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Why are we proud [to be American]? We are proud, first of all, because from the beginning of this Nation, a man can walk upright, no matter who he is, or who she is. He can walk upright and meet his friend -- or his enemy; and he does not fear that because that enemy may be in a position of great power that he can be suddenly thrown in jail to rot there without charges and with no recourse to justice. We have the habeas corpus act, and we respect it.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
It is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
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, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
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Here in America we are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
They [the founders] proclaimed to all the world the revolutionary doctrine of the divine rights of the common man. That doctrine has ever since been the heart of the American faith.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
I developed a practice which, so far as I know, I have never violated. The practice is to avoid public mention of any name unless it can be done with favorable intent and connotation; reserve all criticism for the private conference; speak only good in public.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
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Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our revolution. They existed before.more Millard Fillmore quotes |
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Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let every one know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.more James A. Garfield quotes |
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Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.more James A. Garfield quotes |
The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is dominated by the executive.more Edward Gibbon quotes |
Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.more Hermann Goering quotes |
The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.more Ulysses S. Grant quotes |
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If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.more Ulysses S. Grant quotes |
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Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented threats, that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over two hundred years... In sum, there can be no question that the Fifth Amendment right asserted by the Guantanamo detainees in this litigation -- the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law -- is one of the most fundamental rights recognized by the U.S. Constitution.more Judge Joyce Hens Green 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.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces, as first general and admiral ... while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable: There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
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I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can probe mightier than ten military divisions.more Vaclav Havel quotes |
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In their great wisdom, our Founding Fathers, gathered in Philadelphia to draft the new U.S. Constitution, gave the sole authority to declare war to the U.S. Congress. ... our Founders understood that it was essential, to secure a representative form of republican self-government, that the power to declare war must be in the hands of Congress, and not in the Executive Branch. ...
Nothing has transpired in the intervening centuries to justify any alteration in their wise decision. Under our Federal Constitution, only the Congress has the power to declare war, and that must remain a cardinal principle. In recent decades, we have seen an erosion of that Constitutional principle, and I fully concur that this erosion must be halted and reverse.more Gen. Joseph P. Hoar quotes |
Honest difference of views and honest debate are not disunity.
They are the vital process of policy among free men.more Herbert Hoover quotes |
It [freedom] is a thing of the spirit. Men must be free to worship, to think, to hold opinions, to speak without fear. They must be free to challenge wrong and oppression with the surety of justice.more Herbert Hoover quotes |
Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he is free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.more Herbert Hoover quotes |
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None of us would trade freedom of expression for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it.more Hubert H. Humphrey quotes |
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The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.more Andrew Jackson quotes |
The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.more Andrew Jackson quotes |
As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.more Andrew Jackson quotes |
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It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.more Andrew Jackson quotes |
The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.more John Jay quotes |
Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.more John Jay quotes |
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A government is republican in proportion as every member composing it has his equal voice in the direction of its concerns, not indeed in person, which would be impracticable beyond the limits of a city or small township, but by representatives chosen by himself and responsible to him at short periods.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
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A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.more Thomas Jefferson quotes |
