QUOTATIONS FROM FAMOUS PEOPLE
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not... the
guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army... our
reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms."
--Abraham Lincoln, 1858
"Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning process, and make him something less than a man."
--Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 1891-1968, American newspaper publisher
Daniel Webster: "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
Found on the wall of Dachau when it was liberated in 1944. It
was written by the Protestant Clergyman Martin Niemuhler (Niemoller).
"When they came to get the Jews I didn't say anything because I wasn't one
of them. When the Nazis came to get the Blacks I didn't say anything
because I wasn't one of them. When they took the crippled, the mentally
unstable and the insane away I didn't say anything. When they took the
Catholics away I didn't say anything because I wasn't one of them. Now I
can't say anything because they have come and taken me away."
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come
from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history
of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of
governmental power, not the increase of it."
-Woodrow Wilson
Benjamin Franklin, letter to the French Ministry March 1778:
"He who shall introduce into public affairs the principle of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world."
Kings or parliaments could not GIVE THE RIGHTS ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS ... We claim them from a higher source- from the King of Kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence.
John Dickerson - 1766
JAMES MADISON: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future ... upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God."
JOHN ADAMS: "Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: "Man will ultimately be governed by GOD or by ty- rants."
Ben Franklin wrote, "Virtue is not secure until its practice has become habitual."
ANDREW JACKSON: "The BIBLE is the rock on which our Republic rests."
DANIEL WEBSTER: "If we abide by the principles taught in the BIBLE, our country will go on prospering."
ALEXIS DE TOQUEVILLE. Upon visiting America in the early 19th Century, this French historian observed: "America is great because America is GOOD. If America ever ceases to be good it will cease to be great."
创The Promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the
being, and attributes, and providences of one Almighty God;
the responsibility to Him for all our actions, founded upon
moral accountability; a future state of rewards and
punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social and
benevolent virtues --these can never be a matter of
indifference in any well-ordered community. It is, indeed,
difficult to conceive how any civilized society can well
exist without them.创
--Justice Joseph Story, 1845
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists
and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As
their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
-- Dwight Eisenhower
Alexander Hamilton, collected in Federalist Paper 28, originally in the 10 January, 1788, "Daily Advertiser":
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the
national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."
Montesquieu: "The deterioration of a government begins almost always by a decay of its principles."
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 79 (regarding payment of Judges):
"In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will."
Benjamin Franklin, before the Constitutional Convention, (June 2, 1787):
"... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ..."
Daniel Webster: "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
George Washington, Farewell Address: "Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it."
Mr. Justice Brandies of the U.S. Supreme Court has written a dissent
passage in Olmstead V. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), that is
particularly fitting to keep in mind during these times. It reads:
"Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials
shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to
become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means--to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal--would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759 (Franklin B. Historical Review of Pennsylvania. 1759):
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Edmund Burke (1729-1797): "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."
--Justice Robert H. Jackson
创Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.创
Barry Goldwater from his 1964 Presidential Campaign
Donald T. Regan" "We do many things at the federal level that would be considered dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector."
Henry David Thoreau: "In times when the government imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also the prison."
创A man must first govern himself ere he is fit to govern a
family; and his family ere he be fit to bear the government
of the commonwealth.创
--Sir Walter Raleigh
Frederic Bastiat, `The Law':
"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal."
"See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."
"If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual rights. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force -- for the same reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Edward Gibbon, `The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire':
"... the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny."
John Maynard Keynes: "If governments should refrain from regulation ... the worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud upon the public can be concealed no longer."
John Trenchard and Walter Moyle: "It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it."
John W. Whitehead, `The Second American Revolution':
"In recent years we have witnessed numerous marches on Washington in which one group or another has demanded new "rights." Frequently, such rights have not meant freedom from state control, but rather entitlement to state action, protection, or subsidy. In the process of yielding to the "will of the people" and creating new rights, the state invariably enlarges itself and its bureaucracy. Each new right seems to demand a new agency to guarantee it, administer it, or deliver it."
Josiah Quincy (1774):
"Under God we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever, we shall be called upon to make our exit, we will die freemen."
Algernon Sidney (1672):
"The only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of justice and protection; and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety."
Frank Herbert: "Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security."
"Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
--Sir William Blackstone
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They
have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of
government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their
principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for
something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out
of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by
looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage,
and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."
[H. L. Mencken]
GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS
"By the article establishing the executive department it is made the
duty of the President 'to recommend to your consideration such measures
as he shall judge necessary and expedient.' The circumstances under
which I now meet you will acquit me from entering into that subject
further than to refer to the great constitutional charter under which
you are assembled, and which, in defining your powers, designates the
objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more
consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the
feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation
of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the
rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to
devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications I behold the
surest pledges that as on one side no local prejudices or attachments,
no separate views nor party animosities, will misdirect the
comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great
assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the
foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable
principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government
be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its
citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect
with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my country can inspire,
since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that 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; and since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty
and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly
considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people."
-George Washington First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
"The big question to ask about proposals for new laws and policies is not whether they sound reasonable, but what damage they can do when they are used
unreasonably."
-Thomas Sowell
"If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be fixed by decisions of the supreme Court, then the people will have ceased to be their own rulers."
--Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861:
Chief Justice Marlin T. Phelps, Arizona supreme Court:
"Nothing was further from the minds of the Framers of the Constitution, than that the supreme Court should ever make the Supreme Law of the Land."
Justice Hugo Black, Columbia University's Charpentier Lectures (1968):
"The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation."
Justice Hugo Black:
"... any broad unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the `conscience of our people' ... was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court."
Justice John M. Harlan, US supreme Court, 1895: "We must hold firmly to the doctrine that in the courts of the United States it is the duty of juries in criminal cases to take the law from the court, and apply that law to the facts as they find them to be from the evidence."
Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States, United States supreme Court, 1928:
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent . . . the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
Justice Miller, US supreme Court, Loan Association vs. Topeka, 20 Wall (87 US) 664 (1874):
"To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of a citizen, and with the other to bestow it on favored individuals. . . is none the less robbery because it was done under the forms of law and is called taxation."
Justice William O. Douglas:
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
Chief Justice Warren Burger:
"Ours is a sick profession. [A profession marked by] incompetence, lack of training, misconduct, and bad manners. Ineptness, bungling, malpractice, and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over this country every day."
Prof. Abram Chayes, Harvard law school:
"[Judicial action in the last two decades] adds up to a radical transformation of the role and function of the judiciary in American life. Its chief function now is as a catalyst of social change with judges acting as planners of large scale."
Prof. William Forrester, Cornell law school:
"The Court has assumed, gradually, the role of deciding the problems on its own and ...the American people and their selected officials gradually have accepted the Court as the political instrument for lawmaking."
Prof. Edward S. Corwin:
"[Attorneys have been] prone to identify the judicial version of the Constitution as the authentic Constitution."
The second amendment states: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." (James Madison)
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." (George Mason) Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,...taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 (2d ed. Richmond, 1805).
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. ... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." (Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment)
"...to disarm the people-that was the best and most effective way to enslave them." (George Mason)
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States" (Noah Webster in a pamphlet aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification) Noah Webster, "An Examination into the Leading Principals of the Federal Constitution...", in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56(New York, 1888).
"if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" (Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail) Johnathan Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol.2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888).
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formitable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." (Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29.)
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. ... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.)
"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people" (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788)
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when young, how to use them." (Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the _real_ object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" (Patrick Henry) J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." (Alexander Hamilton) Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..." (Samuel Adams) Walter Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, at 21,22,124(Univ. of Alabama Press,1975).
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants" A quote from Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939
"...the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms" (from article in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette ten days after the introduction of the Bill of Rights) Philadelphia Federal Gazette June 18, 1789 at 2, col.2 "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined" (Patrick Henry) J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed. Philadelphia, 1836
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 29 (on the organization of the militia): "Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year."
Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982): "The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933: "All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."
Samuel Adams [Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (1788?) (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)]: "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..." [Contrast the above with U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds' statement: "If it were up to me we'd ban them all" as reported on 9 December, 1993, by CNN.]
Samuel Adams: "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council [counsel?], nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country men [countrymen?]."
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 29 (speaking of standing armies): "... if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens."
John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1787-88): "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense..."
[Contrast the above with Attorney General Janet Reno's statement: "Gun registration is not enough. I've always proposed state licensing... with some federal standards." as reported by the Associated Press and by ABC on 10 December, 1993.]
Charles A. Beard: "You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
Chief Justice Joseph Story, US supreme Court (_Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States_, pp 746-747(1833)): "The right of the citizen to keep and bear arms has justly been considered the palladium of the liberties of the Republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and the arbritrary powers of rulers, and will generally -- even if these are successful -- enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
Edmund Burke, 1784: "The people never give up their liberty but under some delusion."
[Contrast the above with U.S. Senator Joseph Biden's statement: "Banning guns is an idea whose time has come" as reported on 18 November, 1993, by the Associated Press.]
Edward Abbey: "The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy... If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government - and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
James Madison, Federalist Paper 46: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
Gazette of the United States, 14 October 1789: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these states... Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America."
George Washington, General, Continental Army (Ret.): "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth."
Hermann Goering, 1936: "Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
George Washington, speech of 7 January 1790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, 14 January 1790: "A free people ought... to be armed..."
[Contrast the above with U.S. Representative Major Owens's statement: "My bill ... establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all handguns" as recorded in the Congressional Record of 10 November, 1993.]
Hamilton, Federalist #84: "I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power."
Henry Clay: "The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity -- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity."
James Madison, Federalist Paper 62: "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; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"
Samuel Cooke (1770): "Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force."
Samuel Cooke (1770): "Mysteries of law and government may be made a cloak of unrighteousness."
Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.: "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Tacitus: "[The] more corrupt the government, the greater the number of laws."
State vs. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459: "When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it." (See 16 Ma. Jur. 2d 177, 178)
Dorcas R. Hardy, Commissioner of Social Security: "There is no law requiring a person to apply for a Social Security number, and there is no section of title 18, United States Code, making it a crime to not have a social security number."
John Locke, 1632-1704; Second (?) Treatise Concerning Civil Government: "...every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. .... The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property."
Government "can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all." .... Rulers "must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies."
"'Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For where-ever the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of to impoverish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands of those that have it: There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many."
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves." ... whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society, and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty."
John Locke, "True end of government", late 1600's; chapter 28 "Of Tyranny". 202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm; an whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief and a robber if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a legal authority as will empower him to arrest me abroad. An why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be informed....
Aristotle, more than 2000 years ago: "what is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others."
John O'Sullivan, editor of the "United States Magazine and Democratic Review", wrote in 1837: "The best government is that which governs least.... Government should be confined to the administration of justice, for the protection of the natural equal rights of the citizen, and the preservation of the social order. In all other respects, the voluntary principle, the principle of freedom...affords the true golden rule." From page 137 of the March, 1996, issue of "The Freeman".
Thomas Pownall: "Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms."
Tom Anderson: "I wonder why some of the so-called guardians of freedom are so anxious to register guns and so reluctant to register Communists."
Washington Post 1/7/92: "Justice Department studies show that armed citizens are much less likely to suffer losses or personal injury from thieves"
William H. Seward (1850): "There is a higher law than the Constitution."
William Jennings Bryan: "Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for; but rather something to be achieved."
William Pitt (1783): "Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves."
Winston Churchill: "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Woodrow Wilson: "A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world -- no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a government of conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
"And indeed, gentlemen, there exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robberies or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. When weapons reduce them to silence, the laws no longer expect one to await their
pronouncments. For people who decide to wait for these will have to wait for justice, too -- and meanwhile they suffer injustice first. Indeed, even the wisdom of the law itself, by a sort of tacit implication, permits self-defense, because it does not actually forbid men to kill; what it does, instead, is to forbid the bearing of a weapon with the intention to kill.
When, therefore, an inquiry passes beyond the mere question of the weapon and starts to consider the motive, a man who has used arms in self-defense is not regarded as having carried them with a homicidal aim."
quoted on page 17 in Stephen P. Halbrook -- That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right . published in 1984, by The University of New Mexico Press and The Independent Institute.
The following is copied from The Soldiers Training Manual issued by the War Department, November 30, 1928:
TM2000-25: 118-120 DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic- negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or
governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
TM 2000-25: 120-121 REPUBLIC: Authority is derived throughout the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it" --Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the
ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.
They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical
one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be
a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It
never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will
submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of
injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and
these will continue until they are resisted with either
words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are
prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
H2>B>U.S. Court Cases
{CASE} 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177, late 2d, Sec 256 (?): "The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it."
{CASE} 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177, late 2d, Sec 256: "No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it."
{CASE} Amos vs. Mosley, 74 Fla. 555; 77 So. 619: "If the legislature clearly misinterprets a constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong will not create a right."
{CASE} Bowers vs. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, at 618 (7th Cir. 1982): "There is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."
{CASE} Brandes vs. Mitteriling, 196 P.2d 464, 467, 657 Ariz 349: "Sovereignty means supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion, authority or rule."
{CASE} Chisholm vs. State of Georgia (US) 2 Dall 419, 454, 1 L Ed 440, 455 @DALL 1793 pp. 471-472: "...at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects...with none to govern but themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the sovereignty."
{CASE} Chisholm vs. State of Georgia, Ga., 2. U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 471, 1 L. Ed. 440: ""Sovereignty" is the right to govern. In Europe the sovereignty is generally ascribed to the prince; here it rests with the people. There the sovereign actually administers the government; here, never in a single instance. Our governors are the agents of the people, and at most stand in the same relation to their sovereign in which regents in Europe stand to their sovereign. Their princes have personal powers, dignities, and pre-eminences. Our rulers have none but official, nor do they partake in the sovereignty otherwise, or in any other capacity than as private citizens."
{CASE} City of Bisbee vs. Cochise County, 78 P.2d 982, 986, 52 Ariz. 1: ""Government" is not "sovereignty." "Government" is the machinery or expedient for expressing the will of the sovereign power."
{CASE} Filbin Corporation vs. United States, D.C.S.C., 266 F. 911, 914: "The "sovereignty" of the United States consists of the powers existing in the people as a whole and the persons to whom they have delegated it, and not as a separate personal entity, and as such it does not possess the personal privileges of the sovereign of England; and the government, being restrained by a written Constitution, cannot take property without compensation, as can the English government by act of king, lords, and Parliament."
{CASE} Hale vs. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 279: "If, whenever an officer or employee of a corporation were summoned before a grand jury as a witness he could refuse to produce the books and documents of such corporation, upon the ground that they would incriminate the corporation itself, it would result in the failure of a large number of cases where the illegal combination was determinable only upon the examination of such papers. Conceding that the witness was an officer of the corporation under investigation, and that he was entitled to assert the rights of the corporation with respect to the production of its books and papers, we are of the opinion that there is a clear distinction in this particular between an individual and a corporation, and that the latter has no right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit of the state. The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the state or to his neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so far as it may tend to incriminate him. He owes no such duty to the state, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the state, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public as long as he does not trespass upon their rights." /-P-/ "Upon the other hand, the corporation is a creature of the state. It is presumed to be incorporated for the benefit of the public. It receives certain special privileges and franchises, and holds them subject to the laws of the state and the limitations of its charter. Its powers are limited by law. It can make no contract not authorized by its charter. Its rights to act as a corporation are only preserved to it so long as it obeys the laws of its creation. There is a reserved right in the legislature to investigate its contracts and find out whether it has exceeded its powers..."
{CASE} Kingsley vs. Merril, 122 Wis. 185; 99 NW 1044: "A long and uniform sanction by law revisers and lawmakers, of a legislative assertion and exercise of power, is entitled to a great weight in construing an ambiguous or doubtful provision, but is entitled to no weight if the statute in question is in conflict with the plain meaning of the constitutional provision."
{CASE} Marbury vs. Madison, 5 US (@ Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803): "All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."
{CASE} Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491: "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them."
{CASE} Norton vs. Shelby County, 118 US 425 p.442: "An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed."
{CASE} Riley vs. Carter, 165 Okal. 262; 25 P. 2d 666; 79 ALR 1018: "Economic necessity cannot justify a disregard of cardinal constitutional guarantee."
{CASE} Robin vs. Hardaway, 1 Jefferson 109, (Va., 1772): "All acts of the legislature apparently contrary to natural rights and justice are, in our law and must be in the nature of things, considered void ... We are in conscience bound to disobey."
{CASE} Scott vs. Sandford, Mo., 60 US 393, 404, 19 How. 393, 404, 15 L.Ed. 691: "The words "sovereign people" are those who form the sovereign, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. Every citizen is one of these people and a constituent member of this sovereignty."
{CASE} Slote vs. Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367; 9 NE 2d 12; 112 ALR 660: "Disobedience or evasion of a constitutional mandate may not be tolerated, even though such disobedience may, at least temporarily, promote in some respects the best interests of the public."
{CASE} State vs. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459: "When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it." (See 16 Am. Jur. 2d 177, 178)
{CASE} US vs. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139 (1972): "The pages of history shine on instance of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge ..."
{CASE} US vs. Miller (supreme Court): "The signification attributed to the term Militia appear from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators [Justice Story's commentary is cited later]. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense... And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of a kind in common use at the time."
{CASE} US vs. Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006: "If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence ... and the courts must abide by that decision."
{CASE} Warren vs. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181): "... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..."
{CASE} Wills vs. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 105 L.Ed. 2nd 45 (1989): "States and state officials acting officially are held not to be "persons" subject to liability under 42 USCS section 1983."
{CASE} Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, Sheriff, 118 U.S. 356.: "Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to the law, for it is the author and source of law, but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts." - "For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself."
"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."
-U.S. Supreme Court
"Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master!"
-George Washington
"...we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...we [will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent ...till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery. And the foreshores of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
-President Thomas Jefferson
"A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
-President James Madison, a Mainstream Revolutionary from "Notes on Virgin1a"
"My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children." Hosea 4:6
"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed..."
-George Washington's farewell address 1796
"Study the Constitution. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed from the legislatures, and enforced in courts of justice."
-Abraham Lincoln
"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe."
-John Adams
"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men." - Plato
From: http://www.jbs.org/vo13no12.htm#Times
Times Change, But Collectivist Message Remains Constant
We must organize all labor, no matter how dirty and arduous it may be,
so that every [citizen] may regard himself as part of that great army
of free labor.... The generation that is now fifteen years old S must
arrange all their tasks of education in such a way that every day, and
in every city, the young people shall engage in the practical solution
of the problems of common labor, even of the smallest, most simple
kind.
- Vladimir Lenin
Imagine an army of 100,000 young people restoring urban and rural
communities and giving their labor in exchange for education and
training.... [National Service] will harness the energy of our youth
and attack the problems of our time. It literally has the potential to
revolutionize the way young people all across America look at their
country and feel about themselves.
- Bill Clinton
[T]here is the great silent, continuous struggle; the struggle between
the State and the individual; between the State which demands and the
Individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual,
left to himself, unless he be a saint or a hero, always refuses to pay
taxes, obey laws, or go to war.
- Benito Mussolini
I'm here because I want to redefine the meaning of citizenship in
America.... [I]f you're asked in school, "What does it mean to be a
good citizen?" I want the answer to be, "Well, to be a good citizen,
you have to obey the law, you've got to go to work or be in school,
you've got to pay your taxes and - oh, yes, you have to serve...."
- Bill Clinton
All the people I know who are driving for a form of national service,
primarily want it to be compulsory. They realize that's a terrible
problem politically, so they're not willing to say it. It is
endangerment of freedom and the potential for indoctrination that
skeptics do not like in the national service concept. However benign
the program, some think it will not succeed on any meaningful scale
unless it is compulsory.
- Martin Anderson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution Boston
Globe, November 29, 1992
In his April 5 radio address outlining the goals of the summit, the
President endorsed compulsory volunteerism - and even called for
extending it to middle schools. In other words, the man who so
famously avoided the dangerous duty of fighting in Vietnam as a young
man now proposes drafting a new generation of young people to perform
a different set of difficult tasks.
- New York Post editorial, April 27, 1997
Fascism finds it necessary, at the outset, to take away from the
ordinary human being what he has been taught and has grown to cherish
the most: personal liberty. And it can be affirmed, without falling
into exaggeration, that a curtailment of personal liberty not only has
proved to be, but necessarily must be, a fundamental condition of the
triumph of Fascism.
- Mario Palmieri
The Philosophy of Fascism (1936)
[W]hen we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical
Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of
individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who
had that freedom would use it responsibly.... [However, now] there's a
lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much
freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to
limit it.
- Bill Clinton
Before they have their own families, the young can make a unique
contribution to the family of America. In doing so, they can acquire
the habit of service, and get a deeper understanding of what it really
means to be a citizen. That is the main reason, perhaps, why we are
here.
- Bill Clinton
We're here for the first President's Summit for America's Future -
to mobilize every community and challenge every citizen and to ask
our young people to become citizen-servants, too.
- Bill Clinton
According to Fascism, a true, a great spiritual life cannot take
place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the
world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at
once, with this need of raising the State to its rightful position.
- Mario Palmieri
When an opponent says, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly
say, "Your child belongs to us already.... What are you? You will pass
on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short
time they will know nothing else but this new community."
- Adolf Hitler
"The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the
values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the
same as those which they...have always held, but which were not properly
understood or recognized before. And the most efficient technique to
this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of
totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the
superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual
climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of
the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed."
-- F. A. Hayek
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the
SS or the SA -- ordinary citizens don't need guns,
as their having guns doesn't serve the state."
--Heinrich Himmler.
"Gun registration is not enough." Attorney General Janet Reno, December 10,1993 (Associated Press)
"Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal."
Janet Reno
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