiate or had not been in effect long when the War of 1812 began. I believe also it had to do with the border line between Maine and New Brunswick. Could be I'm off base on this but I don't think so.


Camac

Yes, He was the same person.

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Patch    

Patch;

Thanks. The name jumped off the page when I read it and I thought it was familiar. If memory serves me right he was rather villified for that Treaty as it was seen as conceeding to much to the Brits. I know this is a bit off topic and I apologize.


Camac.

It spreads knowledge though and knowledge is good!

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"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it." --John Adams


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