John Adams - 1765

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among
the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to
knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has
given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this,
they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible,
divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge;
I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

-- John Adams (Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765)

Reference: Our Sacred Honor, Bennett, 253.

Bill of Rights

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are
left in full possession of them."

-- Zacharia Johnson (speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention,
25 June 1778)

Reference: The Debates of the Several State..., Elliot, vol. 3
(646)

Men/Women of wisdom

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be,
first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern,
and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in
the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping
them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 57, 19 February 1788)

Reference: Madison, Federalist No. 57.

Founders' Quote Daily - 08-19-07

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the
right of the people at large or considered as individuals...[I]t
establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and
which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."

-- Albert Gallatin (letter to Alexander Addison, 7 October 1789)

Reference: That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution
of a Constitutional Right, Halbrook; original MS. in
N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2