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2010 October 08
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"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." |
"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility." |
"You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money." |
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2010 October 07
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"Unless they can pass the same test that immigrants must pass to become citizens, people shouldn't be allowed to vote. The idea that there is some public benefit in ignoramuses and morons pulling levers next to names on a ballot is one of the evil myths of post-modern America. The purpose of voting, in our country, is to select men and women with the competence and integrity to operate the mechanics of government fixed by our Constitution. For this process to have any public benefit requires that the choices be made on an intelligent, knowledgeable and reasoned basis." |
"A constitution is not the act of a government,
but of a people constituting a government;
and government without a constitution is power without a right.
All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning.
It must be either delegated, or assumed. There are not other sources.
All delegated power is trust, and all assumed power is usurpation.
Time does not alter the nature and quality of either." |
"Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance." |
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2010 October 06
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"But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them." |
"A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government." |
"With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our assembly [the Virginia Legislature] be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin [Great Britain], will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered." |
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2010 October 05
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"The inescapable price of liberty is an ability to preserve it from destruction." |
"To knock a thing down,
especially if it is cocked
at an arrogant angle,
is a deep delight of the blood." |
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2010 October 04
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"Power is something of which I am convinced there is no innocence this side of the womb." |
"For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes." |
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