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Patrick Henry :
"Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty,
and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by
any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall
not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over
the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight
our battles for us."
War is Inevitable, March 1775.
***
James
Madison :
"The
ultimate authority...resides in the people alone."
"It
is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and
one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution.
The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened
itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They
saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the
consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too
much ...to forget it."
***
Samuel
Adams :
"The
liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution,
are worth defending at all hazards."
***
John
Adams :
"People
and nations are forged in the fires of adversity."
"Wherever
the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled,
there will be America's heart, her benedictions and prayers, but
she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion
and vindicator of her own."
***
Alexander
Hamilton :
"The
sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments
or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole
volume of human nature by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can
never be erased or obscured by mortal power."
***
Benjamin
Franklin :
"Those
who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
***
George
Washington :
"I
hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain
what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of
an honest man."
***
Thomas
Jefferson :
"On
every question of construction of the Constitution, let us 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."
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