Gary M. GallesI doubt any American remains unaware of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this July 4. But despite the increase in writing about our founding for the occasion, most of us know only a few of the words of our more famous founders, and almost nothing about many of the rest of them.
That brings another anniversary to mind. We are near the 10th anniversary of my book, “Lines of Liberty,” which dealt with 69 of the people in history who manned those lines not just in their actions, but with the most insightful words. In fact, I still feel it is the most outstanding such collection available. Part 2 of the book dealt with 17 of America’s founders that I found most inspirational in their defense of liberty. So for the occasion, I have picked just one quotation from each of those 17 to honor the first nation ever founded in the idea of liberty. I hope you find food for thought in them.
John Adams: “[People have] rights … antecedent to all earthly government — rights that cannot be repealed–or restrained by human laws — rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.”
Samuel Adams: “While a people retain a just sense of Liberty … the insolence of power will forever be despised.”
George Clinton (Cato): “For what did you open the veins of your citizens and expend their treasure? For what did you throw off the yoke of Britain and call yourselves independent? Was it … to procure new masters?”
John Dickinson: “Benevolence toward mankind excites wishes for their welfare, and such wishes endear the means of fulfilling them. These can be found in liberty only.”
Benjamin Franklin: “Our cause is the cause of mankind … we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”
Patrick Henry: “Liberty is the greatest of all earthly blessings … the dearest rights of man.”
Thomas Jefferson: “But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our own will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of an individual.”
Richard Henry Lee: “The powers delegated to the government must be precisely defined … that, by no reasonable construction, they can be made to invade the rights and prerogatives intended to be left in the people.”
James Madison: “I cannot … lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
George Mason: “Every petty officer of government … assumes a dispensing-power over the laws … [so] a man can have no security in his property.”
James Otis: “Tyranny of all kinds is to be abhorred, whether it be in the hands of one, or of the few, or of the many.”
Thomas Paine: “All power exercised over a nation … must either be delegated, or assumed … All delegated power is a trust, and all assumed power is usurpation.”
John Taylor of Caroline: “As no government can patronize one class but at the expense of others … Is not their discord the universal consequence of the fraudulent power assumed by governments of allotting to classes and individuals indigence or wealth?”
Mercy Otis Warren: “A government well-constituted for securing the principles of liberty may be strong for that purpose, and if so, it must be weak for the purpose of oppression.”
George Washington: “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire: a dangerous servant and a terrible master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
James Wilson: “Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name and becomes oppression.”
Robert Yates (Brutus): “Rulers have the same propensities as other men; they are as likely to use the power with which they are vested for private purposes and to the injury and oppression of those over whom they are placed … It is therefore as proper that bounds should be set to their authority.”
When we look at those who played important roles in creating America, they held our liberties to be of utmost importance. A quarter of a millenium later, our country persists, but much of what its government does is far out of line with liberty. If we care about what made America unique as what I once described in class as “the first country ever established on a good idea,” we should give that fact more thought.
Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.
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Nice column. My opinion (being appropriate nowadays-especially in NYC where 3 socialists/communists were recently elected), Ben Franklin’s retort should have been included about our Republic being secure: “It’s yours if you can keep it.”
I&I today published a column on the DSA creed-its credo is full-throated, Freddy Kreuger scary.
WW2 fascists with all their power and guns didn’t conquer us, but the “lobster in the pot” slow-walking strategy of persuading our “citizens” (illegals and the uneducated young) to vote for them have and will.
In effect we are closing the markets of capitalism and indeed are (as Franklin warned and I paraphrase) standing at the precipice of “a Republic not ours anymore because we are no longer educated or capable enough to keep it.”