"On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322.
"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950)
Thomas Jefferson
"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
- Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, see Jefferson On Democracy, 20 (S. Padover ed. 1939).
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789.
"...the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
-Trench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution." Under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1.
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..."
-Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Member of the First U.S. Senate.
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
-Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850.
President Adams
"...The people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
-Article in the Philadelphia Gazette ten days after the introduction of the Bill of Rights. Philadelphia Federal Gazette June 18, 1789 at 2, col. 2.
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the state."
-Heinrich Himmler.
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
-George Washington
"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!"
-Patrick Henry, in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775.
"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen want? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
-Patrick Henry, in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775.
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walk."
-Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed., reissued 1967)
"That the Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent "the people" of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
-Samuel Adams in arguing for a Bill of Rights, from the book "Massachusetts," published by Pierce & Hale, Boston, 1850, pg. 86-87.
"The militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves.. . . [T]he Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include . . . all men capable of bearing arms..."
-Richard Henry Lee, "Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic," (1788) p. 169.
"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies in time of peace should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
-George Mason, Article 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776.
"Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, except for a few public officials."
-George Mason, Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776 , which became the basis of the U.S. Bill of Rights; 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.
"What the subcommittee on the Constitution uncovered was clear - and long lost - proof that the Second Amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for protection of himself, his family, and his freedoms."
-Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Preface, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms."
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by rule of construction be conceived to give the Congress the power to disarm the people."
-William Rawle, 1825; He was offered the position of the first U.S. Attorney General, by President Washington.
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire: a dangerous servant and a terrible master".
-George Washington
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."
-James Madison, 4th President of the United States, I Annuals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789). [This was Madison's original proposal for what became the Second Amendment.]
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ....The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People."
-Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense."
- Winston Spencer Churchill, address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941.
"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
-Winston Churchill
"The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."
-Joseph Goebbels - Nazi Minister of Propaganda
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly . . . it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
-Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
- Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, An Autobiography, M. K. Gandhi, p. 446
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
-Daniel Webster
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
-Edmund Burke
"Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
-Oliver Cromwell, "Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth", upon dissolving Parliament
"If the laws of the Union were oppressive, they could not carry them into effect, if the people were possessed of the proper means of defense."
-William Lenoir
"Whenever people . . . entrust the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens..."
-"A Framer", in the Independent Gazetteer, 1791
"We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."
- Abraham Lincoln
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
-Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
-Senator Hubert H. Humprey (D-Minnesota)
"The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offense and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be overemphasized."
-General Dwight D. Eisenhower
"...while the legislature has the power in the most comprehensive manner to regulate the carrying and use of firearms, that body has no power to constitute it a crime for a person, alien or citizen, to possess a revolver for the legitimate defense of himself and his property. The provisions in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the legislature to enact any law to the contrary."
-PEOPLE V. ZERILLO, 219 MICH 635
"The police power of the state to preserve public safety and peace and to regulate the bearing of arms cannot fairly be restricted to the mere establishment of conditions under which all sorts of weapons may be privately possessed, but it may account of the character and ordinary use of weapons and interdict those whose customary employment by individuals is to violate the law. The power is, of course subject to the limitation that its exercise be reasonable and it cannot constitutionally result in the prohibition of the possession of those arms which, by the common opinion and usage of law-abiding people, are proper and legitimate to be kept upon private premises for the protection of person and property."
-PEOPLE V. BROWN, 253 MICH 537
"The right of the people peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and always has been one of the attributes of a free government. It 'derives its source,' to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 211, 'from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.' It is found wherever civilization exists. It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed ; but this, as has been seen, means no more than it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government..."
-UNITED STATES V. CRUIKSHANK;, 92 US 542 (1875)
"The rifle of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket and repeater are such arms; and that under the Constitution the right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed or forbidden by the legislature."
-ANDREWS V. STATE; 50 TENN. 165, 179, 8 AM. REP. 8, 14 (TENNESSEE SUPREME COURT, 1871)
"...we incline to the opinion that the Legislature cannot inhibit the citizen from bearing arms openly, because it authorizes him to bear them for the purposes of defending himself and the State, and it is only when carried openly, that they can be efficiently used for defence."
-STATE V. REID, 1 ALA. 612, 619, 35 AM. DEC. 47 (1840)
"...the right to keep arms necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and provide ammunition suitable for such arms, and to keep them in repair."
-ANDRES V. STATE, 50 TENN. (3 Heisk) 165, 178; (1871)
"The practical and safe construction is that which must have been in the minds of those who framed our organic law. The intention was to embrace the 'arms', an acquaintance with whose use was necessary for their protection against the usurpation of illegal power - such as rifles, muskets, shotguns, swords and pistols. "These are but little used now in war; still they are such weapons that they or their like can still be considered as 'arms', which the people have a right to bear."
-STATE V. KERNER, 181 NC 574, 107 SE 222, 224-25 (NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT, 1921.
"If the text and purpose of the Constitutional guarantee relied exclusively on the preference for a militia 'for defense of the State' then the terms 'arms' most likely would include only the modern day equivalents of the weapons used by the Colonial Militia Men."
-STATE V. KESSLER, 289 OR. 359, 369, 614 P.2D 94, 99 (OREGON SUPREME COURT, 1980),
"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm...is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must b e prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege."
-WILSON V. STATE, 33 ARK 557, AT 560, 34 AM. REP.. 52, AT 54. (1878).
" 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women, and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free state. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right."
-NUNN V. STATE, 1 GA. (1 KEL.) 243, AT 251 (1846)
"[T]he right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the second amendment to the federal constitution is not carried over into the fourteenth amendment so as to be applicable to the states."
-STATE V. AMOS, 343 SO. 2D 166, 168 (LA. 1977).
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
-Charles A. Beard
"Before God I swear this is my creed: my rifle and myself are the defenders of our country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!!
-From "My Rifle", by Major General W.H. Rupertus, USMC.
"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
-Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United 'States (1856-1924).
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants, I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost."
-William Lloyd Garrison
"Tell General Howard I know my heart. What he told me before, I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all killed. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men (Ollokot, his brother) is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. I want time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
-Chief Joseph, Wallowa Nez Pierce Tribe; October 5, 1877, Montana, near the Canadian border.
"Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part, sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are barking up the wrong tree."
- James Wright, (Academic researcher who collaborated with Peter Rossi)
"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."
-James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
"...to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them..."
-George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380.
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
-Noah Webster, "An Examination into the leading Principles of the Federal Constitution." in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States , at 56 (New York, 1888).
"...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?"
-Delegate Sedgewick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail...Johnathon Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888).
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."
-Alexander Hamilton, speaking of standing armies in The Federalist 29.
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...nothwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46, at 243-244.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the Central Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these states...Such men form the best barrier to the usurpation of the liberties of America.
-Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789.
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear private arms."
-Tench Coxe, in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution." under the pseudonym, "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 Col. 1.
"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all the world would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived the use of them..."
Thomas Paine, I Writings of Thomas Paine at 56 (1894).
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
-Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646.
"A free people ought...to be armed..."
-George Washington, speech of January 7, 1790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, 1790.
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
-Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution...Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia, ...taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 (2d ed. Richmond, 1805). Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386.
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
-Patrick Henry, 3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d Ed. Philadelphia, 1836.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8.
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
-Samuel Adams...Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776.
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense..."
-John Adams, A defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1788).
"The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone."
-James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.
"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has the right to deprive them of."
-Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789.
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty." -- Adolf Hitler (H.R. Trevor-Roper, Hitler's Table Talks 1941-1944) (also attributed to Edict of March 18, 1938)
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately...The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every responsible opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon...must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."
-SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
-Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, speech of 6 Nov. 1938 (published in Selected Works, vol. 2, 1961).
"There are going to be situations where people are going to go without assistance. That's just the facts of life."
-LA Police Chief Daryl Gates
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Enlighten people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
-Thomas Jefferson
"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny in government."
-Thomas Jefferson
"...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of ensuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."
-Alexander Hamilton
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private defense."
-John Adams, A Defense of the Constitution of the Government of the USA.
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and prayers, but she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator of her own."
-John Quincy Adams
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty...Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people theey always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-Rep. Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts (spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750 (August 17, 1789.))
"This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the maladministration of the Government, if we could suppose that in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed. Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the Constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."
-Eldridge Gerry, speaking on the 2d Amendment (I Annals of Cong. August 17, 1789.)
"[The American Colonies are] all democratic governments, where the power is in the hands of the people and where there is not the least difficulty or jealousy about putting arms into the hands of every man in the country. [European countries should not] be ignorant of the strength and the force of such a form of government and how strenuously and almost wonderfully people living under one have sometimes exerted themselves in defense of their rights and liberties and how fatally it quarrels, wars and contests with them."
-George Mason from "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company" quoted from the Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792 edited by Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, 1970)
"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies in the time of peace should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
-George Mason, Article 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776.
"What the subcommittee on the Constitution uncovered was clear - and long-lost proof that the Second Amendment to our Constitution was intended as an individual right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms in a peaceful manner, for the protection of himself, his family, and his freedom."
-Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Preface, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms"
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."
-John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" 1859
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by rule of construction be conceived to give Congress the power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
-William Rawie, 1825; considered academically to be an expert commentator on the Constitution. He was offered the position of the first Attorney General of the United States, by President Washington.
"It is not certain that with this aid alone (possession of arms) they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national force; and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which surround it."
-James Madison, "Federalist No. 46"
A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace."
-James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46.
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244.
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize,... The people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear arms."
Tench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution", Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789.
"They tell us Sir, that we are weak - unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power."
-Patrick Henry (1736 - 1799) in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775.
"Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us."
-Patrick Henry (1736-1799) in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech, March 1775.
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759).
"Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to so great lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as it was legal natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights [the post-Cromwellian English Bill of Rights] to keep arms for their own defense; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."
-"A Journal of the Times" (1768-1769); Colonial Boston newspaper article
"The people of the various provinces are forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official agents and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government."
-Toyotomi Hideyoshit, Shogun, August 29, 1558, Japan.
"War to the hilt between capitalism and communism is inevitable. Today, of course we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in 20 or 30 years. In order to win, we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep, so we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist."
-Attributed to Dmitri E. Manuisky, Lenin School of Political Warfare.
"Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other peoples' freedom and security."
-William F. Buckley
"In recent years, it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of "the people" to keep and bear arms... The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments - that is, each and every free person. A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press."
-Stephen P. Holbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right", University of New Mexico Press, 1984, pp.83-84.
"He that violates his oath profanes the Divinity of faith itself."
-Cicero (found on LA City Hall wall.
"Disperse, you rebels - Damn you, throw down your arms and disperse!"
-Maj. John Pitcairn, Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775
"Those who have command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people."
-Aristotle, quoted by John Trenchard and Walter Moyle "An Argument showing That a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy."
"To avoid domestic tyranny, the people must be armed to stand upon [their] own Defense; which if [they] are enabled to do, [they] shall never be put upon it, but [their] Swords may grow rusty in [their] hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it."
-John Trenchard & Walter Moyle, "An Argument Showing, That a Standing ARmy is Inconsistent With a Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitutioin of the English Monarchy" [London, 1697]
"Men that are above all Fear, soon grow above all Shame."
-John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon "Catos' Letters: Or, Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects" [London, 1755]
"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits...and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."
-Sir George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court and U.S. District Court of Virginia in I Blackstone COMMENTARIES Sir George Tucker Ed., 1803, pg. 300 (App.)
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who things he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; also he lives precariously, and at discretion."
-James Burgh "Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses" [London, 1774-1774
"The difficulty here has been to persuade the citizens to keep arms, not to prevent them from being employed for violent purposes."
-Dwight, "Travels in New England"
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpative and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
-Joseph Story "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States before the Adoption of the Constitution." (Boston, 1833)
"How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt, and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights."
-Joseph Story "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States before the Adoption of the Constitution" [Boston, 1833]
"The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military. The hired servants of our rulers. Only the government - and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
-Edward Abbey "The Right to Arms" [New York, 1979]
"An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well-armed and free. The Swiss are well-armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants."
-Machiavelli - The Prince; Chapter 17
"The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both...Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared. The bond of love is one which men, wretched creatures that they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; but fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective."
-Machievelli, The Prince; Chapter 17
"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure."
-Albert Einstein
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
-Albert Einstein
"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms - never - never - NEVER! You cannot conquer America!"
-William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; Speech in the House of Lords, November 1777.
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to the convictions of honor and good sense."
-Winston Spencer Churchill; Address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941.
"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"
-Winston Churchill
"...the rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."
-Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
-Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
-Daniel Webster
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
-Edmund Burke
"Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget that men have died to win them.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us be done with you. In the name of God, go!"
-Oliver Cromwell, in dissolving Parliament, 1653.
"Congress may give us a select militia which will, in fact, be a standing army - or Congress, afraid of a general militia, may say there shall be no militia at all. When a select militia is formed, the people in general may be disarmed."
-John Smilie
"If the laws of the Union were oppressive, they could not carry them into effect, if the people were possessed of the proper means of defense."
-William Lenoir
"Whenever people...entrust the defense of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens."
-"A Framer" in The Independent Gazetteer, 1791
"We, the People, are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."
-Abraham Lincoln
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms."
-Abraham Lincoln, 1858
"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-Mahatma Ghandi (An Autobiography or The Story Of My Experiments With Truth, by M.K. Gandhi, p.238)
"...while the legislature has power in the most comprehensive manner to regulate the carrying and use of firearms, that body has no power to constitute it a crime for a person, alien or citizen, to possess a revolver for the legitimate defense of himself and his property. The provisions in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the legislature to enact any law to the contrary."
-People v. Zerillo, 219 Mich 635.
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
- The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times)
"..."The right of the people peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and always has been one of the attributes of a free government. It 'derives its sources' to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 211, 'from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized men throughout the world, wherever civilization exists. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government..."
-United States v. Cruikshank; 92 US 542; (1875)
"The rifle of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket and repeater are such arms; and that under the Constitution the right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed or forbidden by the legislature."
-Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn 165; 8 Am. Rep. 8, 14 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1871)
"...the right to keep arms necessarily involves the right to purchase them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and provide ammunition suitable for such arms, and to keep them in repair."
-Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165 (1871)
"...we incline to the opinion that the Legislature cannot inhibit the citizen from bearing arms openly, because it authorizes him to bear them for the purpose of defending himself and the State, and it is only when carried openly, that they can be efficiently used for defense."
-State v. Kerner, 181 NC 574, 107 SE 222, (North Carolina Supreme Court, 1921)
"The practical and safe construction is that which must have been in the minds of those who framed our organic law. The intention was to embrace the 'arms', an acquaintance with whose use was necessary for their muskets, shotguns, swords and pistols. These are now but little used in war; still they are such weapons that they or their like can still be considered 'arms'; which [the people] have a right to bear."
-State v. Kerner, 289 Or. 359 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1980.)
"If the text and purpose of the Constitutional guarantee relied exclusively on the preference for a militia 'for the defense of the State', then the terms 'arms' most likely would include only the modern day equivalents of the weapons used by the Colonial Militia Men."
-State v. Kessler, 289 Or. 359 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1980.)
"The right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the federal constitution is not carried over into the fourteenth amendment so as to be applicable to the States."
-State v. Amos, 343 So.2d 166 (La. 1977)
"The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun ."
-R. Buckminster Fuller
"If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military."
-President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)
"Americans may like guns because they were reminiscent of the smell of outdoors, military heroism, the intensity of the hunt or merely because they are fascinated by the finely machined metal parts. Maybe he origin of a gun speaks of history; maybe the gun makes a man's home seem to him less vulnerable; maybe these feelings re more justified in the country than in the city; but, above all, many of us believe that these feelings are a man's own business and need not be judged by the Department of the Treasury or the Department of Justice."
-Samuel Cummings
"If a gun bill will pass because of the politics of a situation, you must see to it that its burdens are imposed upon a man because of a criminal background and not because he is an ordinary citizen and perhaps poor."
-Gen. James H. Doolittle
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
-Charles A. Beard
"The great body of our citizens shoot less as time goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world...The first step - in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come - is to teach men to shoot!"
-President Theodore Roosevelt's last message to Congress
"Before God I swear this creed: My rifle and myself are the defenders of our country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it until victory is America's and there is not enemy, but Peace!"
-From "My Rifle" by Maj. Gen. W.H. Rupertus, USMC.
"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation!"
-Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will be certainly be lost."
-William Lloyd Garrison
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent...the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
"Poor people have access to the courts in the same sense that the Christians had access to the lions."
-Judge Earl Johnson, Jr.
"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error."
-Judge Robert H. Jackson
"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ...to forget it."
-James Madison
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
-John Locke
Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
-Sir William Blackstone
"I always marveled at how a woman who had never handled a gun could shoot an errant husband straight through the heart on her first try, with one shot. And a trained policeman, trying to shoot an armed bank robber, only ends up hitting an elderly woman waiting for a bus two blocks away."
-H.L. Mencken, in his autobiographical, "Newspaper Days"
"We preserve our freedoms by using four boxes: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge."
-Anonymous
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them,; and these will continue till they have resisted with wither words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."
-Frederick Douglas
"The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall; it keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure Christian principles will always stay in government."
-Thomas Jefferson, Jan 1, 1802, address to the Danbury Baptists
"...'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution..."the people" protected the Fourth Amendment, and the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of the community."
-Supreme Court decision in United States v. Vergugo-Urquidez
"It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserve military force or reserve militia OF THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS OF THE STATES, AND IN VIEW OF this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, that states cannot, even laying the Constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government."
-Justice Woods (Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580 (1986)
"...is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, ...it shall not be infringed by Congress."
-Supreme Court (US v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876)
"...it is liberty rather than peace, which breeds genuine prosperity in a nation."
-J.J. Rossueau, The Social Contract
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force!"
-George Washington
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
-James Madison
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?"
-Thomas Jefferson
"An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits."
-John F. Kennedy
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
-Thomas Jefferson
"How does it become a man to act towards the American government today? I answer that he cannot, without disgrace, be associated with it."
-Henry David Thoreau, An Essay on Civil Disobedience
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
-Abraham Lincoln
"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace...military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war not blots out this alternative."
-Douglas MacArthur
"The pioneers of a warless world are the men who refuse military service."
-Albert Einstein
"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."
-George Santayana
"History teaches us that man learns nothing from history"
-Hegel
"Historical myths have perhaps played nearly as great a role in shaping opinion as historical facts"
-F.A. Hayek, Capitalism and the Historians
"Let us look at the world not as something we have inherited from our parents, but as something we have borrowed from our children."
-Anonymous, Kenya
"Average is dumb."
-Harvey Pekar
"A true lady takes off her dignity along with her clothes, and does her whorish best."
-Robert Heinlein
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
-Thomas Jefferson
"God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it."
-Daniel Webster
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards."
-Samuel Adams
"Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury."
-Judge Learned Hand, Helvering v. Gregory (1934)
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . . ."
-William J. Clinton, USA Today, p. 2A, Mar. 11, 1993.
"The bureaucracy takes itself to be the ultimate purpose of the state."
-Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
"In the bureaucracy, the identity of state interest and particular private aim is established in such a way that the state interest becomes a particular private aim over against other private aims."
-Karl Marx
"For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him."
-Karl Marx
"The bureaucracy is a circle from which one cannot escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge. The top entrusts the understanding of detail to the lower levels, whilst the lower levels credit the top with understanding of the general, and so all are mutually deceived."
-Karl Marx
"Any day you're free is a beautiful day."
-ex-P.O.W. Air Force Col. Jim Lamar, Daily Texan, pg. 1, 1985
"If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things."
-Adolph Hitler
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-Edmund Burke
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
-Aldous Huxley
"It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest."
-Abraham Lincoln
"Few sometimes know when thousands err."
-John Milton, Paradise Lost
"Many thousands of ideas there are which cannot be translated into popular phraseology."
-J.J. Rosseau, The Social Contract
"Democracies usually collapse not too long after the plebes discover that they can vote themselves both bread and circuses ...for a while."
-Robert Heinlein, Expanded Universe
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria
"The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."
-Samuel Adams
"Peace without justice is tyranny."
- old Chinese proverb
"The object of a Constitution is, to restrain the Government, as that of laws is to restrain individuals."
- John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill Address, reprinted in 6 R. CRALLÉ, WORKS OF JOHN C. CALHOUN ___ (Six vols. 1854-59).
"Your vote isn't a bet on who's going to win the election. It's a statement of who you are."
- Karl Hess, Fundraising Letter written on behalf of the Libertarian Party, 11/90.
"A decided case is worth as much as it weighs in reason and righteousness, and no more."
-Judge Wanamaker, Adams Express Co., v. Beckworth, 100 Ohio St. 348 (1919).
It is every American's right, and obligation, to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."
-Benjamin Franklin.
"There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men."
-Lord Acton (letter to Mary Gladstone).
"Robert F. Williams, Jr., . . . . had become head of the NAACP chapter in Monroe, North Carolina, in 1957. When threatened by the local Ku Klux Klan he organized a rifle club of sixty members and got it chartered by the National Rifle Association. This was partly to get the free ammunition provided NRA members by a grateful government, partly also, no doubt, a tribute to both groups' joint faith in self-defense. When the Klan organized a motorcade against one NAACP member's house, the club drove them off with gunfire. . . .
. . . . He had deeply embarrassed the NAACP. It was bad enough that he rejected the nonviolent ethic, worse still that he did so with such success. His was the only armed NAACP chapter and, for its size, the most effective."
- William L. O'Neill, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960's, 160-61 (1971).
Speaking of the 1994 Crime Bill at a press conference on May 6, 1994, two days after passage of the bill in the House, President Clinton stated, among other things:
He called the bill "the most significant crime bill ever passed."
He assured hunters "as long as I am President, those rights will be protected."
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it."
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
"I believe the American would prefer the policeman's truncheon to the anarchist's bomb."
- Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
- William Pitt
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
-Frederic Bastiat
"See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."
-Frederic Bastiat
No one escapes when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails, and those who cried, "Appease, appease!" are hanged by those they tried to please.