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Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.
Samuel Adams, letter to James
Warren, November 4, 1775Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the
Constitution, 1833Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
George Washington, Farewell Address,
September 19, 1796A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No.
33, January 3, 1788