Sourced and curated.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

1787

★ 9.1

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Declaration of Independence

1776

★ 8.9

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 7.8

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 7.6

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.6

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

A government of laws, and not of men.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

Essay · Newspaper

1775

★ 7.2

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 7.2

I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

1776

★ 7.1

The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government.

George Washington

1789

★ 7.1

The happiness of society is the end of government.

1776

★ 7.1

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

1787

★ 7.1

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 7.1

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

The Crisis · 1776

★ 7.0

It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.0

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Parties must ever exist in a free country.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Speech · Political speech

Edmund Burke

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 7.0

The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.

Federalist 22 · 1787

★ 7.0

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Federalist 47 · 1788

★ 7.0

Speech · Political speech

Edmund Burke

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 6.9

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Common Sense · 1776

★ 3.9

Monarchy and succession have laid... The world in blood and ashes.

Common Sense · 1776

★ 3.9

The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.9

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

Federalist 55 · 1788

★ 3.9

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 3.9

Autobiography and memoir

Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin · 1790

★ 3.9

Autobiography and memoir

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.

Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin · 1790

★ 3.9

In Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

1776

★ 3.8

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day.

The Crisis · 1776

★ 3.8

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

Federalist 20 · 1787

★ 3.8

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.

Constitution of the United States

1787

★ 3.8

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

Federalist 70 · 1788

★ 3.8

The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

Federalist 78 · 1788

★ 3.8

It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.

Federalist 48 · 1788

★ 3.8

Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

Common Sense · 1776

★ 3.7

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.

1780

★ 3.7

All Property indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it.

Benjamin Franklin

1783

★ 3.7

We, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

A dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.7

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 of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

1787

★ 3.7

Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?

Federalist 14 · 1787

★ 3.7

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

1787

★ 3.7

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

1787

★ 3.7

If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert.

Federalist 65 · 1788

★ 3.7

A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.

Federalist 78 · 1788

★ 3.7

1788

★ 3.7

The defect must be supplied, by so contriving 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.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 3.7

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Federalist 48 · 1788

★ 3.7

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

Federalist 45 · 1788

★ 3.7

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.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 3.7

It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.

Federalist 39 · 1788

★ 3.7

We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.