Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
Celtic Radio Community > Politics & Current Events > Quotes Of The Founding Fathers


Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 08:07 AM
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition."

—Thomas Jefferson (Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 15 February 1791)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 08:12 AM
"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


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Jillian 25-Nov-2008, 03:19 PM
QUOTE
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation." 

John Adams



Me thinks Mr. Adams a psychic!

Jillian

Posted by: Jillian 25-Nov-2008, 03:27 PM
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson


Sorry, couldn't resist these either....soooo, how many of the Founding Fathers are rolling in the graves now? crybaby.gif

Jillian

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 03:54 PM
One might easily come to the conclusion that they could foresee the future.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 04:07 PM
"I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the
exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial.
But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that
any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers
than another in marking out the limits of the powers of the
several departments."

-- James Madison (speech in the Congress of the United States,
17 June 1789)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 04:14 PM
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm."

—James Madison, Federalist No. 10

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 25-Nov-2008, 04:44 PM
"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

Posted by: SCShamrock 25-Nov-2008, 05:34 PM
"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

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 06:57 PM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Nov-2008, 07:03 PM
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men,
undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

-- Thomas Paine (The Crisis, no. 4, 11 September 1777)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-Nov-2008, 07:46 AM
"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

–George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: McRoach 27-Nov-2008, 11:06 AM
"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."

-Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation 1863

I give thanks he made this an annual holiday. thumbs_up.gif

Posted by: Patch 27-Nov-2008, 11:39 AM
Excelent and very appropriazte!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: SCShamrock 27-Nov-2008, 02:24 PM
One can hardly read many of the quotes of the founders and still maintain that our country was not founded by Christians, based on Christian principles.

Posted by: Patch 27-Nov-2008, 02:33 PM
Very true, they did have the foresight not to force any "one" religion on the US citizens.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Antwn 28-Nov-2008, 12:51 PM
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Part of the Treaty of Tripoli, signed by Geo Washington, president at the time, called: "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary"

It seems that President Washington and the US State Department at the time did not believe that the US was founded on Christian precepts, in fact, that was the basis for the statement above. Moreover it is stated as a reason for peace between states whose religions differ - since the United States is not based in the Christian religion, there is "no pretext arising from religious opinions" that can be used to justify conflict. This is obviously seen as an asset the US has.

Ironic how perceptions change. In fact, there are far too many ironies in the fire these days.

Posted by: Patch 28-Nov-2008, 12:59 PM
I do not believe a treaty determines the religious beliefs of those who founded and fought for this country.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Antwn 28-Nov-2008, 03:33 PM
Of course not, and no treaty does. Besides, the beliefs of the founders and the people in America at that time were varied, particularly if you include native americans tribes who fought for the revolution, i.e. fought for this country, even if their motives were not the same.

What the treaty does specify is a presupposition regarding the relationship between the US system of government and the Christian religion. Since treaties are drafted and negociated by members of the department of state and signed by the president (Washington at that time - who I think qualifies as a founder), it seems likely that the first sentence specifies their attitude, or why include it? In addition the words "in any sense" would seem to include Christian principles, in fact, that phrase is unequivocal.

A distinction is important here. The religion of those "who fought and founded this country" is not the same thing as the religion of the government of the United States, which of course doesn't exist since the government is decidedly secular. One can say the government is not founded on the Christian religion, as the sentence says, and still say that the religious beliefs of those who founded the country were predominately Christian.

As for the country being founded on Christian principles, it would be nice to see some evidence to that effect as opposed to mere statements, the definitive nature of which we're supposed to take on.....for lack of a better term - faith? I would like to know since I've heard this statement made many times, but no one has ever qualified it.

Posted by: Patch 28-Nov-2008, 03:58 PM
We will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 30-Nov-2008, 08:31 AM
This one seems lost on some who go out of their way to prevent our service people votes from counting because they don't like the way they vote!

"When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen"

George Washington

Posted by: coastman 01-Dec-2008, 03:37 PM
Whether Democrat or Republican, we do not have any Statesman leading America. What we have are professional politicians.

Posted by: Patch 01-Dec-2008, 05:36 PM
QUOTE (coastman @ 01-Dec-2008, 05:37 PM)
Whether Democrat or Republican, we do not have any Statesman leading America. What we have are professional politicians.

Or as I like to refer to them, "political parasites."

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Jillian 01-Dec-2008, 08:45 PM
QUOTE (coastman @ 01-Dec-2008, 05:37 PM)
QUOTE
Whether Democrat or Republican, we do not have any Statesman leading America. What we have are professional politicians. 



QUOTE
Or as I like to refer to them, "political parasites."- Patch-


It's hard to fight or stand for something when you have everything. We the people are the only ones who have anything to stand and fight for.

Jillian

Posted by: Patch 02-Dec-2008, 06:47 AM
"The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country."

--Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, 1749


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 03-Dec-2008, 08:01 AM
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."

--Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, December, 1791


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 04-Dec-2008, 06:49 AM
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 6 September 1789

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Antwn 04-Dec-2008, 11:40 AM
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy” - James Madison

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong” - James Madison

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe 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 usurpation” - James Madison


Posted by: Jillian 04-Dec-2008, 05:20 PM
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

- Daniel Webster-


"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

- Thomas Jefferson -

Posted by: Patch 05-Dec-2008, 07:28 AM
"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence."

--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 22 April 1790

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Dec-2008, 07:40 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 16-Dec-2008, 03:10 PM
"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

Slàinte,    Patch    

Posted by: Patch 17-Dec-2008, 09:21 AM
"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


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: McRoach 17-Dec-2008, 10:14 AM
"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

"Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich " tongue.gif

Posted by: Patch 18-Dec-2008, 08:14 AM
"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


Slàinte,   

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 21-Dec-2008, 01:24 PM
"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: maisky 22-Dec-2008, 07:45 AM
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither."

Benjamin Franklin

Do you think he knew GWB?

Posted by: Patch 22-Dec-2008, 08:44 AM
Obviously bush knew nothing of B. Franklin!

"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God."

--John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: deadeye08 23-Dec-2008, 12:06 AM
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

--- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

Posted by: MacEoghainn 23-Dec-2008, 05:54 PM
Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.

James Madison from: Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
1785





Posted by: Patch 25-Dec-2008, 07:06 AM
"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."

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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 26-Dec-2008, 07:03 AM
This one is a little over 50 years later.

"The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-Dec-2008, 06:32 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: deadeye08 29-Dec-2008, 01:58 PM
"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."

--- Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

Posted by: MacEoghainn 29-Dec-2008, 04:17 PM
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, 1776

John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Posted by: stoirmeil 29-Dec-2008, 09:45 PM
The objects of... primary education [which] determine its character and limits [are]:

To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;

to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing;

to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;

to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;

to know his rights;

to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates;

and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment;

and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed.

Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.



What is REALLY meant by "no child left behind": no child (or adult) left in ignorance either of his rights or of his responsibilities, and to take both equally seriously. And to take the child and the young person seriously, at last, as a citizen too.

Let's see where it goes from Inauguration Day.

Posted by: Patch 30-Dec-2008, 05:45 AM
"It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1 February 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 31-Dec-2008, 05:13 AM
"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-Jan-2009, 08:12 AM
"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve."

--Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Jan-2009, 07:08 AM
"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 today can guess what it will be to-morrow."

--James Madison (likely), Federalist No. 62, 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-Jan-2009, 08:11 AM
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: lschillinger 07-Jan-2009, 03:57 PM
I always think of this Ben Franklin quote when hearing about all of these spending bills especially with all of the "pork"

The king's cheese is half wasted in parings;
but no matter, 'tis made of the people's milk.

Posted by: Patch 08-Jan-2009, 07:33 AM
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."

--Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, December 1791

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Jan-2009, 08:49 AM
"Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 14-Jan-2009, 06:50 PM
"[The President] is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people. The tenure of his office, it is true, is not hereditary; nor is it for life: but still it is a tenure of the noblest kind: by being the man of the people, he is invested; by continuing to be the man of the people, his investiture will be voluntarily, and cheerfully, and honourably renewed."

--James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

Slàinte,    

Patch     

Posted by: Patch 15-Jan-2009, 07:55 AM
"On the other hand, the duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence, or defence; for the redress of grievances, or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Slàinte,    

Patch     

Posted by: Patch 20-Jan-2009, 10:21 AM
"There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that 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, 1789

Slàinte,    

Patch     

Posted by: MacEoghainn 20-Jan-2009, 04:52 PM
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

Thomas Paine

"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."

Thomas Jefferson

Posted by: Camac 20-Jan-2009, 06:15 PM
MacEoghainn;

If I may make so bold as to say That when Thomas Jefferson said "That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves"
must have been in his cups for Man is a creature of chaos and will not learn discipline , self or otherwise , less forced. Prime example :- deregulation.


Camac

Posted by: MacEoghainn 20-Jan-2009, 08:10 PM
QUOTE (Camac @ 20-Jan-2009, 07:15 PM)
MacEoghainn;

If I may make so bold as to say That when Thomas Jefferson  said "That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves"
must have been in his cups for Man is a creature of chaos and will not learn discipline , self or otherwise , less forced. Prime example :- deregulation.


Camac

So therefore man can only be governed by the "enlightened Elites"?

And what is it that makes the "Elites" so morally superior that they will not "lie, cheat, and steal" from their fellow man also?

Posted by: Camac 21-Jan-2009, 07:27 AM
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.

Posted by: MacEoghainn 21-Jan-2009, 06:22 PM
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.



Posted by: Patch 23-Jan-2009, 05:24 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 28-Jan-2009, 10:04 AM
"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry."

--Thomas Paine

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-Jan-2009, 09:04 AM
"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!

Posted by: Patch 02-Feb-2009, 09:36 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch     

Posted by: Patch 03-Feb-2009, 06:52 AM


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

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


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 05-Feb-2009, 06:46 AM
"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."

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


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Feb-2009, 11:28 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Feb-2009, 07:59 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 10-Feb-2009, 08:53 AM
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



Posted by: Patch 11-Feb-2009, 09:36 AM
QUOTE (Camac @ 10-Feb-2009, 10:53 AM)
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.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 11-Feb-2009, 09:48 AM
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.

Posted by: Patch 11-Feb-2009, 11:48 AM
It spreads knowledge though and knowledge is good!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Feb-2009, 11:51 AM
"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


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-Feb-2009, 05:31 AM
"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-Feb-2009, 12:53 PM
"A people ... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything."

--George Washington

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 14-Feb-2009, 03:26 PM
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin's original recommendation for the motto of the United States.

Posted by: Patch 16-Feb-2009, 11:47 AM
"His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man."

--Thomas Jefferson about George Washington

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 16-Feb-2009, 05:15 PM
"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country." George Washington

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall97/wshngton.html

Posted by: Patch 17-Feb-2009, 09:12 AM
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Spencer Roane, 9 March 1821


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 18-Feb-2009, 07:13 AM
"It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 35

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 18-Feb-2009, 11:00 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 19-Feb-2009, 07:28 AM
"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; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

--Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book, 1774-1776


Slàinte,   

 Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 20-Feb-2009, 12:26 PM
You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it: But I do not take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it. Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them.

Benjamin Franklin

Posted by: MacEoghainn 21-Feb-2009, 10:55 AM
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.--Thomas Jefferson

Posted by: Patch 23-Feb-2009, 07:56 AM
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 24-Feb-2009, 11:58 AM
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 5 June 1778

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Feb-2009, 11:18 AM
"[G]overnment, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one."

--Thomas Paine


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 26-Feb-2009, 08:52 AM
"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."

--John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787-1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-Feb-2009, 01:00 PM
"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 and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

--John Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 01-Mar-2009, 05:55 PM
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

Posted by: Patch 03-Mar-2009, 06:39 AM
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 7 July 1785


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 04-Mar-2009, 05:32 AM
"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 04-Mar-2009, 10:01 AM
"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species."

--James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: MacEoghainn 04-Mar-2009, 06:18 PM
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington

Posted by: Patch 04-Mar-2009, 06:42 PM
Sometimes more so than others!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 05-Mar-2009, 11:14 AM
"[C]ommercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. ...[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out."

--James Madison, speech to Congress, 9 April 1789

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Mar-2009, 09:05 AM
"War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Pickney, 29 May 1797

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Mar-2009, 11:24 AM
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. ... I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

--Thomas Jefferson



Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Mar-2009, 06:16 AM
"On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?"

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 12, 1782

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Mar-2009, 09:40 AM
"Government can do something for the people only in proportion as it can do something to the people." -- Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Mar-2009, 04:30 AM
"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected."

--Thomas Jefferson, autobiography, 1821

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Mar-2009, 04:45 PM
"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

--James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-Mar-2009, 06:21 AM
"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Slàinte,  

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 13-Mar-2009, 07:21 AM
QUOTE (Patch @ 13-Mar-2009, 08:21 AM)
"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Slàinte,  

Patch    

That is a quote that needs to be "beaten" into every law school student, lawyer, and judge in this country (I'd mention politicians, unfortunately most of them are a lost cause).

Posted by: Camac 13-Mar-2009, 07:41 AM
Patch;

The Quotes of your Founding Fathers are the rhetoric of men who dreamed of building the perfect society, a Utopia on Earth", perhaps it is only the Gods who have that power.


Camac.

Posted by: Patch 13-Mar-2009, 08:47 AM
All great things are built on dreams!

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 13-Mar-2009, 09:51 AM
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts."

--Patrick Henry

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 13-Mar-2009, 03:37 PM
QUOTE (Camac @ 13-Mar-2009, 09:41 AM)
Patch;

The Quotes of your Founding Fathers are the rhetoric of men who dreamed of building the perfect society, a Utopia on Earth", perhaps it is only the Gods who have that power.


Camac.

The system the Founding Fathers gave was not designed to be perfect, nor to be operated by perfect people. Their plan and that government would work fine if we just follow their advice. If we return to their principles the system will work again.

Posted by: MacEoghainn 13-Mar-2009, 04:22 PM
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; 'Tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods, and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."

Thomas Paine

Posted by: Patch 16-Mar-2009, 10:52 AM
"A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the object of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained."

--James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 16-Mar-2009, 10:54 AM
"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. -- From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Make them intelligent, and they will be vigilant; give them the means of detecting the wrong, and they will apply the remedy."

--U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 17-Mar-2009, 09:26 AM
"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country."

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


Slàinte,    

Patch     

Posted by: Patch 19-Mar-2009, 06:10 AM
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."

--George Washington, Circular to the States, 9 May 1753


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 20-Mar-2009, 06:47 AM
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."

--Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 21-Mar-2009, 01:40 PM
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Thomas Jefferson


Posted by: Patch 23-Mar-2009, 07:24 AM
"It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. After discriminating, therefore, in theory, the several classes of power, as they may in their nature be legislative, executive, or judiciary, the next and most difficult task is to provide some practical security for each, against the invasion of the others."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 48

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 23-Mar-2009, 09:43 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 24-Mar-2009, 07:04 AM
"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, Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, 6 July 1775

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Mar-2009, 06:28 AM
"It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can."

--John Adams, letter to Count Sarsfield, 3 February 1786

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Mar-2009, 01:05 PM
"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason."

--Benjamin Franklin

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 27-Mar-2009, 06:06 AM
"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."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, circa 1774

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 27-Mar-2009, 06:08 AM
It seems our founding fathers certainly did some profound thinking and had a lot to say about it!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 30-Mar-2009, 06:30 AM
"Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, 21 December 1787

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 30-Mar-2009, 09:19 AM
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." --James Madison, Federalist No. 51

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: MacEoghainn 31-Mar-2009, 05:05 AM
Although there may be unjust and unequal laws, obedience to which would be incompatible with liberty; yet no man will contend, that a nation can be free, that is not governed by fixed laws. All other government than that of permanent known laws, is the government of mere will and pleasure, whether it be exercised by one, a few, or many.

John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America/Vol. 1/Chap. 4

Posted by: Patch 31-Mar-2009, 07:17 AM
"I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful."

--Fisher Ames, letter to George Richard Minot, 23 June 1789


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 02-Apr-2009, 10:08 AM
"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government."

--Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805


Slàinte,    

Patch    




Posted by: Patch 03-Apr-2009, 06:49 AM
"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 03-Apr-2009, 10:41 AM
"I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home."

--George Washington

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: flora 03-Apr-2009, 03:28 PM
Didn't we just sign that away at the G 20?

Flora

Posted by: Patch 03-Apr-2009, 03:38 PM
You noticed. I fear we have squandered the legacy we were entrusted with, to protect for our children and grand children. The following was quoted earlier in this topic. "Anyone who is willing to trade a little liberty for a little perceived safety deserves none of either." Unfortunately, we may have arrived.

Slàinte,   

 Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 04-Apr-2009, 01:34 PM
This is a little long....and yes I know the author wasn't a Founding Father, but he was a contemporary of the Founders and a friend and supporter of our cause.

"I found a great distemper in the commonwealth; and, according to the nature of evil and of the object, I treated it. The malady was deep; it was complicated, in the causes and in the symptoms. Throughout it was full of contra-indicants. On one hand Government, daily growing more invidious for an apparent increase of the means of strength, was every day growing more contemptible by real weakness. Nor was this dissolution confined to Government commonly so called. It extended to Parliament; which was losing not a little in its dignity and estimation, by an opinion of its not acting on worthy motives. On the other hand, the desires of the People (partly natural and partly infused into them by art), appeared in so wild and inconsiderate a manner, with regard to the economical object (for I set aside for a moment the dreadful tampering with the body of the Constitution itself) that if their petitions had literally been complied with, the State would have been convulsed; and a gate would have been opened, through which all property might be sacked and ravaged. Nothing could have saved the Public from the mischiefs of the false reform but its absurdity; which would soon have brought itself, and with it all real reform, into discredit. This would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the people who would know they had failed in the accomplishment of their wishes, but who, like the rest of mankind in all ages, would impute the blame to any thing rather than to their own proceedings. But there were then persons in the world, who nourished complaint; and would have been thoroughly disappointed if the people were ever satisfied. I was not of that humour. I wished that they should be satisfied. It was my aim to give to the People the substance of what I knew they desired, and what I thought was right whether they desired it or not, before it had been modified for them into senseless petitions. I knew that there is a manifest marked distinction, which ill men, with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, that is, a marked distinction between Change and Reformation. The former alters the substance of the objects themselves; and gets rid of all their essential good, as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. Reform is, not a change in the substance, or in the primary modification of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the very worst, is but where it was."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

Posted by: Patch 06-Apr-2009, 06:30 AM
"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God... Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes and parliaments."

--John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Apr-2009, 09:54 AM
"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-Apr-2009, 05:40 AM
"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage."

--John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: MacEoghainn 07-Apr-2009, 07:09 PM
"Would it be wonderful if, under the pressure of all these difficulties, the convention should have been forced into some deviations from that artificial structure and regular symmetry which an abstract view of the subject might lead an ingenious theorist to bestow on a Constitution planned in his closet or in his imagination? The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted, and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."

James Madison The Federalist No. 37

Posted by: Patch 08-Apr-2009, 07:58 AM
"The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 08-Apr-2009, 10:43 AM
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."

--Alexander Hamilton

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Apr-2009, 06:18 AM
"[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and this is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."

--Virginia Bill of Rights, Article 16, June 12, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 09-Apr-2009, 10:25 AM
Not a founding father quote but appropriate.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be the better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

---C.S. Lewis---

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Apr-2009, 01:22 PM
"The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. ... The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity. ... It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

--George Washington

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Apr-2009, 05:27 AM
"It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society."

--James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 11-Apr-2009, 07:38 AM
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and
themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.

The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God,on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."
General George Washington, to his troops before the battle of Long Island


Posted by: Patch 13-Apr-2009, 05:17 AM
"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-Apr-2009, 01:57 PM
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

--John Marshall

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 14-Apr-2009, 12:59 PM
"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 10


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 15-Apr-2009, 04:33 AM
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

--John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 17-Apr-2009, 11:55 AM
"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 man and woman."

--Thomas Paine

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 20-Apr-2009, 04:46 AM
"[T]he hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty - that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."

--George Washington, General Orders, 23 August 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 20-Apr-2009, 09:00 AM
"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."

--Samuel Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 21-Apr-2009, 05:28 AM
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

--John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 13 February 1818

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 22-Apr-2009, 05:31 AM
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 22-Apr-2009, 10:59 AM
Jefferson on the People and their responsibilities:

"Whenever our affairs go obviously wrong, the good sense of the people will interpose and set them to rights."

“It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that, too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction”

"I am sensible that there are defects in our federal government, yet they are so much lighter than those of monarchies, that I view them with much indulgence. I rely, too, on the good sense of the people for remedy, whereas the evils of monarchical government are beyond remedy."

Thomas Jefferson

Posted by: Patch 23-Apr-2009, 05:32 AM
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 24-Apr-2009, 10:50 AM
"If a nation expects to be ignorant -- and free ... it expects what never was and never will be."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-Apr-2009, 06:27 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-Apr-2009, 11:32 AM
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

--James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 28-Apr-2009, 06:47 AM
"It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 37

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-Apr-2009, 05:48 AM
"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature."

--Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-Apr-2009, 10:11 AM
"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution."

--Alexander Hamilton

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 30-Apr-2009, 04:40 AM
"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party generally. ... A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-May-2009, 07:46 AM
"We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape -- that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to the views of political institutions of a different form? It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this object."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-May-2009, 09:22 AM
"It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust." --James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 01-May-2009, 03:41 PM
"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

Posted by: MacEoghainn 01-May-2009, 03:43 PM
"If ever a 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


Posted by: MacEoghainn 02-May-2009, 06:59 AM
"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

John Adams

Posted by: Patch 04-May-2009, 09:46 AM
This has possible been posted but a quick check did not find it.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 05-May-2009, 09:29 AM
"In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator."

--Samuel Adams, letter to the Legislature of Massachusetts, 17 January 1794

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-May-2009, 09:48 AM
"[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men."

--Johns Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-May-2009, 06:27 AM
"[I]t is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand....The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."

--John Adams, letter to Zabdiel Adams, 21 June 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-May-2009, 10:44 AM
"If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave."

--John Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 08-May-2009, 06:35 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 08-May-2009, 10:17 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-May-2009, 06:40 AM
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullability, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Smith, December 8, 1822


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-May-2009, 10:41 AM
"[T]he 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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-May-2009, 10:43 AM
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

--U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 12-May-2009, 10:25 AM
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."

--Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, December 1791

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-May-2009, 10:31 AM
"The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised... [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern."

--American statesman John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 13-May-2009, 10:32 AM
"Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it."

--Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-May-2009, 10:34 AM
"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."

--American author and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-May-2009, 10:35 AM
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 14-May-2009, 05:47 AM
"Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, January 6, 1833

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 15-May-2009, 07:09 AM
"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect."

--James Madison, to an unidentified correspondent, 1833

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 15-May-2009, 10:15 AM
"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 16-May-2009, 08:51 AM
More recent quote but very true.

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money"---

Margaret Thatcher

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 18-May-2009, 04:40 AM
"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

--James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, December 2, 1829

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 18-May-2009, 09:44 AM
"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."

--Alexander Hamilton

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 20-May-2009, 05:23 AM
"This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 20-May-2009, 02:18 PM
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

--Thomas Paine

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 22-May-2009, 04:53 AM
"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country."

--George Washington, upon fumbling for his glasses before delivering the Newburgh Address, March 15, 1783

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-May-2009, 10:21 AM
"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

--John Adams, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 18, 1808

(This one I firmly believe!!)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 26-May-2009, 05:15 AM
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 06:14 AM
"The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it."

--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, December 16, 1824

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 11:19 AM
"[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men."

--John Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 11:23 AM
An astute observation!! Recent

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

--author Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 11:24 AM
French but appropriate.

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded."

--French political philosopher C. L. De Montesquieu (1689-1755)


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 11:26 AM
English but good

"The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum."

--English cleric and writer Charles Colton (1780-1832)

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 27-May-2009, 11:59 AM
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oBuPQgV8yBM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oBuPQgV8yBM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

For those like Deputy Barney Fife who forgot or never learned:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

Posted by: Patch 27-May-2009, 12:33 PM
Excellent!!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 28-May-2009, 05:29 AM
"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; ... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-May-2009, 05:00 AM
"The Constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 02-Jun-2009, 04:59 AM
"The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 03-Jun-2009, 09:53 AM
"As on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular emergencies cannot be doubted, so on the other, it is equally evident that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the credit of a nation should be well established."

--Alexander Hamilton


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 04-Jun-2009, 07:55 PM
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virture to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."

--Federalist No. 57 (Alexander Hamilton or James Madison), 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 05-Jun-2009, 05:13 AM
"His Example is now complete, and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be read."

--John Adams, message to the U.S. Senate on George Washington's death, December 19, 1799

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 08-Jun-2009, 10:44 AM
"It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf."

--Thomas Paine

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 08-Jun-2009, 10:49 AM
"If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave."

--John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Jun-2009, 11:08 AM
"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

--Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Jun-2009, 11:10 AM
"He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing."

--Benjamin Franklin

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Jun-2009, 11:16 AM
In the latter stages of a bull-market, the market is most characterized by bull.

Date and author unknown

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Jun-2009, 10:22 AM
"Under all those disadvantages no men ever show more spirit or prudence than ours. In my opinion nothing but virtue has kept our army together through this campaign."

--Colonel John Brooks, letter to a friend, January 5, 1778

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 11-Jun-2009, 10:28 AM
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy."

--Samuel Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 12-Jun-2009, 05:18 AM
"The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty - that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."

--George Washington, General Orders, August 23, 1776

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 12-Jun-2009, 10:39 AM
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 51


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 15-Jun-2009, 04:14 AM
"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 51, February 8, 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 17-Jun-2009, 05:48 AM
"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country."

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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 19-Jun-2009, 05:21 AM
"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. ... How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?"

--John Adams, Diary, June 2, 1778

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 19-Jun-2009, 01:51 PM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 24-Jun-2009, 05:57 AM
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If `Thou shalt not covet' and `Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."

--John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 26-Jun-2009, 11:28 AM
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

--Thomas Jefferson


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 30-Jun-2009, 06:01 AM
"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 and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

--John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Jul-2009, 05:25 AM
"When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 71

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-Jul-2009, 05:55 AM
"It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail."

--Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1775

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 08-Jul-2009, 07:17 PM
"I have no ambition to govern men. It is a painful and thankless office."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 09-Jul-2009, 04:38 AM
"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 17, 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 10-Jul-2009, 03:01 PM
"It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 13-Jul-2009, 06:39 AM
"If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave."

--John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 17-Jul-2009, 09:59 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 17-Jul-2009, 07:30 PM
"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,     

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 21-Jul-2009, 06:56 AM
"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice."

--George Washington letter to Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 21-Jul-2009, 11:38 AM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 28-Jul-2009, 05:10 AM
"The house of representatives ... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny."

--Federalist No. 57, February 19, 1788

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 28-Jul-2009, 10:53 AM
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: englishmix 28-Jul-2009, 06:36 PM
Patch, you have just raised my estimation of Thomas Jefferson a wee bit by that quote! Thanks.

Posted by: Patch 28-Jul-2009, 07:53 PM
Thanks. As I read the quotes of all who put their lives, limbs and property at great peril to create this great nation, I realize how puny my contributions, including bits of wisdom, have been.

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 04:43 AM
"As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles."

--Tench Coxe, An American Citizen, No. 2, 1787

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 29-Jul-2009, 05:14 AM
QUOTE (Patch @ 29-Jul-2009, 06:43 AM)
"As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles."

--Tench Coxe, An American Citizen, No. 2, 1787

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Obviously Mr. Coxe was not a prophet since he got that prediction completely wrong.

Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 05:19 AM
They seem to see themselves as just that, kings and nobles.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 29-Jul-2009, 08:45 AM
Patch;

Your Senate are the Optimates (def; Best People) and your Congress the Plebs (def: Lower class. ) Perhaps Obama is the modern Octavius Caesar, Augustus. The more one looks the more one sees the New Rome.




Camac.


PS. The U.S. President has more power than any King ever wielded.

Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 09:51 AM
"Fear is the foundation of most governments."

--John Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 10:02 AM
QUOTE (Camac @ 29-Jul-2009, 10:45 AM)
Patch;

Your Senate are the Optimates (def; Best People) and your Congress the Plebs (def: Lower class. ) Perhaps Obama is the modern Octavius Caesar, Augustus. The more one looks the more one sees the New Rome.




Camac.


PS. The U.S. President has more power than any King ever wielded.

You are right. I see history repeating it's self daily. We all know what happened to Rome! I am supposed to be getting information from my representative on our "health care reform bill." He opposes it as do I. Supposedly there are provisions restricting care if one is disabled (any age), or beyond a certain age. My rep's office would not address the matter but is sending me information (at least parts of the bill). They admitted being familiar with the bill so I take, for now, their lack of a denial to be admission that it is a fact. If so, we are "skating" dangerously close to Hitlers "final solution."

Each of our three branches of govt were to hold check on the other two. They are all running rampant now!

This is off topic I know. It is also why there is little support for govt health care!

Slàinte,   

 Patch    

Posted by: Camac 29-Jul-2009, 11:01 AM
Patch;

To stay off topic for a bit longer if I may. The only restrictions that I have ever heard about in our system is on certain Drugs, but that is not under Health Care but under the Gov. Prescription Plan. The only othe rthing that they do that I know of is that if you are in an accident and win a lawsuite for your injuries the Gov. takes the cost of your treatment out of the settlement. I have a cousin who is a parapaleric caused by a car accident due to faulty road maintenance. He sued the City of Mississauga and won a large settlement and O.H.I.P (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) stepped in and reclaimed the cost of his medical treatment.

Also our system doesn't have the checks and balances that the U.S. system does. Our check is the opposition and the ballot box.

Camac


Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 02:01 PM
Just a bit longer if you do not mind. Personally I kind of like to see where topics wander off to myself.

The two instances I am aware of were within the last 5 or 6 years. Your system in my estimation failed both. I am acquainted with 50 or so Canadians to the percentage is a bit high. Here we could have fought for and gotten timely care. One was a heart condition and the other kidney failure. Both were in Ontario. The camp owner had to wait a considerable amount of time for surgery and the other individual was sedated and left with no treatment. Maybe it was a good use of the resource in both instances but I do not want a govt bureaucrat making those choices for me.

Ok, I will leave it for your consideration.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: MacEoghainn 29-Jul-2009, 03:50 PM
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."

Thomas Jefferson

Posted by: Patch 29-Jul-2009, 04:10 PM
Excellent! I will forward that one tonight!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 30-Jul-2009, 07:38 AM
"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute."

--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-Aug-2009, 12:06 PM
"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."

--James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 04-Aug-2009, 02:14 PM
"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: englishmix 04-Aug-2009, 03:47 PM
Ah, he uses to many big words. Can someone interpret this for me. laugh.gif

Posted by: Patch 06-Aug-2009, 07:00 AM
"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."

--James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States, 1790

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 06-Aug-2009, 08:11 PM
"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

--John Marshall

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 07-Aug-2009, 08:20 AM
"I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but ... I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it."

--Fisher Ames, letter to George Richard Minot, 1789

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: stoirmeil 07-Aug-2009, 03:52 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 04-Aug-2009, 03:14 PM)
"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782

Slàinte,

Patch

smile.gif

It's basic (or "It goes without saying") that fair laws prove themselves by giving back fair return of rights; if they don't, they are just an offhand power-trip without any moral logic. ("without any moral logic" could also be: "without touching on real right and wrong")

Sure sounds prettier in the original. But what a GREAT EXERCISE!! I think I will use it. Thanks, man! beer_mug.gif

Posted by: stoirmeil 07-Aug-2009, 03:53 PM
QUOTE (englishmix @ 04-Aug-2009, 04:47 PM)
Ah, he uses to many big words. Can someone interpret this for me.  laugh.gif

(Patch @ 04-Aug-2009, 03:14 PM)
"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782



smile.gif Let's have a shot:

It's basic (or "It goes without saying") that fair laws prove themselves by giving back fair return of rights; if they don't, they are just an offhand power-trip laying down rules without any moral logic. ("without any moral logic" could also be: "without touching on real right and wrong")

Sure sounds prettier in the original. But what a GREAT EXERCISE!! I think I will use it. We sure have a great bank of them here to choose from. Thanks, man!
beer_mug.gif

Posted by: Patch 07-Aug-2009, 05:24 PM
"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution."

--Alexander Hamilton

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 12-Aug-2009, 06:46 AM
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."

--Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

Slàine,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 13-Aug-2009, 02:54 PM
"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

Slàinte,    

Patch    



Posted by: Patch 21-Aug-2009, 02:22 PM
"Measures which serve to abridge ... free competition ... have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices."

--Alexander Hamilton

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 22-Aug-2009, 01:25 PM
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? ... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

--Patrick Henry

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 23-Aug-2009, 07:40 AM
"Equal and exact justice to all men..."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 23-Aug-2009, 08:02 AM
SCShamrock;

The whole of the Americas from Ellesmere to Tierra del Fuego was founded and colonized by European Christians from nations who were powers unto themselves and damned be the rest. Your English forefathers along with the Spanish and the French and even the Dutch took these continents at the point of a musket and didn't really care who got in the way. Your founding fathers in some eyes were traitors and if the French had not intervened when they did chances are they would have all danced on the gallows. The Fates had other plans though. Who knows if the Vikings had made a success of their colony we might all be pagan worshipping Odin and speaking Norwegian.
No one denies that the countries of the new world were founded on Christian principals but the days of Christian dominance are waning and the Anglo-Saxon peoples are fast becoming a minority.


Camac.

Posted by: MacEoghainn 23-Aug-2009, 10:20 AM
QUOTE (Camac @ 23-Aug-2009, 10:02 AM)
SCShamrock;

The whole of the Americas from Ellesmere to Tierra del Fuego was founded and colonized by European Christians from nations who were powers unto themselves and damned be the rest. Your English forefathers along with the Spanish and the French and even the Dutch took these continents at the point of a musket and didn't really care who got in the way. Your founding fathers in some eyes were traitors and if the French had not intervened when they did chances are they would have all danced on the gallows. The Fates had other plans though. Who knows if the Vikings had made a success of their colony we might all be pagan worshipping Odin and speaking Norwegian.
No one denies that the countries of the new world were founded on Christian principals but the days of Christian dominance are waning and the Anglo-Saxon peoples are fast becoming a minority.


Camac.

This is getting way offtopic.gif from the intent of this thread.....but since we've gone there, the United States may be changing ethnically but the majority religion is and will continue to be Christian (if everyone hasn't been paying attention Hispanics are almost all Christians, mostly Catholic, with a large minority being Protestant).

Posted by: Camac 23-Aug-2009, 10:37 AM
Mace;
I apologize if I went off topic.

Camac.

Posted by: stoirmeil 23-Aug-2009, 09:01 PM
QUOTE (Camac @ 23-Aug-2009, 11:37 AM)
Mace;
I apologize if I went off topic.

Camac.

I'm not so sure it is off topic. The founder of the thread usually posts his preference in a quote of some founding father and there is very often little or no comment, and that's fine as far as it goes. But if this is in the politics forum, which is unmoderated, I don't see why this respectfully made observation is off topic or out of order at all, and this comment is in spirit quite similar to the discussions that went on in this thread last winter. As far as I can see, no apology should be needed.

MacEoghainn -- What is intended by the insistence that this is "and will continue to be" a country with a Christian majority, if the country is not a nation with an official religion at all?

Posted by: Antwn 23-Aug-2009, 09:09 PM
QUOTE (Camac @ 23-Aug-2009, 09:02 AM)
No one denies that the countries of the new world were founded on Christian principals but the days of Christian dominance are waning and the Anglo-Saxon peoples are fast becoming a minority.



I don't think the USA was founded on Christian principles. I can't speak for the rest of the new world. The primary influences were Greco-Roman (pre-Christian) and influences from Enlightenment writers of the time, who may have had Christian beliefs but the ideas taken from them were decidedly secular, as are the principles behind the US government.

Posted by: Patch 23-Aug-2009, 09:19 PM
My grandchildren have gleaned that much from grade and jr. high school history.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: stoirmeil 23-Aug-2009, 09:28 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 23-Aug-2009, 10:19 PM)
My grandchildren have gleaned that much from grade and jr. high school history.

I think the question is not so much the official Enlightenment-influenced founding principles, but whether an underlying assumption ever was -- or is today -- that Christianity, in the presence of the Christian majority, would have some concrete influence on governance in practice, for the whole country or for any part of it.

Here is Jefferson:

"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

Posted by: Camac 24-Aug-2009, 08:55 AM
In the 18th and 19th centuries the western world was going through great changes. The reawakening of Democracy, birth of new nations, a new enlightenment, all accompanied by an seemingly endless round of wars with the European Powers playing their game of one-up-manship. Each convinced that God was on their side. Christianity in it's various forms was an intregal part of everyday life but to those holding the reins of power the principals of Christianity were adhered to only when convenient.

I would argue that the American Founding Fathers used these principals to justify what at the time was an act of Treason. They borrowed from the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, even the Iroquois Confederation, the politics but for justification they chose Christian Principals after all they knew no other. This proved quite useful as the vast majority of the populace were either illiterate or semi-literate knowing only the teachings contained in the Bible. In the end it worked out quite well as they won the rebellion and by doing so claimed that God was on their side for he gave them victory. Never mind the reality of the situation in the fact that the majority of colonist remained loyal to the crown, the Motherland was bankrupt or close to it, and that France intervened, mainly to get one up on Britain and delight at her misfortune. Rebellion won America became God's Kingdom on Earth and his name envoked in all future endeavours.
This is now the 21st century and the idea that God is on one side or the other doesn't really wash. Granted his name is still envoked by certain conservative or radical factions of religion and to say that "We are one Nation under God" well I can only say that no Nation has the right to claim that .


Camac.

Posted by: Patch 24-Aug-2009, 10:55 AM
We have done a lot of things in founding our country that we deplore today. Yes, the declaration of our independence was an act of treason, the English certainly considered us to be terrorists and our expansion to our present boundaries was based in a belief called, "manifest destiny."

Those who founded America were prolific writers who not only gave us a Constitution and Bill of Rights but left us volumes of writings expressing their thoughts and hopes for the country they had brought into "being" at risk of hanging. Those are collected into a group called the Federalist papers and divulge the thoughts behind our three most important documents.

When one reads the totality of these documents one realizes that they were christian men, some a bit more so than others, who had little hope of winning against the English war machine without the grace of God and who based our laws on something as simple as the 10 commandments. My how that has gotten out of line now. This is evidenced by some of the old symbols in the capitol and specifically the 10 commandments carved on the doors of the supreme court.

Our govt was to allow people to worship as they chose, something many left Europe to do. That is why the first amendment was written as it was. It guarantees that all can practice their chosen religion, It does not guarantee that one will not have to hear another practice their religion. That is freedom of speech. There is in fact no provision of "separation of church and state." It ONLY prohibits our govt from establishing a "national" religion and our govt never has.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can read into our Constitution, things that are not there.

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: stoirmeil 24-Aug-2009, 02:32 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 24-Aug-2009, 11:55 AM)

It never ceases to amaze me how some people can read into our Constitution, things that are not there.


OK, Patch, whom are you deploring for reading nonexistent things into the Constitution now? Using imprecise attributions like "some people. . . " (sniff) just may be why you are misunderstood from time to time.

The Federalist Papers were written anonymously, in a style resembling the more weighty humanistic essays of Montaigne. In effect, they were interpretive and argumentative editorials in support of the ratification of a Constitution before the fact. They have been attributed to three men: mostly Alexander Hamilton, with important contributions from James Madison, and some from John Jay. So first, the papers are not the collected works of "those who founded America" -- a very large group of men -- but only a very few, and with a specific short-term purpose.

I do not trivialize the importance of this work -- far from it. Jefferson commended the Papers as a far more practical and concrete set of principles, one that could actually be applied, than most of the political theory and philosophy being written in Europe at the time. And they are glorious examples of a grand and all but lost style and scope of essay writing. The problem with using the Papers today as the main interpretive instrument for the Constitution, as some would recommend, is that they are roughly contemporaneous, in fact slightly predating the main legal document; and exhaustive (and beautiful) as they were for the needs of the time, they are not clairvoyant and they don't predict everything the Constitution has to contend with now. The essays that make up the Papers both illuminate and inspire; but they are not authority, only hopeful recommendations even in their time, and they are certainly not a rubric for modern interpretation.

Here you state: "When one reads the totality of these documents one realizes that they were christian men, some a bit more so than others, who had little hope of winning against the English war machine without the grace of God and who based our laws on something as simple as the 10 commandments." First of all, it is quite a different thing to say that THEY "had little hope of winning against the English war machine without the grace of God" and that there WAS no such possibility (not the least from the grace of France). Perhaps they did believe it, but that does not make it so. Also -- Constitutional law is not "based on something as simple as the Ten Commandments" if the very first commandment is: "I am the Lord thy God . . .Thou shalt have no other gods before me." When you get down around commandment five, the code begins to resemble aspects of other legal codes with practical social intentions, some of which predate the commandments. Nothing about the equality of all men, or inalienable rights. The Deutoronomic extension of the commandments is full of possible ways to alienate oneself from one's rights, if there are any rights to begin with. In fact the complex necessities of the federalist plan needed a great deal more than "something so simple" as the 10 commandments.

Again, not the same as saying that the commandments were not held high, or that they were not considered in many legal intentions; of course they were. But they were not the basis of our laws.

Posted by: Patch 25-Aug-2009, 05:40 AM
"To the haranguers of the populace among the ancients, succeed among the moderns your writers of political pamphlets and news-papers, and your coffee-house talkers."

--Benjamin Franklin, Reply to Coffee House Orators, 1767

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 25-Aug-2009, 07:32 AM
Patch;

I'm beginning to get the impression that your "Founding Fathers" sat around all day composing and spouting quotes . Wonder they had time to rebel.


Camac. biggrin.gif biggrin.gif

Posted by: Patch 25-Aug-2009, 03:02 PM
It does make one wonder. They were prolific writers and composed many letters (and copies of speeches). That was the main communication during the revolutionary years and the period after. I imagine they wore out a lot of horses. People tended to save communications they received and sometimes copies of what they sent. If the revolution had failed they wanted posterity to understand why they did it. In spite of what some have indicated this collection of letters and speeches all have authors so we "can" credit the author.

Most importantly we can see the thought process that went into the drafting our important documents if we wish to read ALL of them. As they make very clear the intent of those who put their lives at risk some on the left wish to dismiss them and then "interpret" the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A recent poll shows that over 70% of the population believes that the 1st and 2nd amendments mean literally what they say. That would have to include some Democrats as they are about 36% of the population.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Aug-2009, 03:14 PM
"A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace."

- James Madison

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 25-Aug-2009, 03:30 PM
"[W]ith respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age..."

--Thomas Jefferson

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: stoirmeil 25-Aug-2009, 10:14 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 25-Aug-2009, 04:02 PM)
A recent poll shows that over 70% of the population believes that the 1st and 2nd amendments mean literally what they say. That would have to include some Democrats as they are about 36% of the population.

Slàinte,

Patch

Cite, cite cite! You're a man of some education, and you like to say how even your grandkids know this or that. Your grandkids know better than to include a statistic on a little term paper in school without a footnote to cite the source, because they would not be allowed to throw information around irresponsibly. No decent teacher would let them -- no decent teacher let you do it, back in the day. So why now?

Posted by: Camac 26-Aug-2009, 07:43 AM
Patch;

I would take umbrage at Mr. Madison's quote. One can have a minority government and it need not fall under the parameters set out by him. Under a Parliamentary Democracy one can have a minority government (as we do) and it is not an Aristocracy, backed by military power, toddied to by an enslaved press, and governing a disarmed population.

Camac.

Posted by: Antwn 26-Aug-2009, 11:25 AM
QUOTE (Patch @ 25-Aug-2009, 04:02 PM)
As they make very clear the intent of those who put their lives at risk some on the left wish to dismiss them and then "interpret" the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  A recent poll shows that over 70% of the population believes that the 1st and 2nd amendments mean literally what they say.  That would have to include some Democrats as they are about 36% of the population.


If a percentage of the people think the constitution means literally what it says, isn't that an interpretation? Yet you imply here by your placement of the word interpret in quotes that no such activity is justified, or if I understand you correctly, that the intent of those who "put their lives at risk" is dismissed by constitutional interpretation.

You can't avoid interpretation here, not even your own, nor can the people who have the belief that these amendments mean "literally what they say". What exactly are they saying then, and how is the answer to that question NOT an interpretation?

Who should interpret the constitution then, meaning to apply it to particular modern issues where decisions must be made and over which that document must have ultimate authority? Should this be done by survey or popular opinion? I mention that because of the polling data you posted.

You mentioned the 2nd amendment. I don't see people questioning whether or not it means what it says, but that the questions center around its application. What are arms? We all know technology has advanced considerably in this field since the late 1700s. Thus interpretation is required. Does this mean every citizen should have the right to an MI tank? How about a small affordable nuclear weapon? You see? An interpretation must be made because modern circumstances demand it.

Because the 2nd amendment begins by stating the need for a well regulated militia, does this qualify its intent as limited to that, meaning the right to bear arms is for that purpose alone, or is it to be extended to mean personal protection from possible assault? You see? Interpretation required.

So who has the power to interpret - to make decisions as to what the intent in the 2nd amendment was and how it's to be applied to current situations? Well here's the constitution - Article III section 2 on the Judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court - I've cut out references not pertinent such as admiralty law:

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States.......to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

When laws to which the 2nd amendment applies are made, someone must interpret whether or not that law violates 2nd amendment provisions, do they not? Then what's all this talk about no need for interpretation? What are you talking about? If the Supreme Court's power extends "to all cases in law and equity arising under this constitution", doesn't that mean that the Supreme Court has the authority to interpret to what extent a law complies with specific constitutional amendments?

Another question. The founders fought, disagreed and argued over the provisions of the constitution quite a bit before signing it so did the states before ratification. So how did they accomplish that without ever interpreting it? Weren't each of their arguments made based on an interpretation, or fear of a future interpretation being allowed by a particular wording or provision? Well, that process continues today.





Posted by: Patch 26-Aug-2009, 02:13 PM
Yes but they did agree! The Supreme court determines if the law is in accordance with the Constitution. They do not "interpret" the Constitution to fit the law.


Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 26-Aug-2009, 02:30 PM
"Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1802

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Antwn 26-Aug-2009, 02:44 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 26-Aug-2009, 03:13 PM)
The Supreme court determines if the law is in accordance with the Constitution. They do not "interpret" the Constitution to fit the law.


  

Agreed. Here's your comment -

As they make very clear the intent of those who put their lives at risk some on the left wish to dismiss them and then "interpret" the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A recent poll shows that over 70% of the population believes that the 1st and 2nd amendments mean literally what they say

You say "interpret the Constitution and Bill of Rights" quite clearly, not interpret the law. Now you say "they do not interpret the Constitution to fit the law". Well yeah, knew that. What are you trying to say? What is your actual beef with those "on the left"?

Please also answer Stoirmeil's question about the origins of your data. What poll?


Posted by: Patch 26-Aug-2009, 03:14 PM
The left seem to be the ones who interperet what the Constitution means so if that is the problem so be it..

I no longer respond to Stoirmiels post's.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: stoirmeil 26-Aug-2009, 03:51 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 26-Aug-2009, 04:14 PM)
I no longer respond to Stoirmiels post's.

No need to. The query stands, rhetorically asked, and it's food for thought no matter what. You will no doubt remember the assertion that you among others made -- regarding Obama's refusal to respond to people who wanted additional documentary proof of his birth circumstances -- that if the President didn't produce the information being demanded and answer the question, it was a clear indication that he was hiding something.

I never thought it was an indication of any such thing, myself -- but you can stand reflected in your own glass.

Posted by: Antwn 27-Aug-2009, 01:04 PM
QUOTE (Patch @ 26-Aug-2009, 04:14 PM)
The left seem to be the ones who interperet what the Constitution means so if that is the problem so be it.. 

I no longer respond to Stoirmiels post's.


You're an absolute master of obfuscation Patch, I'll give you that, but you're intellectually dishonest. You take pseudo positions. You simply allow some third person to speak for you in the form of someone you know, or offer some obscure factoid from a poll, the origins of which you won't specify, or you offer an anecdote.

Others have given you the courtesy of a response. They've respected you enough to engage you in a discussion, spent their time to post and think about their points. The least you can do is offer equal respect in kind to the best of your ability.

What an accomplishment, a discussion forum where people ignore one another's posts! Makes the term an oxymoron doesn't it?

We could all ignore posters who push our buttons. That's certainly understandable. But Stoirmeil has merely confronted you, asking you to pay more than lip service to your stance, and verify the authenticity of the claims that you so flippantly make. How is that illegitimate? Did you expect others to simply take your word at face value? Or is it that you're pulling facts and figures out of thin air - that you believe we're terribly gullible and you haven't the respect for our intellegence or for the discussion enough to participate with some integrity and effort?

Why don't you make the percentage of so and so's who think such and such to be worth the attention you wish to inspire in posting it? When you post some cryptic comment which is refuted, then you back away, to what extent do you inspire further interaction with you? Maybe that's what you really want to avoid, I don't know. Easy that way isn't it? Passive agressive. I post some lengthy points about constitutional interpretation and this is your comment. Okay, stupid me. Once bitten twice shy. So now you've inspired two people to consider your incredulity to be not worth the tedium to engage. What are you doing? If you just want a response from people who agree with you then just say so. Did you read my post? What points did I make about who interprets the Constitution?

I know this isn't exactly Gertrude Stein's Paris salon with Picasso and Hemmingway in attendence, but the quality is what we make it. Maybe we could all learn something from what you have to offer, but how is that possible if you simply expect us to believe whatever claims appear under your name, then avoid the consummation of a discussion which you yourself inspired with a comment like the one above?

I'm sure others here will come to your defense, fine. You won't be ignored by those who think as you do - a nice but superficial consolation because it doesn't change anything - nothing evolves from that. I believe you called this board "exciting" in one of your posts. Well, what do you think makes it so? A mutual back scratching society? How boring is that? Maybe I'm presumptuous here, maybe its exciting to you for others to reinforce your ideas, I don't know. But what would you learn by that? How much more interesting is it to be challenged? To do that, you have to put yourself out there and provide something to be challenged. You might be confronted by how much you don't know, but that's what's stimulating. Then again you may challenge others - but comments like the one above are cop-outs.

Ignore whomever you wish Sir, but the person whose credibility suffers for it is you. If that's okay with you, then fine. Stoirmeil and I can move on better educated about you. I just wanted to let you know that an alternative is possible with the hope that you'll avail yourself of it. That way the quality of the entire endeavor is enhanced. Not just that, personally I've found alot of value in trying to solidfy my own ideas by having to explain them here. The effort to elucidate, clarifies.

But hey, maybe I'm a naive clueless idealist with high expectations of a forum that others just play with.....my bad.

Peace and good health to you Sir, I do wish you well, whatever you decide to do.

Gyda chofion cynnes --
Antwn

Posted by: Patch 27-Aug-2009, 02:49 PM
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."

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

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 27-Aug-2009, 03:34 PM
Patch;

To ignore and adversary, friendly or otherwise is invite defeat.

stoirmeil;
Always allow an adversary, friendly or otherwise a means of graceful retreat.

Verbal bandying should never degrade to verbal warfare. Everone is entitled to an opinion whether it is agreed with or not the right to that opinion must be defended.

Lastly I have downloaded the Avalon Projects copies of the Federalist Papers and very quickly glanced at some of them. My first impression is that although they are addressed to the citizens of New York (State) the style that they are written seems to me to limited the audience for which they were intended, mainly the upper strata of society.

Camac

Posted by: Patch 27-Aug-2009, 03:56 PM
QUOTE (Antwn @ 27-Aug-2009, 03:04 PM)
[QUOTE=Patch,26-Aug-2009, 04:14 PM]The left seem to be the ones who interperet what the Constitution means so if that is the problem so be it.. 

I no longer respond to Stoirmiels post's.


I explained it to Stoirmiel in a much more polite manner than the way she responded to me when I quit replying to her posts. Later when she calmed down a bit, I extended an olive branch to her privately and she was again rude so NO MORE. Had you not pursued the issue, it would have not been discussed today.

I believe there is no problem attacking ideas, but verbally attacking attacking people is at a minimum rude and at the worst, crude and spiteful. I have gotten a "dig" in from time to time but try to keep a polite demeanor.

I read volumes daily from both liberal and conservative groups including the Democrat and Republican parties and "others." I glean information from many private interest groups and polling sources and subscribe to more online newspapers and news services than I can read. Since any links I post become very lengthly for some reason, a matter that I have discussed with Paul, and apparently there is no resolution re: that problem, I do not include links except in the rare instance when one comes from another individual. It could be due to the way my security is set up.

I will NOT now or ever post names of persons from whom I receive information as a courtesy to them. In a few instances, they have specifically requested that I keep their name confidential. Those breaches quickly cost one friendships and sources of inside information. Since the Democrats have been out of the loop so to speak for most of 16 years, maybe they have forgotten that bit of knowledge.

No one, and I repeat no one, will bully me into acting against my will. All but a small amount of the information I post is available in the news or on the net. I post it, and if you are interested, look it up and read the entire story. You can probably even find more info. than I have time to read.

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: stevenpd 28-Aug-2009, 01:18 PM
"We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."

Thomas Jefferson
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)


Posted by: Camac 28-Aug-2009, 01:52 PM
I wonder what Jefferson would say about the voting law in Australia. It is a crime punishable by a fine not to vote.



Camac.



Posted by: stevenpd 29-Aug-2009, 09:23 PM
QUOTE
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.  Thomas Jefferson


QUOTE
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.  John Quincy Adams


Even though he not a founding father, his quote is appropriate.

QUOTE
So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.  Voltaire

Posted by: Patch 01-Sep-2009, 05:07 PM
"[O]f 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."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-Sep-2009, 05:39 PM
"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be..."

--John Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 01-Sep-2009, 07:26 PM
"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters."

--Samuel Adams

Slàinte,    

Patch    


Posted by: Patch 01-Sep-2009, 07:29 PM
QUOTE (Camac @ 28-Aug-2009, 03:52 PM)
I wonder what Jefferson would say about the voting law in Australia. It is a crime punishable by a fine not to vote.



Camac.

In a free nation, those who are guaranteed the right to vote also have an equal right not to vote. It must be that way but I wish all would exercise the right and vote!

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Patch 02-Sep-2009, 03:35 PM
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800

Slàinte,    

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 03-Sep-2009, 10:19 AM
Patch;

I have a quote from a very famous British Statesman' perhaps the Greatest of all Statesmen;

" If you want the greatest arguement against Democracy; just talk to a voter for 5 mins." Winston S. Churchill.



Camac.

Posted by: Patch 03-Sep-2009, 12:09 PM
He was right!! However, all must be allowed to vote. Didn't he have something else with that quote? I seem to remember so but am not sure.

Slàinte,     

Patch    

Posted by: Camac 03-Sep-2009, 08:03 PM
Patch;

The only other quote I can remember on Democracy by Church was something to the effect: "That Democracy is not a perfect system but is is better than all the other systems that have been tried so far." Not sure if thats the actual but it was words to that effect.


Camac

Powered by Invision Power Board (https://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (https://www.invisionpower.com)