The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security –.
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
Can it be of less consequence that the meaning of a Constitution should be fixed and known, than a meaning of a law should be so?
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.