Founder's Quote Daily at The Patriot Post

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 24 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary."

–Nathan Hale, remark to Captain William Hull, who had attempted to dissuade him from volunteering for a spy mission for General Washington, 1776

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 41

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 22 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?"

–James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, 1822

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

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

—James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1786

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior."

—James Madison, Federalist No. 39

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."

—Alexander Hamilton: Federalist No. 35

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

—James Madison, Federalist No. 39

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 14 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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 usurpations."

–James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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, Essay on Property, 1792

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 10 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day."

–Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 9 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"In a general sense, all contributions imposed by the government upon individuals for the service of the state, are called taxes, by whatever name they may be known, whether by the name of tribute, tythe, tallage, impost, duty, gabel, custom, subsidy, aid, supply, excise, or other name."

–Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 8 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 7 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind."

–James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 4 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety."

–Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 3 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God."

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, 1826

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 2 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated."

–James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention, 1829

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 1 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

–Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

–Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents."

–James Madison, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."

–James Madison, National Gazette Essay, 1792

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself."

–Benjamin Franklin, 1789

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend."

–Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816