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2009 January 23
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"There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment." |
"And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." |
"The high office of the President has been used to foment
a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office,
I must inform the citizen of this plight." |
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2009 January 22
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"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." |
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." |
"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence." |
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2009 January 21
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"Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality,
an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance.
Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it.
There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it.
The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent.
It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects,
indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. " |
"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of
the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should
infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." |
"When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, 'I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate.' She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, 'Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined.' These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls as well as men's." |
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2009 January 20
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"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers
round the external trappings of elevated office.
To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected
from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity." |
"The executive branch of this government never has,
nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct
of its officers to escape with impunity." |
"There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. 'Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard." |
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2009 January 19
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"Nature intended me for the tranquil
pursuits of science, by rendering
them my supreme delight.
But the enormities of the times
in which I have lived
have forced me to commit myself
on the boisterous ocean
of political passions." |
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"No man will ever bring out of the Presidency
the reputation which carries him into it." |
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