Founders’ Quotes

A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

The great leading objects of the federal government ... are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense.

If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.

Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.

Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.

Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.

To preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which [the Constitution] has established ... are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

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.

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

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 favor.

There is no good government but what is republican. [T]he true idea of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.

The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy.

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.

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.