|
"Common
Ground"
The American
Vision
American Leaders Comments on Liberty,
Power, Conquest, and Dissent
George
Washington
"Freedom , not
safety , is the highest good."
"Overgrown
military establishments are under any form
of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as
particularly hostile to republican liberty."
John Adams
"Liberty can
not be preserved without a general knowledge among the
people."
Thomas Jefferson
"Experience
hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government
those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny."
"I would
rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much
liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
"An elective
despotism was not the government
we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free
principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided
and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could
transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and
restrained by the others." - Notes
on Virginia Q. XIII, 1782
“What country
can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to
time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”
"Conquest is
not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our
government."
"I abhor war
and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind."
"It behoves
every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to
resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by
change of circumstances, become his own. "
"It is more
dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished
without the forms of law than that he should escape."
"Eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty."
"All tyranny
needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience
to remain silent."
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only
sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead."
"Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities."
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
"I was bold in
the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth
and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority
which stood in their way."
"Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us."
"Dissent is
the highest form of patriotism."
"The essential
principles of our
Government... form the bright constellation which has gone before us
and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The
wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their
attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text
of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of
those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or
of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road
which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety." --1st
Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
primary
author, Declaration
of Independence
James Madison
Madison
contributed to the Virginia Bill of
Rights , along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton was an
author of The
Federalist Papers, is widely regarded as the father of the U.S.
Constitution, and worked for the passage of the Bill
of Rights .
"All men
having power ought to be mistrusted."
"No nation
could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
"If Tyranny
and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy."
"Knowledge
will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be
their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge
gives."
"It is a
universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be
charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from
abroad."
"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be
dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
"The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of
true
liberty."
"The executive
has no right, in any case, to decide the question,
whether there is or is not cause for declaring war."
"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in
human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become
the instruments of tyranny at home."
"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties."
John Quincy Adams
"But (America) goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of
her own.
She will commend the general cause by the
countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under
other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign
independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of
extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the
standard of freedom.
The
fundamental maxims of her policy would
insensibly change from liberty to force....
She might
become the dictatress of the world.
She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."
Excerpted from the
speech given by John Quincy Adams to the U. S. House of
Representatives, July 4, 1821, in celebration of American Independence
Day. This speech is sometimes referred to as the "Monsters to
Destroy" speech. In 1821, John Quincy Adams was serving as
Secretary of State, and between 1825-1829 served as the 6th President
of the United States.
Benjamin Franklin
"Those who
would give up essential liberty to
purchase a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Thomas Paine
"When men
yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty
quits the horizon."
On Torture:
"They
may introduce the practice of France, Spain, and Germany--of
torturing, to extort a confession of the crime. They will say that they
might as well draw examples from those countries as from Great Britain,
and they will tell you that there is such a necessity of strengthening
the arm of government, that they must have a criminal equity, and
extort confession by torture, in order to punish with still more
relentless severity. We are then lost and undone ..." Debate
in the Virginia Ratifying Convention,
June 16, 1788
Common
Sense, 1776
The Rights of
Man, 1791-1792
Theodore Roosevelt
"To announce
that there should be no
criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president,
right or wrong, it is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally
treasonable to the American people" - "Roosevelt in the Kansas City
Star", 149, May 7, 1918
"No man is
above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's
permission when we require him to obey it.""Obedience to the law is
demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."
Third Annual Message to Congress, December 7, 1903
Harry S. Truman
"Once
a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror
to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in
fear."
General Douglas Macarthur
"The object
and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power."
Dwight
Eisenhower
"We know that
freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an
ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it
is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And
any who act as if freedom's defenses are to found in suppression and
suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America."
“The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from
within what you are trying to defend from without.”
“There is no way in which a country can satisfy the craving for
absolute security, but it can bankrupt itself morally and economically
in attempting to reach that illusory goal through arms alone.”
“If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll
have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads”-- as president
of Colombia University, 12/8/49
“A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility. I don’t believe
there is such a thing, and frankly I wouldn’t even listen to anyone
seriously that came in and talked about such a thing.”-- Press
conference in 1954
“When it comes to the matter of war, there is only one place that I
would go, and that is to the Congress of the United States.” --January
1956 [A few months later, he explained]”I am not going to order any
troops into anything that can be interpreted as war, until Congress
directs it.”
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has
seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
“The total
influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in
every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal
government……..The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power
exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this
combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should
take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery
of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and
liberty may prosper together.”
General Omar Bradley
"Ours
is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to
develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may
prove to be our executioner."
John F.
Kennedy
"Without
debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed
-- and no republic can survive."
Sen. J. William Fulbright
"We must dare
to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the
options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly
changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of
dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when
things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."
Justice William O. Douglas
"Restriction
of free thought and free speech
is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act
that could most easily defeat us."
Judge Gideon
J. Tucker
"No man's
life, liberty or property are safe
while the legislature is in
session."
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"Experience
should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the government's purposes are beneficent. "
American
Leaders on Dissent
"Dissent is
the highest form of patriotism."
- Thomas Jefferson
"To announce that there should be no
criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president,
right or wrong, it is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally
treasonable to the American people"
- Theodore
Roosevelt, in the Kansas City
Star", 149, May 7, 1918
"Once
a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of
opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of
increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror
to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in
fear."
- Harry S.
Truman
"We know that
freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an
ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it
is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And
any who act as if freedom's defenses are to found in suppression and
suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America."
- Dwight D.
Eisenhower
"Without
debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed
-- and no republic can survive."
- John F.
Kennedy
"We must dare
to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the
options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly
changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of
dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when
things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."
- Sen.
J. William Fulbright
"Restriction
of free thought and free speech
is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act
that could most easily defeat us."
- U.S.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
American
Leaders on Executive Power
"The executive
has no right, in any case, to decide the question,
whether there is or is not cause for declaring war."
- James Madison
“When it comes
to the matter of war, there is only one place that I
would go, and that is to the Congress of the United States.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, January
1956
"An elective
despotism was not the government
we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free
principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided
and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could
transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and
restrained by the others."
" Experience
hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government
those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson
"All men
having power ought to be mistrusted."
- James Madison
“What country
can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to
time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”
- Thomas Jefferson
[America is]
".... a nation of laws, not of men"
- John Adams
"No
man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's
permission when we require him to obey it.""Obedience to the law is
demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."
- Theodore Roosevelt, Third Annual Message to
Congress, December 7, 1903
"To announce
that there should be no
criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president,
right or wrong, it is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally
treasonable to |