Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"True liberty cannot exist apart from the full rights of property, for property is the only crystallized form of free faculties... The whole meaning of socialism is a systematic glorification of force... No literary phrases about social organisms are potent enough to evaporate the individual, who is the prime, indispensable, irreducible element."

~ Auberon Herbert  

"The right of a citizen to bear arms,
in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute.
He does not derive it from the State government.
It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen,
and is excepted out of the general powers of government.
A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it,
because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power."

~ Cockrum v. State  

~ U.S. vs. Cruickshan  

"The world must be made safe for democracy."

~ Woodrow Wilson  

"The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.:
1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth.
2. Dupes - a large class, no doubt - each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a "free man," a "sovereign"; that this is "a free government"; "a government of equal rights," "the best government on earth," and such like absurdities.
3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change."

~ Lysander Spooner  

"The majority, oppressing an individual,
is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength,
and by acting on the law of the strongest
breaks up the foundations of society."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen."

~ Henry David Thoreau  

"The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment,
was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent
instability of the private economy."

~ Milton Friedman  

"[We should be] determined... to sever ourselves from the union
we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government...
in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness."

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers."

~ Justice John Marshall  

"If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation...
to a continuance in union... I have no hesitation in saying,
'let us separate.' "

~ Thomas Jefferson  

"We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers."

~ William H. Rehnquist  

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce."

~ James Madison  

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

~ U.S. Constitution, Ninth Amendment  

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people."

~ U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment