A Worthy Quote

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Founder's Quote Daily

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

--James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, December 2, 1829

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Founder's Quote Daily

"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810

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Founder's Quote Daily

"This Government, the offspring of your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

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Founder's Quote Daily

"There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.... In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and a more specious form, force as the measure of right...."

--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, October 5, 1786

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Founder's Quote Daily

"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country."

--George Washington, upon fumbling for his glasses before delivering the Newburgh Address, March 15, 1783

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Founder's Quote Daily

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

--John Adams, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 18, 1808

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Founder's Quote Daily

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

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Founder's Quote Daily

"The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it."

--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, December 16, 1824

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Founder's Quote Daily

"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; ... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

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Founder's Quote Daily

"The Constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819

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"There is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 81, 1788

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Founder's Quote Daily

"The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Founder's Quote Daily

"One single object ... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825

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Founder's 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 virture 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."

--Federalist No. 57 (Alexander Hamilton or James Madison), 1788

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Founder's Quote Daily

"His Example is now complete, and it will teach wisdom and virtue to magistrates, citizens, and men, not only in the present age, but in future generations, as long as our history shall be read."

--John Adams, message to the U.S. Senate on George Washington's death, December 19, 1799