Founding Fathers Democracy Quotes

The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They
always did ... they always will. They will have the same effect here as
elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper
spheres. ~ Gouverneur Morris

Discipline is the soul of an army. ~ George Washington

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. ~ Benjamin Franklin

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. ~ Alexander Hamilton

A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle. ~ Thomas Jefferson

My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution. ~ James Meredith

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state ~ Thomas Jefferson

The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this. ~ Ron Paul

The land on which they (the Founding Fathers) formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we've torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it's ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us. ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. ~ Ronald Reagan

Allow a government to decline paying its debts and you overthrow all public morality-you unhinge all the principles that preserve the limits of free constitutions. Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt. ~ Alexander Hamilton

This is the gay agenda: equality. Not special rights, but the rights that are already written by [our Founding Fathers]. ~ LZ Granderson

I am a Republican because I believe in the constitution, strength in national defense, limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility as the concrete foundation for American government. They reinforce the resolve that the United States is the greatest country in the world and we can all be eternally grateful to our founding fathers for the beautiful legacy they left us today. ~ Martha Raye

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message. ~ Winston Churchill

When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice... I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

{The Anas, February 1, 1800, written shortly after the death of first US president George Washington} ~ Thomas Jefferson

Throughout his long career, Washington earned the adulation not merely of ordinary people but of the other luminaries whom we now hail as 'founding fathers.' ~ Edmund Morgan

For as long as (the Founding Fathers of this nation) lived and led, they acknowledged the hand of the Almighty in the affairs of this republic. Our coinage and our currency carry the national motto. It simply says, 'In God We Trust.' I believe this is the foundation upon which this nation was established, an unequivocal trust in the power of the Almighty to guide and defend us. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. ~ Ayn Rand

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty. ~ John Adams

A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders. ~ Larry Elder

But what does America have to do with ancient Israel? Israel was unique among nations in that it was conceived and dedicated at its foundation for the purposes of God. Ok..But there was one other - a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception...America. In fact, those who laid its foundations...the Founding Fathers. No, long before the Founding Fathers. Those who laid America's foundations saw it as a new Israel, and Israel of the New World. And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God? Meaning? Meaning its rise or fall would be dependent on its relationship with God. If it followed His ways, America would become the most blessed, prosperous, and powerful nation on earth. From the very beninng they foretold it. And what they foretold would come true. America would rise to heights no other nation had ever known. Not that it was ever without fault or sin, but it would aspire to fuilfill its callings. What calling? To be a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God's purposes, a light to the world. It would give refuge to the world's poor and needy, and hope to its oppressed. It would stand against tyranny. It would fight, more than once, against the dark movements of the modern world that threatened to engulf the earth. ~ Jonathan Cahn

The American Rebellion," about our founding fathers. Not till their foes were driven forth By England o'er the main - Not till the Frenchman from the North Had gone with shattered Spain; Not till the clean-swept oceans showed No hostile flag unrolled, Did they remember that they owed To Freedom - and were bold! ~ P. J. O'Rourke

The Founding Fathers were nothing more than a bunch of snobby English shits. ~ Donald Freed

It's government's job to respect and protect the rights of the individual. That vision is centrally important to the principle put forth by the Founding Fathers. If you don't believe that, you shouldn't be in Congress. ~ Bill Sali

Reagan 's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control a Jeffersonian ideal at the roots of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else. ~ Bill Moyers

The Founding Fathers did not believe the primary purpose of their guns was to hunt ducks, but to keep the government in line within the bounds of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers said that armed citizens are a bulwark against a tyrant in the White House. ~ John Coleman

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I think that people have short memories, and I think that they believe that our forbearers in the past were these Founding Fathers who were ideal and who were - would never have stooped to dirty tricks. ~ Joseph Cummins

In fact, the past is not history, but a much vaster region of the dead, gone, unknowable, or forgotten. History is what we choose to remember, and we have no alternative but to do our choosing now. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

The American Constitution was carefully rigged by the noteholders, land speculators, rum runners, and slave holders who were the Founding Fathers, so that it would be next to impossible for upstart dirt farmers and indebted masses to challenge the various forms of private property held by these well read robber barons. Through this Constitution, the over-privileged attempted to rule certain topics out of order for proper political discussion. To bring these topics up in polite conversation was to invite snide invective, charges of personal instability, or financial ruin. ~ G. William Domhoff

A people ... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything. ~ George Washington

Do or do not. There is no try, says Yoda, the bewitching philosopher warrior created by George Lucas in Star Wars. Yoda is quoted at least as often as the founding fathers on this topic. ~ Jerry I. Porras

When the Founding Fathers arrived here in Philadelphia to forge a new nation, they didn't come as Democrats or Republicans or to nominate a presidential candidate. They came as patriots who feared party politics. ~ Michael Bloomberg

If you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson - what we're doing now in this country is making them roll over in their graves. ~ Rick Santelli

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. ~ Joseph Sobran

I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers ... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves. ~ Ronald Reagan

Anarchy!" Tony confirmed in sort of a laugh.
"Sometimes I think, you know, if there were not cops, I would be fine, and I probably would. I was taught right from wrong when I was a kid. But the truth is, I drive completely different when there is a cop behind me than when there isn't."
And what Tony and I were talking about is true. It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in a system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn't make us good people; it only makes us subdued. Just think about the Congress and Senate and even the president. The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else. Is is as the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse. ~ Donald Miller

The people "have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers." ~ John Adams