American Heritage QUOTES

"A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference..."

Jefferson

"I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land ...

Jefferson

"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government

Jefferson- Shay's Rebellion

The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.

Jefferson- boy loves the farm people

"There is no calculating the disorders which may result from relaxing the series of subordination..." "I cannot think that the art of legislation is within the knowledge of every man. He whose mind is filled with agricultural or commercial pursuits, whose education and subsequent occupation has been principally directed to a particular business or profession cannot, I have conceived, obtain sufficient leisure to investigate, with the requisite attention, the great art of government;"

Judith Murray- filters of consent, keep people at a distance

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing." "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep is a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty..."

Lincoln's Parable

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.

Lincoln- let's keep the union together

Hence, it becomes a matter of great importance, that public opinion should in all cases be correct; and arranged on the side of virtue...."

Lyman Beecher- what influence the public should have

"A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Madison #55

"[Contrive] the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places."

Madison 51

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

Madison's Definition of Factions

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Madison, #47

There is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude."

Madison, Bill of Rights narrows

"Experience proves the inefficiency of a bill of rights on those occasions when its control is most needed. Repeated violations of these parchment barriers have been committed by overbearing majorities in every State."

Madison, BoR have not been successful in the states

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Madison, Federalist 51

"It is natural to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist."

Montisque

Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.

Samuel Adams- Shay's Rebellion

"Interpreted as it ought be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.

Slavery does not coincide with America or the Constitution or the bible. - Frederick Douglas

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ...

Supremacy Clause

The writers of the Declaration of Independence "perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery."

Taney (Dred Scott case)

We have broken the material shackles of four million slaves.... But in what have we enlarged their liberty of thought? In what have we taught them the science and granted them the privilege of selfgovernment?.... By what civil weapon have we enabled them to defend themselves against oppression and injustice? Call you this liberty?

Thaddeus Stevens and positive liberty

"In so extensive a republic, the great officers of government would soon become above the controul of the people.... It is scarcely possible, in a very large republic, to call them to account for their misconduct, or to prevent their abuse of power."

Brutus- small republic

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth....

Alexander Stephens

"All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this Hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence."

Abraham Lincoln

We can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many ...

Andrew Jackson- Vetoing the national bank bill

"When a building is to be erected which is intended to stand for ages, the foundation should be firmly laid. The constitution proposed to your acceptance, is designed not for yourselves alone, but for generations yet unborn. The principles, therefore, upon which the social compact is founded, ought to have been clearly and precisely stated, and the most express and full declaration of rights to have been made — But on this subject there is almost an entire silence."

Brutus

"The territory of the United States is of vast extent; it it now contains near three millions of souls, and is capable of containing much more than ten times that number. Is it practicable for a country, so large and so numerous as they will soon become, to elect a representation, that will speak their sentiments, without their becoming so numerous as to be incapable of transacting public business?"

Brutus- America is too big to be a republic, administer to all of the needs of the country

History furnishes no example of a free republic, any thing like the extent of the United States.

Brutus- history has shown that large republics fail

In a republic, the manners, sentiments, and interests of the people should be similar. If this be not the case, there will be a constant clashing of opinions; and the representatives of one part will be continually striving against those of the other. This will retard the operations of government.

Brutus- need a small republic

Many in the South once believed that it was a moral and political evil; that folly and delusion are gone; we see it now in its true light, and regard it as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world....

Calhoun on Slavery

"The character of the Government has been changed ... from a federal republic, as it originally came from the hands of its framers, into a great national consolidated democracy.

Calhoun, government is ignoring states rights and trampling the "true" constitution.

The [Constitutional] Convention meant to leave slavery in the States as they found it, entirely under the authority and control of the States themselves."

Calhoun, government is ignoring states rights and trampling the "true" constitution.

Give to each division or interest, through its appropriate organ, either a concurrent voice in making and executing the laws, or a veto on their execution.

Calhoun- South has no confidence in constitutional system

The North has acquired a decided ascendancy over every department of this Government, and through it a control over all the powers of the system.

Calhoun- South has no confidence in constitutional system

War is "an extension of politics by other means.

Carl von Clauswitz

Blacks "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the constitution... on the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings."

Chief Justice Roger Taney (Dred Scott case)

Political parties created modern democracy and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties."

E.E. Schattschneider, political parties

"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability."

Federalist #62 (Great Compromise)

Avoid leaders with "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity."

Federalist 68

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. Protection of the community against foreign attacks; steady administration of the laws; protection of property; security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy ...

Federalist 70

Find leaders with "courage and magnanimity enough to serve [the people] at the peril of their displeasure."

Federalist 71

"Of all the flattery, the grossest (gross indeed to blasphemy) is, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; that the opinion of a majority like that of the Pope, is infallible."

Fisher Ames

"We are sliding down into the mire of a democracy, which pollutes the morals of the citizens before it swallows up their liberties."

Fisher Ames

The actual state of popular opinion will ever be hostile to the real and efficient securities of the public liberty.

Fisher Ames- what influence should the public have

In the North, "they hold that all men, women, and negroes, and smart children are equals, and entitled to equal rights... The experiment which they will make, we fear, is absurd ..."

Fitzhugh

We do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments 'derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The women, the children, the negroes, and but few of the non-property holders were consulted, or consented to the Revolution, or the governments that ensued from its success...."

Fitzhugh

Free laborers in the North "are slaves without the rights of slaves.

Fitzhugh, Cannibals All!

Masters treat their sick, infant, and helpless slaves well, not only from feeling and affection, but from motives of self-interest."

Fitzhugh- capital and labor unite, masters grow to care for their slaves

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Frederick Douglas, "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"

"The spirit of party agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, [and] kindles the animosity of one part against another."

George Washington, political parties

"No legislative act ... contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize but what they forbid."

Hamilton

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Hamilton

rights are written in the soul

Hamilton

"The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS."

Hamilton, 84

"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?

Hamilton, Fed 84

The confederation itself is defective, and requires to be altered. It is neither fit for war nor peace.

Hamilton- needs stronger nat government

The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress."

Hamilton- needs stronger national government

The national government needs "power sufficient to unite the different members together, and direct the common forces to the interest and happiness of the whole.

Hamilton- needs stronger national government

The difference between [North and South] is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people...." "Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated.... Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South.

Hammond- Slavery

"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists."

Thomas Jefferson

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.

Thomas Jefferson

"I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned in any country... What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious."

Washington- Shay's Rebellion

My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of those duties becomes more and more pleasing."

What role should representatives have (Jefferson)