If We Lose Our Freedoms: Voices From Our Founders & Presidents

Common Sense Commentary:“America will never be destroyed from the outside.
If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
~ Abraham Lincoln

“Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
~ Ronald Reagan

John Adams 2nd President (1797-1801)

“You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.” John Adams

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.

• 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.
• A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
• Facts are stubborn things; and what ever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they can not alter the state of facts, and evidence.
• Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
• Fear is the foundation of most governments.
• The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
• I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
• Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, ''that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.''

  James Madison 4th President (1809-1817) The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person. 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. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.   Thomas Jefferson 3rd President (1801-1809)  Patriotism is not a short frenzied burst of emotion, but the long and steady dedication of a lifetime. A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. 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. We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. 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. All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to ... remain silent. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American. My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!     George Washington                              First President                  (1789-1797)

  The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.
  • Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.
  • Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
  • True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
  • A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.
  • Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
  • It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.
  • Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
  • As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.
  • How soon we forget history... Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
  • It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
  • If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
  • Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

4th of July history lesson

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of
Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors,and tortured before they
died.

Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the
Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.

Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary
War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers
and large plantation owners;
men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence
knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a we althy planter and trader, saw his ships swept
from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his
debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his
family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family
was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his
reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton,
Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General
Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson
home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open
fire. The home was destroyed,
and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife,
and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children
fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more
than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead
and his children vanished.

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently
thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: Freedom is never free! Freedom is not free! Freedom has a price each of us must pay ... Stand up, speak out, pay the price and fight if you must against those who would take our freedoms away or corrupt them.

Quotes

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

--John Adams

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

--John Quincy Adams

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.
--Henry Ward Beecher

May God always bless America in all ways and may God protect our warriors, "We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail."

--George W. Bush, 2001

Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.
--Calvin Coolidge

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
--George William Curtis

"True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."
--Clarence Darrow

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

--Elmer Davis

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
-- Walt Disney

"It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own."

--Benjamin Franklin

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.

--Benjamin Franklin

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
-- Henry Ford

"An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."

--Patrick Henry

I think patriotism is like charity -- it begins at home.
--Henry James

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

--Thomas Jefferson

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome."

--Samuel Johnson

"The only assurance of our Nation's safety is to lay our foundation in Morality and Religion"

--Abraham Lincoln

"This is essentially a people's contest... whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men - to lift artificial weights from all shoulders - to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all - to afford all, an unfe