Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread." --Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation." --Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"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." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security." --James Madison, Federalist No. 45, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." --Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. ... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity." --James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?" --Benjamin Franklin, Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention, 1787

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping GOD in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship." --John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the state over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation." --George Washington, circular letter of farewell to the Army, 1783

Quotes From Our Founding Fathers

"Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reeactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Wayles Eppes, 1813

Quotes From The Founding Fathers

"May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy." --George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, 1790