saddled_admin's Quotes

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

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

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more—and nothing less. The rest—everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything "noble and just," and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history—was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. 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 blindfolded fear.

They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws ... [are] of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority ... they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.

There is ... an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents. ... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy.